Leader—Follower Effects in Resource Dilemmas: The Roles of Leadership Selection and Social Responsibility

Abstract

Previous research on the allocation of scarce resources shows that when people are assigned labels of leader or follower in their group, leaders allocate more of the scarce resources to themselves than followers do. In three laboratory studies, we examine the idea that how people are selected for the leader role (i.e. election or appointment) determines whether leaders take more or equal shares (relative to followers) from a common resource. In a first experiment, we show that participants were more accepting of norm violating behavior by an appointed versus elected leader. In a second experiment, we show that when participants were assigned to a leader or follower role, allocations of appointed leaders differed significantly from those of elected leaders and followers, whereas there was no difference between the two latter conditions. Moreover, elected leaders were shown to feel more social responsibility than both appointed leaders and followers. In a final experiment, we show that when participants were primed with the concept of social responsibility (relative to a neutral condition) no difference in allocations between appointed and elected leaders emerged.

The Dynamics of Prosocial Leadership: Power and Influence in Collective Action Groups

“…First, past work that has compared appointed to elected leader systems has consistently shown that electing leaders enhances public good production after the leader is installed (Baldassarri and Grossman 2011;De Cremer and Van Dijk 2008;Grossman and Baldassarri 2012). But second, I consider an additional mechanism by which leader election (vs. appointment) can promote public good production-by allowing group members to compete for leadership before the election takes place.…”

The Exercise of Power in Communication

“…as being assigned to the role by a higher authority) acted more in line with self-interests. While these results also point to the relevance of selection procedures, they especially show that even such small changes in the labelling of power affect how power is understood and exercised (De Cremer and van Dijk 2008). This finding indicates that if a power holder actually receives his or her position via election by the subordinates (rather than, for example, by excelling in the job interview or internal promotion), including the label 'elected' -for example, on the business card -may constitute a fruitful first step to promote responsible leadership.…”

“…While previous findings indicate that construing power as responsibility (versus opportunity) is likely to facilitate responsible action towards others among power holders (e.g. Chen et al 2001, De Cremer and van Dijk 2008, Overbeck and Park 2006, the consequences for communication are less clear. Power construed as responsibility implies that an individual focuses on social concerns, such as being sensitive to others' feelings and sharing important resources.…”

“…Second, interventions fostering each construal of power among power holders may tap into these results. De Cremer and van Dijk's (2008) and Sassenberg et al's (2012) studies indicate that even small nuances in how power is communicated (i.e. being an elected or an appointed leader; explicitly questioning the responsibility or success rate of a decision) strongly impact on how individuals understand and exercise their power.…”

“…high versus low power). Going one step further, De Cremer and van Dijk (2008) demonstrated that additional features in the framing of a role (e.g. 'leader') impact on power holders' perception.…”