This is Part 1 of a series on how the next president's personality may influence the country and its direction...
The personality of the next president will be key to how the country is governed. Key decisions concerning the nation and its economy, its wars, and its international position will be guided by our next leader.
This first post on presidential personality specifically focuses on how the next president can fulfill the needs of the voters and the citizenry more generally.
To be successful, a president's personal expressions must conform, at least in part, to the expectations and desires of the public.
What are the president's followers like and what do we want?
Psychological theory reminds us that human beings evolved in groups and learned to put their trust in parental figures. According to Sigmund Freud and others, our ancestors looked to such parental figures to lead them. Those ancestor-groups were prepared, under the right circumstances, to give up much of their independence so as to follow their leaders.
Social scientists have compiled a list of the things that followers desire from their leaders. I have summarized some of these needs here, following in part the work of George R. Goethals, a political psychologist at Williams College:
First, followers want a leader. We want a president and we want to be led.
Second, followers are highly suggestible in response to forceful and vivid communication. We are receptive to messages from our presidential candidates (and leaders more generally), particularly when those messages are convincing and image-evoking. (This election year has brought us such instances as "Joe the Plumber," "Joe Sixpack," "I'm no George Bush", "Yes we can", and "The Bridge to Nowhere").
Third, followers have strong emotional attachments to their leaders. Think about the powerful attachment that Hillary Clinton elicited from her many followers, and how, once she lost the primary, it was difficult for many of her supporters to shift their allegiance to Barack Obama right away. Asking for this change of allegience was asking a great deal, despite the similarities in the two candidates' political outlooks. On the Republican side, think about the strong reactions people experienced after Sarah Palin's nomination, including the number of Republicans and independent voters who felt excited and energized when she first was selected.
Fourth, followers hope for and respond to fair treatment from their leaders. In the context of the presidential election, they look toward such key matters as the even-handedness with which leaders treat in- and out-groups (e.g., are the candidates really bipartisan? Will they support gay rights?). More practically, people assess how fair the candidates' plans for taxes and health care might be.
Fifth, followers look to leaders to help represent and define the group's identity. Leaders of nations symbolize for the group something of what the group is and why it matters. Leaders do this in part by telling stories about the identity of the nation and its peoples. In the present election, John McCain's story of his internment in a prison camp reminds the nation of the courage and heroism of its citizens and of the potential stewardship with which we might guide the nation. Barack Obama's story of his parentage and early adulthood, in turn, speaks to our aspirations to develop true equality across the nation, and respect for all our ethnic, religious, and racial groups.
Sixth, and finally, followers hope that their leaders' personalities will be strong, active, and positive. When leaders appear strong, people often perceive them as possessing even greater power than they actually possess -- a comfort to us in an unpredictable and sometimes threatening world.
The successful president will possess a personality that can help satisfy the needs of the voter-followers: to be there to lead, to communicate forcefully, to form a healthy psychological attachment to voters, to be fair, to offer a psychological model of the nation's identity, and to be strong, active, and positive.
Are there other quatlities you look for in a leader? Is the to-be-led group influential in how the leader behaves? Please leave a comment reflecting your point of view.
Notes: One of Freud's key essays on leadership was Freud, S. (1920). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol 28: Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works, ed. J. Strachey, pp. 65-143. London: Hogarth. Goethal's review of follower characteristics appeared within: Goethals, G. R. (2005). Presidential Leadership. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 545-570. The summary of followers' characteristics is on p. 557.
© Copyright 2008 John D. Mayer
