Social susceptibility: Leader-follower dynamics

A little while back I was teaching  a class about leadership and introduced, to some surprise by the class, the notion of followership as being an important factor in thinking about leadership. I feel that this piece of research underlines the importance of thinking about that aspect of the 'system' in which leadership is exercised.

"the social susceptibility of the population majority -- and not the influence of key individuals -- is what drives leadership"

Admittedly, in this case, the research was about spiders, but it looks like the underlying dynamics would probably be true in human societies because it's a matter of whether and how 'leadership' can be exercised in contexts that may or may not be receptive to it.

Interestingly, and what doesn't seem to be picked up in the commentary for comment (perhaps it's accepted wisdom), is that in situations of stress it seems that 'strong' 'bold' leaders do carry influence in a much more direct way. I think that the political implications of that are clear, assuming they pan out into human societies -and I think they do.

Perhaps one of the implications that bears emphasis, though, would be that to strive to steer human societies towards security (rather than precarity) is likely to enhance democracy and co-operative behaviour.

Social susceptibility: Leader-follower dynamics of influential individuals in a social group -- ScienceDaily:  'via Blog this'