Criticism and outstanding leadership : an evaluation of leader reactions and critical outcomes

Outstanding political leaders are frequently called upon to make high-stakes decisions. Because of the controversial and highly visible nature of these issues, they often face intense criticism. Leaders' responses to criticisms not only affect follower reactions, but also the successful resolution of the contested issue. The present study examines leader and follower reactions to different types of criticisms. A historiometric approach was used to examine biographies containing criticisms of 120 world leaders and to explore leader behaviors in response to criticisms. Specifically, leader response strategies and their success in terms of follower reactions and resolution of the criticism were examined. The results indicated that collaborative or confrontational leader response strategies proved most effective in terms of the leader's ability to continue forward with a particular agenda item and to gather support of those around him or her. Conversely, avoidant, diverting attention, and persuasive response strategies proved less effective

The sources of leader violence: A comparison of ideological and non-ideological leaders

Recent events have called attention to the potential of ideological leaders to incite violence. The present study examined 80 historically notable leaders. Violent and non-violent leaders were compared to violent and non-violent ideological leaders in a historiometric analysis examining individual, group, organization, and environmental variables that might predispose ideological leaders to violence. When criteria examining different manifestations of violence were regressed on the discriminant function scores resulting from this comparison of leader types, it was found that attributes of ideological leadership influenced the amount of violence, and the occurrence of institutional and cultural violence — accounting for variance in institutional and cultural violence above and beyond characteristics of leaders, in general, found to contribute to violence. The implications of these observations for understanding the sources of leader violence and the origins of violence among ideological leaders are discussed