Leader Legitimacy, Leader-Follower Interaction, and Followers' Ratings of the Leader

Summary

A leader's legitimacy from appointment or election has been found to have distinctive effects on leader-follower relations in an American context. To examine this process further, an experiment was conducted with 21 groups of male college students organized into groups of four. Ss were assigned a group decision-making task regarding urban problems. After an initial interaction period, in seven groups for each condition, leaders were either appointed by the E, elected by the group, or not formally designated. Groups were observed throughout by two observers independently, from behind a one-way mirror. Significant effects were found in the observed interactions, and on followers' ratings of leaders on a postinteraction questionnaire. As hypothesized, elected leaders were seen by followers as more responsive to followers' needs, more interested in the group task, and more competent than leaders who were appointed. Elected leaders were considered more favorably as future leaders, when contributing to the task, than were appointed leaders.