Leadership in the eye of the beholder: Follower self-esteem is associated with divergent perceptions of leadership ability for dominant and prestigious leaders

Abstract

Objective: Drawing from dual-strategies theory, leader-member exchange theory, and several theories of self-esteem, we develop and test hypotheses about how followers' self-esteem predicts their perceptions of dominant and prestigious leaders' leadership ability.

Method: Across four studies (N = 1568), we tested the association between self-esteem and perceptions of leadership ability for dominant and prestigious leaders.

Results: Individuals with high self-esteem perceived greater leadership ability in prestigious leaders than did those with low self-esteem and individuals with low self-esteem perceived greater leadership ability in dominant leaders than did those with high self-esteem. These results emerged across ratings of leaders from hypothetical vignettes (Studies 1 and 4), abstract beliefs about what constitutes good leadership (Study 1), past personal experiences with leaders (Study 2) and clips of leaders from reality television (Study 3). In Study 4, we also tested potential mechanisms. Compared with followers with low self-esteem, followers with high self-esteem found prestigious leaders more trustworthy, and they anticipated feeling inauthentic around a dominant leader.

Conclusions: Self-esteem is reliably and robustly related to perceived leadership ability of dominant and prestigious leaders, and these differences might stem from differences in trust in prestigious leaders and anticipated authenticity around dominant leaders.

Keywords: dominance; followership; leadership; prestige; self-esteem.