Overlapping semantics of leadership and heroism. Expectations of omnipotence, identification
with ideal leaders and disappointment in real managers
Engelsk titel: Overlapping semantics of leadership and heroism. Expectations of omnipotence, identification
with ideal leaders and disappointment in real managers
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Författare:
Arnulf, Jan Ketil
;
Larsen, Kai Rune
Email: jan.k.arnulf@bi.no.
Språk: Eng
Antal referenser: 80
Dokumenttyp:
Artikel
UI-nummer: 15053820
Sammanfattning
People may confuse leadership with heroism due to the semantic overlap between their
descriptions. This may explain some facets of fascination with leadership and obstructions to
differentiated viewpoints of leadership as a group phenomenon. Building on the semantic theory of
survey response (STSR), we are able to show how prevalent measures of charisma and
transformational leadership are semantically tied to concepts of heroic behaviours and qualities. Due
to the semantic overlap between heroism and leadership (outlined in the classic works of Carlyle,
Weber and Burns), we hypothesized, and found, that many people have unrealistic expectations of
leaders. Heroic expectations seem to be linked to representations and ideals of the self, which may
create notable derogatory attitudes towards actual managers. Correlations with age suggest that
experience will reduce this tendency. An STSR analysis shows how leadership research is
vulnerable to semantic overlaps in central concepts. Possible explanations and consequences are
discussed.