How leaders fall: Exploring the process of leadership destabilization

Analyses typically focus on how leaders build their following and accumulate influence, paying little attention to how their leadership can be compromised. In light of this, the present thesis investigates the phenomenon of leadership destabilization — the process through which a leader’s influence over followers erodes. In Chapter 1, I first review six theories currently prevalent in the literature (transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, ethical leadership, servant leadership, authentic leadership, and identity leadership) to gather insight into leadership and, possibly, leadership destabilization. I then outline four overarching blind spots in leadership research that clarify why leadership destabilization is often overlooked, namely: (a) the romanticization of leaders, (b) the overemphasis of leadership effectiveness, (c) the Disneyland problem, and (d) the leader-centric focus in negative leadership research. Considering these, the present thesis aims to develop a conceptual understanding of leadership destabilization informed by the following three empirical studies.In Chapter 2, I report a systematic review of non-academic writings that theorize about leadership to see whether any aspects of leadership destabilization are discussed (in press — Australian Journal of Management). A content analysis of 131 commercial books identifies seven major “secrets” that pertain to (1) knowledge and learning, (2) habits, behaviors, and practices, (3) handling failure, challenges, and struggle, (4) personal inspiration, drive, and motivation, (5) team, group, and organizational strategy, (6) choices and decisions, and (7) communication skills. These secrets appear to be mundane recipes that have been extra-ordinarized as being important for successful leadership. Results also indicate that the prevalence of these secrets varies in a cyclical pattern, suggesting that what is considered a leadership secret either reflects the priorities of organizations and society in a particular period or the recycling of topics whenever previous problems recur. Moreover, considerable correspondence is found between the foci of topics in these commercial outlets and the foci of academic publications. This study establishes that, as in the academic literature, there is little mention of any topic related to leadership destabilization as the content of these non-academic writings focuses largely on topics related to the attainment of leader influence.In Chapter 3, I report an analysis of the nature of attacks used by two political leaders (Clinton vs Trump) to destabilize each other’s leadership during the 2016 U.S. election (published — Political Psychology). Building on the principles of identity leadership, I develop a framework of leadership destabilization which argues that a leader can be destabilized if followers see that leader as defiling, devaluing, dividing, and destroying a shared sense of “us”. This framework is compared with the functional theory of political communication to determine the insights it provides into leadership destabilization. Results indicate that while the functional theory highlights the broad focus of each leaders’ attacks, it does not elaborate on how these attacks target aspects of an opponent’s leadership. In contrast, the framework I propose reveals that each attack serves to demonstrate the opponent’s misalignment with followers’ shared identity. Thus, Clinton focuses on demonstrating how Trump defiles Americans’ identity, while Trump emphasizes how Clinton defiles, devalues, and destroys Americans’ shared sense of “us”. This analysis shows that within a competition for influence, just as much as leaders may demonstrate their alignment with a shared social identity, so too they also contest an opponent’s standing relative to this social identity.In Chapter 4, I explore the ways leadership destabilization might transpire through people’s ideas and conceptions of the phenomenon (prepared for submission). Qualitative analysis of 388 participant responses reveals that interventions to destabilize leaders tend to converge on six main objectives, whereby they (1) disrupt the leader’s functional role, (2) damage the leader’s social reputation, (3) diminish the leader’s authority, (4) dismiss the leader’s service, (5) discredit the leader’s knowledge, and (6) devalue the leader’s skill. Results suggest that it is not just the leader and followers, but also the leader’s superiors, the leader’s group as a whole, and external parties who may be capable of instigating events that destabilize leader influence. It is also observed that descriptions of leadership destabilization vary across different social contexts. For example, efforts to destabilize a military leader tend to focus on challenging the leader’s authority while efforts to destabilize a religious leader focus on discrediting the leader’s knowledge. Overall, this study contributes to the present thesis by delineating the various objectives that guide interventions that undermine leader influence.In Chapter 5, I combine the insights above to propose a model of leadership destabilization that describes how interventions shaped by the six objectives (Chapter 4) feed into the erosion of leader influence by fostering follower perceptions that the leader subverts a shared sense of “us” (Chapter 3). I then reflect on five main theoretical implications: (1) leadership destabilization is overlooked in academic and commercial writings for the general audience, (2) leadership destabilization is distinct from ineffective leadership and destructive leadership, (3) leadership is a process that is not always fair, constructive, or peaceful as it can occur in contexts where there are disruptive and competing influences, (4) leadership destabilization is significantly different from leadership attainment, (5) leadership destabilization may involve actors outside the leader-follower dynamic. This is followed by consideration of the practical implications, limitations, and directions for future research. Overall, this research provides a foundation for future investigations into the subversion of leader influence.