THE POLITICS OF LEADERSHIP In some respects, the subject of political leadership appears to be outdated. The division of society into leaders and followers is rooted in a predemocratic culture of deference and respect in which leaders ‘knew best’ and the public needed to be led, mobilized or guided. Democratic politics may not have removed the need for leaders, but it has certainly placed powerful constraints on leadership; notably, by making leaders publicly account able and establishing an institutional mech anism through which they can be called to account and removed. In other respects, however, the politics of leadership has become increasingly significant, helping to contribute to the establishment of a separate discipline of political psychology, whose major concerns include a study of the psychological make-up and motivations of political leaders (Kressel, 1993). This growing focus on leadership has occurred for a number of reasons. For instance, to some extent, democracy itself has enhanced the importance of personality by forcing political leaders, in effect, to ‘project themselves’ in the hope of gaining electoral support. This tendency has undoubtedly been strengthened by modern means of mass communication (especially television), which tend to emphasize personalities, rather than policies, and provide leaders with powerful weapons with which to manipulate their public images. Furthermore, as society becomes more complex and fragmented, people may increasingly look to the personal vision of individual leaders to give coherence and meaning to the world in which they live. Ironically, then, leadership may never have been so important, but also so difficult to deliver.
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