The Leader as Catalyst: On Mass Movements and the Mechanics of Institutional Change

Sharun Mukand and Sumon Majumdar
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Sumon Majumdar: University of Warwick

CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)

Abstract: Why are some leaders able to rally mass support and successfully catalyze revolutionary change while others fail? We argue that the key to understanding a leader’s effectiveness lies in dissecting the symbiotic relationship between the leader and his committed activist-followers. Good leaders attract committed activist-followers. In turn, these followers have a bottom-up role in empowering the leader by rallying support from the broader populace, resulting in a mass movement. This two way leader-follower interaction can endogenously give rise to threshold effects: ‘small’ differences in leader ability have a dramatic impact on the prospects for change. Therefore, while underlying structural conditions and institutions are important, there is an independent first-order role for individual agency in bringing about institutional change and development. We show that for a leader ‘it is better to be feared than loved’. An ambitious, self-serving leader attracts activistfollowers who fear bad institutional change and hope to insulate themselves by becoming loyal followers. Indeed by empowering such a self-serving leader, these followers make him a more effective agent of (both good and bad) institutional change.

Keywords: Leadership; followership; empowerment; mass movement; institutional change. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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