Things that Yorami know: who is a leader?

BL asks: What makes a person a leader

Humans are unpredictable creatures, not to mention whimsical in choosing their leaders, yet psychologists have answers based on statistical analyzes that confirm the obvious: leaders (elected officials, managers, commanders, etc.) have personality characteristics such as intelligence, extroversion and self-confidence. In short, in order to lead, you should be smart, believe that you can do it, and want people to know you. Makes sense, but the fact that most of us are not ministers, CEOs or chiefs of staff and that we live well with it suggests that the matter is a bit more complex. To be a leader people have to want or at least agree to be led by you.

In order to understand why a particular person becomes a leader, one must ask why do we need leaders at all? Leadership appears in different ways in any situation where a group is required to act together despite conflicting interests. Such a situation is not unique to humans, for example many animals are more protected in herds or herds, but not all individuals have the same needs. How does the group decide to move to the water source or to the pasture field even though some individuals would perhaps prefer to continue and nap there?

First of all you have to want. Sometimes the one who puts himself at risk by walking at the head of the camp is simply the one who cares about moving. Observations of zebra herds revealed that those who initiate movement to the waterholes are lactating females who need more fluids. When the female walks forward, her fellow members of the pack go in the same direction (zebras form a stable group of a male with several females and cubs) and some such packs will attract a large herd, most of which simply strives to stay in the safest place in the center of the crowd. Similarly the fish leading the school is often the hungriest of the bunch. With us humans, it turns out, not surprisingly, that a prominent characteristic of leaders is motivation, which means that a leader is first of all someone who really wants to lead.
who dares, wins. To lead any group: from a flock of birds to a start-up company, you have to take risks/

Many researchers have wondered about the characteristics of the leader and different types of leadership. Strangely, an equally mysterious enigma has been studied much less: the traditions. Leaders, in human society, as in chimpanzees, enjoy better access to resources and better chances of passing on their genes. If leadership were an inherited trait we would expect every person to aspire to lead and yet the great majority of us are willingly willing to be led. If a leader's primary role is to lead the way, then the fantastic success of the Wise applet suggests that we all, at least a good portion of the time, willingly accept external leadership. It seems that at least part of the answer is that it is safer to move after someone who is taking on a large part of the danger. In order to test how leader relationships are created - led based on personality differences, researcher Jennifer Harcourt chose to test a system as simple as possible: fish that prefer to stay in hiding places were tested and put into an aquarium that was divided into a deep area rich in protective vegetation and a shallow, exposed area. The fish were left there alone and the food was placed in the "dangerous" part of the vessel. The degree of courage of each fish was determined by the number of its escapes from the shelter and the length of time it dared to spend in the threatening part of the vessel. In the second stage, two fish were allowed to see each other: each pair included a "brave" fish, meaning one that chose to spend more than 40% of its time in the shallow water when it was alone, and a "coward", meaning one that spent less than 15% of its time there. As expected, the exits to the dangerous food area became coordinated, the "brave" ones became even bolder and initiated more forays out of the shelter and the cowards on the other hand became leaders, stopped initiating exits and simply followed the leader.

In creatures living in solitary herds, isolation is an immediate danger. It is better to be led in a group than to try outside it. That is, the loss from the tax that the ruler takes for himself is small compared to that in my solitary life. When the success in obtaining food, territory and protection depends on cooperation between the members of the group and the advantage of receiving leadership is even more pronounced, the small portion of elk meat that the junior wolf in the pack will receive is larger than the rabbit that will succeed, perhaps, in hunting alone. Simulation studies in game theory show that when you take into account the cost that a leader has to invest in fighting with claimants to the crown, it is worth being a leader in a group as long as there are few potential leaders in it, when there are too many leadership aspirants it is better to be led. This computational study indicates the existence of stable situations in which both strategies: leadership and being led exist in the same population.

And maybe a man-man is needed as a leader? Among the qualities found in leaders, the absence of dominance stands out: domineering people sometimes achieve personal goals but do not form groups, set goals for them or lead others to achieve those goals. The matter is especially strange when we compare ourselves to our relatives. In the apes, the dominant male is also physically strong, the members of the group are afraid of him and he is domineering. A baboon ruler (alpha male) will lead his group according to his nutritional needs even when this will harm the nutrition of the other monkeys as he relies on social ties and the fear of abandonment to prevent the disintegration of the group. Surprisingly, the leadership style of our ancestors as can be reconstructed from archeological findings and observation of hunting tribes - to modern ones is relatively democratic. The one who leads the hunting trips is the most skilled among hunters and an experienced adult is the mediator in internal disputes. It seems that with the development of language and the increase in the importance of knowledge and skill, our ancestors created a leadership style that would suit the new lifestyle. Through a hierarchy based on physical force, resources can be distributed and momentary obedience can be imposed, but without concern for the division of labor, the learning of technologies (tool making, control and treatment of wood, textiles...) or the settlement of conflicts that language has become more complex than just fights.

Knowledge-based leadership is a human development that took place in the last 2 million years, that is, when survival became dependent on learned skills and language. This time was probably enough to create in us mechanisms for the creation and acceptance of leadership. Humans in every culture attach great importance to leaders and know how to recognize leadership skills in their peers. The elephants have independently created a similar mechanism where the herd is led by an older female who has gained experience and remembers where to turn when drought strikes. Thus, in contrast to family relatives, older age in a person is considered an advantage for a leader and not a weakness that invites rejection by a sturdy young man. When in the blink of an eye about 10,000 years ago, agriculture developed and with it the population grew, permanent settlements were built, property was accumulated and with it social inequality. The leadership became more formal and less democratic. However, the length of time since we stopped hunting and gathering is a constant reference in terms of evolution, tyranny is a new invention and not "natural" and apparently humans everywhere shy away from arbitrary or fear-based leadership and even distinct tyrants try very hard to give their rule the appearance of voluntary acceptance.

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More of the topic in Hayadan:

• A lesson in leadership from….fish
• Ants that have acquired knowledge randomly "take command" temporarily, and their companies accept their leadership as a kind of "order of the hour"
• Wolf pack leaders are more tense than their subordinates