Leadership Attainment

Every group requires leadership. Whether it is a school project,

family, friend group, or even a country, tension is held before a leader
takes charge. Once a leader has taken charge, progress moves more
easily and efficiently. One will encounter groups everywhere, and it is
at times necessary to evaluate why people follow the people they do.
This begs the question, in todays American society, what
characteristics lead a person into a state of superiority? Superiority is
the state of being higher in rank, status, or quality. With the many
different kinds of groups that are formed, it is difficult to begin to
narrow down the possibilities for what may cause a person to gain
leadership. While intelligence is an important part of leadership,
superiority is ultimately obtained through social dominance.

Relationships:
An initial part of becoming a leader is the ability to form
friendships. Chris Berube once insisted, Nothing makes you feel
intellectually insecure like finding out that a child may be smarter than
you. One might argue that the immediate discomfort felt, even if
unintentional, is the child entering a minor state of superiority. Though
I concede that it is disheartening to believe a child may be smarter
than you, one can hardly say that the child maintains a position of
authority. The adult still holds many more years of life experiences and

likely knowledge on multiple other subjects that the child has not yet
begun to learn. The adults reaction can be attributed to selfconsciousness, not superiority. Dr. Patrick Stewart, whose works have
been published in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post,
Psychology today, and others, conducted a study analyzing some of
the non-verbal traits that pass from a leader to a follower during the
emergence of leadership. He found that Those who wish to lead must
communicate a complex combination of traits, including the absence
of arrogance, over-bearingness, boastfulness, and personal aloofness
and at the same time espouse a combination of unaggressiveess,
generosity, and friendly emotions. This statement begins to describe
the relationship between the leader and the follower. The commonality
of these characteristics is that they all lend themselves not only
towards what one might expect of a leader, but what also could be
expected from a friend. A friend exhibiting these traits has a position
of social dominance. A person, who maintains traits these traits of
friendship, also possesses the traits likely to produce a leader.
Because it is natural to trust and follow a friend, social dominance is
directly related to leadership emergence.

Credibility:
A near consistent part of being socially dominant is some form of
popularity, which makes followers more willing to follow. Jeffrey

Pfeffer, professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University, in a

study on leadership selection processes emphasizes, Succession to
leadership positions is determined by person-based criteria such as
social origins or social connections. This evidence supports that
popularity is a factor in attaining the leadership role. People can
associate what a person is known for, such as previous successes or
credibility with other friends, with their leadership capabilities,
convincing group members that that person would be a reliable person
to make leader. Former president of the International Society for
Human Ethology Glenn Weisfled, who has a PhD in Behavioral science,
with a team of researchers, found that Athletic ability and
attractiveness were consistently related to expressions of
dominance. Athletic ability and attractiveness are often both
associated with popularity. Both of these characteristics produce an
impression of reliability, leading to trust in another person. Trust and
reliability lead to leadership. As a result of the impressions made on
other people, those who are popular will have leadership roles more
often than others.

Influence:
A key part of leading a group is the ability to unite and direct its
members towards a goal or cause. The same necessity is held within
social dominance. John Maxwell, author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of

Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You, argues, The true
measure of leadership is influence- nothing more, nothing less,
concluding, If you dont have influence, you will never be able to lead
others. Maxwell basically states that if you do not have enough
respect from your followers to persuade them to support an objective,
then you are essentially not leading them at all. Maintaining social
dominance demands both respect and deference, both of which allow a
person to influence their group. Matt McFarland, editor of The
Washington Post, states, Bosses are assigned leaders; emergent
leaders are the ones who inspire, are respected and followed. It
simply does not make sense for a group to choose to follow a leader
they do not respect. The emergent leaders will be the people whose
judgment is trusted and who the group looks to for advice. Respect is
an important part of leading and maintaining leadership; consequently
social dominance results in leadership.
Influence, however, does not strictly mean submission,
Therefore, potential leaders must exhibit not only the ability to
dominate others, whether in response to internal threats to the groups
peace or external threats to its well-being, but also master the ability
to affiliate with group members (Stewart). Stewart is suggesting that
becoming involved with personal lives of followers is just as important
as directing them what to do. Through that affiliation with group
members, people can connect with others on a deeper and more

personal level, rather than keeping only a business relationship. These

associations align with those maintained by a socially dominant
individual, where relationships are often actual friendships.

Social Respect:
A product of social dominance is inter group connections, which
allows individuals to attain leadership. Fay Sudweeks and Simeon
Simoff, researchers of communication behaviors, assert that An
emergent leader Is and individual who is not assigned to a leadership
position, has the same status as other team members initially, but
gradually emerges as a leader through support and acceptance of the
team over a period of time. A quality leader does not necessarily take
power. Through the support of ones team members, a leader is given
authority. Social dominance provides a situation where everyone is
already accepting of the socially dominant person. After the person is
given leadership, it is beneficial to the team because each member is
satisfied with who is in charge, since they are the ones who put him
there. This way of selecting leadership creates a stronger bond
between team members and generates a cooperative group. Donald
Clark, an employee of Knowledge Jump (A leadership, learning, and
knowledge provider), writes A person influences others through social
influence, not power, to get something accomplished. An effective
leader should have the ability to guide his followers towards a goal, not

force them to it. Harshly ordering team members around results in

group tension and is a sign of poor leadership. Stuart Levine, wellknown speaker on leadership and author of The Six Fundamentals to
Success, affirms An individual demonstrating emergent leadership
does not derive power from a position or degree, but instead has the
ability to steer things in the right direction through competence in
dealing with social situations. Using the social connection one obtains
through social dominance, one can persuade followers to move
efficiently towards a goal. As a result of wide respect and deep
connection, socially dominant individuals are able to influence others,
and are therefore likely to become the leaders of a group.
Holistically, numerous components relate to superiority, but
social dominance is the main contributor to the attainment of
leadership. Social dominance within itself contains many factors
leading to leadership roles, such as friendliness, popularity, and
influence. Common sense, however, dictates that there are multiple
kinds and forms of groups, each of which with different purposes, and
requiring different kinds of leaders, yet the same is true for social
dominance. To be socially dominant in a classroom may involve having
large friend groups, while to be socially dominant in a workplace my
include being conversational and mature. The role of social dominance,
comparably, will change to accommodate the group and the groups
purpose. The point is that social dominance exists for a reason.

People are attracted to people who have traits they find pleasant to be
around. It is those same traits that cause a person to easily attain
leadership, because they have already gained a portion of their
followers trust by merely having agreeable traits. Social dominance,
due to its extensive pertinence, greatly impacts the role of superiority.
Still, the needs of groups continue to change, and the many work
factors within those groups will ultimately assign the role of superiority.
(1430 Words)

Works Cited
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the 38th Hawaii Conference on System Sciences. 2005. Web. 13
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