UK Political Leaders

4 Key excerpts on "UK Political Leaders"

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  Political Leadership in Morphogenetic Perspective

  • Filip Pierzchalski, Miroslaw Karwat, Marcin Tobiasz(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Peter Lang Group

    (Publisher)

  2. As a special type of activity in which the scope of authority and competence of political leaders is crucial. 3. As a bilateral and/or multilateral social bond. 4. As the relationship between the leader and the followers based on authority. 5. As a privileged and /or above-average position, the role and function of the leaders in the social structure. In the first case, the political leadership is synonymous with the real impact or in- fluence of the leaders of the external environment, specifically on individuals or social groups belonging to the community. Here the political leader is defined as: The one who to a greater degree than the other influences decisions made by a particular community (…) leadership is always determined realistically and not normatively by intentional influence. In this respect, it approaches the problem of manipulation and especially it is the political leadership that des so 148 . In fact, this is equivalent to the thesis that the leader is: Someone who influences a group whether or not he or she happens to be formally at the head of that group. Thus, not only are there leaders in informal bodies, but the real leader of a constituted organization may well be someone who does not occupy a formal position in the group 149 . 147 M. G. Hermann, Ingredients of Leadership, [in:] M. G. Hermann (ed.), Political Psychology. Contemporary Problems and Issues, Josey-Bass, San Francisco-London 1992, pp.167–192. 148 K. Pałecki, Wokół przywództwa politycznego – ramy dyskursu, [in:] A. Kasińska- Metryka (ed.), Studia nad przywództwem. Ustalenia metodologiczne i praktyka, Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2011, pp. 14–15. 149 J. Blondel, Political Leadership. Towards a General Leadership, Sage Publications, Lon- don 1987, p. 13.

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  Political Leadership in Foreign Policy

  Manipulating Support across Borders

  • A. Grove(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  . . international moves may be solely aimed at achieving domestic goals.” 25 Scholarly work on political leadership, especially within the political psychology tradition, also provides food for thought about the possible relationships between leaders and their environments. Margaret Hermann has described how this research tends to fall into one of four categories. 26 In the “great man” approach (or “pied piper” model), particular characteristics of individuals make them good leaders and insight comes from studying factors like charisma, personality, back- ground, and political experiences of leaders. 27 In the second model, sometimes called the “firefighter” image, the particular context of the time produces the appropriate leader so that learning about the individual per se is not necessary. 28 Leaders are merely firefighters responding to what occurs in the environment. This idea is a lot like traditional (structural) approaches to international politics men- tioned earlier; leaders have no freedom of action and simply react to events like billiard balls bouncing off one another. The words of Leo Tolstoy, which opened this chapter, exemplify such a perspective. The third model, the “puppet,” shifts attention to followers, holding that if we want to understand the kind of leader that emerges we must study the characteristics of the followers. 29 Finally, a fourth perspective examines the relationship between leaders and followers. Here the leader is a “salesman,” sensitive to what people want and trying to help them get it. Presidential research on “going public” reflects this orientation. 30 Instead of limiting the investigation to either leaders, followers, or the political context, in this book we consider a creative synthesis matching the leader’s audi- ence, the domestic and international political contexts, and the way in which the leader frames that context.

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  Leadership Perspectives

  Knowledge into Action

  • Kenneth A. Loparo, J. Collins, Kenneth A. Loparo, J. Collins, Kim Turnbull James(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  These writings have helped to elucidate aspects of political skill (taking skill to be a broad word to cover behaviours and competencies) but have two drawbacks. They focus on the internal affairs of the organisation, and they do not cast these skills in leadership terms. The skills are largely about how to influence colleagues, bosses and subordinates for a range of purposes. Other definitions offer a broader view of politiCS, both formal and informal, within and outside the organisation. In this view, politics is seen as a set of pluralistic interactions within and between individuals, groups and institutions, covering both formal and informal activities and concerned with contestation, negotiation or co-operation over the use and distribution of resources (Leftwich, 2004). Bernard Crick's (1993) influential definition also takes a more positive view. Politics is defined as the mobilisation of support for a position, decision or action whereby 'people act together through institutionalised procedures to resolve differences, to conciliate different interests and values, and to make public policies in the pursuit of common purposes' (2004, p. 67). While his conceptualisation was concerned with the means to resolve differences in society, this analysis can be applied to organisations and networks. The underlying purpose of politics is thus identified as being about mobilising support for particular actions by reconciling dif- ferent interests and values. This approach is conceptually different from the 'politics solely as self-interest' perspective. Leading with Political Awareness 169 Overall, this brief snapshot of some of the academic literature indi- cates that many different definitions of politics abound. Therefore, the notion of leading with political awareness is related to how politics is viewed.

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  Renewing Local Democracy?

  The Modernisation Agenda in British Local Government

  • Lawrence Pratchett(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The British leader by tradition lacks visibility and formal power. Rather than holding office, the leader heads the party group, and determines policy through the hierarchy of the political party and the control the party exercises over council business. The legal framework vests power in the elected council and its committees, so it is up to the political party and its leadership to organise council business and to ensure council officers follow its decisions. Leaders are selected by their party groups of councillors. They have to keep the group loyal or else it might vote into power another of its members. Leaders’ relationships outside the council are determined by the extent they can act authoritatively and win legitimacy rather than assuming a foreordained role. Some critics suggest the executive is headless and unaccountable because it is unclear who exercises power (see Young, 1994, for a summary of the debate). Other critics believe the leader is too weak and consensual, a tendency that has become more marked over time (Norton, 1978). This finding suggests that British leaders occupy the left-hand side of the quadrant of our table, particularly as, up until 2000, there has been no reform of the office in spite of the massive increase in workload and responsibilities. On the other hand, it is important not to underestimate the power of British leaders. They head large, powerful organisations and they are the most prominent democratically elected individuals in the local area. Moreover, they exercise these resources through relatively disciplined political parties. Indeed, British local politics has had many strong, even ruthless, local political leaders: T. Dan Smith of Newcastle in the 1960s, Herbert Morrison in London in the 1930s and 1940s (Donoughue and Jones, 1973) and John Bradock in Liverpool in the 1940s and 1950s (Baxter, 1972). While leaders became less colourful and powerful in the 1970s, resurgent local public figures emerged during the turbulent 1980s. On the left, there was Ken Livingstone in London, David Blunkett in Sheffield and Ted Knight in Lambeth; on the right, Lady Shirley Porter in Westminster and Paul Beresford in Wandsworth were also powerful and charismatic.

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