ABSTRACT
Leadership is a key feature of social groups, ranging from small groups such as families through work teams and organizations to nations. It is actually very difficult to think about groups without thinking about who leads or manages them and about how well they are led or managed. Not surprisingly, the study of leadership has long been a core concern of social scientists. The literature is enormous, stretching back to Plato and beyond. My own goal in this chapter is a modest one: to describe how social identity theory can explain some aspects of leadership (see Hogg, 1996b, 2001, in press c), and to sketch out some implications of this analysis for organizational contexts (e.g., Hogg & Terry, 2000; also see Haslam & Platow, Chapter 14 of this volume).
