ABSTRACT
The new psychology of leadership suggests that leaders need to have qualities, attributes, and behaviors that emphasize what they have in common with their followers, while at the same time differentiating them from other groups that are salient in a particular context. In this chapter, we will elaborate on this point by showing how leaders succeed by standing for the group rather than by standing apart from it. To be sure, this still means that leaders need to display particular qualities and will be valued to the extent that they do. Importantly, though, these qualities are not valued because they are those of an independent individual. Rather, they are valued because they are qualities that epitomize the meaning of the group in context. One key implication of this is that there is no general set of characteristics which always predict leadership effectiveness. Rather, as the meaning of the group changes, so will the qualities that are required of an effective leader.
