ABSTRACT
The previous two chapters argued that, in order to be effective, leaders need to be representative of the groups that they seek to lead and also to advance those groups’ interests. In this chapter and the next we turn to consider a different type of question: how particular definitions of groups and group interests created. Here, our focus is on the unbounded, idiosyncratic, and slippery process of meaning-making. More specifically, the issues we explore relate to the ways in which leaders construct identities so as to give themselves influence and power. Throughout the chapter we emphasize the active nature of leadership. We stress that the core of this activity lies in shaping social identities so that the leader and his or her proposals are seen as the concrete manifestation of group beliefs and values. In this the core message is that effective leaders are entrepreneurs of identity. This speaks to the fact that, however small they may be, a group of people with a shared identity will always be able to better coordinate their actions and hence have more power than a group without it and hence that, for leaders, identity is the most important of all resources.
