The Duty invites you to take the back roads of university life. A proposal that is both scholarly and intimate, to be picked up all summer long like a postcard. Today, the season continues with a reflection on leadership in politics.
The American election campaign is in full swing and the media coverage presents us with the Republican and Democratic candidates for president and vice president. We find Donald Trump, who does not miss an opportunity to attack his opponents. What seemed so easy with Joe Biden seems to pose challenges for him with Kamala Harris.
While he criticized the president’s old age, he cannot do the same with the aspirant to the same position. Closer to home, there is discussion about potential candidates for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ). People are joining Denis Coderre, who announced his candidacy earlier this summer.
In all these cases, when discussing these leaders and aspiring leaders, it is about their qualities and skills (or lack thereof) as well as the potential of these political actors to lead their political parties to victory.
Why is it so important to discuss the qualities of political leaders? Can’t we just rely on their road maps or their election platforms?
Perceptions
Political scientist Amanda Bittner asked herself these very questions. She wondered whether it was the program or the personality that was most important to voters. Her answers, based on a comparison of electoral opinion studies in several countries over a long period (longitudinal studies), are nuanced, but show that party leaders play a key role in electoral choice, beyond political systems and institutions.
In particular, it highlights that certain characteristics are important when it comes to choosing who will lead a country or a political party. Voters’ evaluation is based on character traits (such as honesty, compassion, reliability) and skills (such as intelligence).
Consistent with Bittner’s work, academic research on the evaluation of political leaders and candidates shows that perceptions of personality traits and the image of leaders are major determinants when it comes to choosing who to vote for.
Triangle
Furthermore, the recent work of our Italian colleagues and collaborators Diego Ceccobelli and Luigi Di Gregorio also proves to be rich in studying current approaches to self-presentation and storytelling used by leaders about themselves and their adversaries.
Their research allows us to take into account the changes in the political-media context that are transforming the ways of perceiving leaders and leadership. These researchers affirm that the brand image and the evaluation of leadership are based on three complementary elements that we can present in the form of a triangle, where competence, authenticity and proximity are arranged and combined to convince voters of the ability of political leaders to lead.
In other words, political figures are judged on their ability to be consistently perceived as competent, authentic and close to the people.
Competence is related to the ability to lead in different circumstances and to make the right decisions in expected or unexpected situations. Authenticity is related to honesty and integrity as well as the fact that the person is “really themselves” and not a character constructed for the cause.
As for proximity, it is gaining in importance as voters increasingly seek leaders who are ordinary people, “like them”, with whom it is easier for them to identify. This element is important because it shows that elected officials are not part of an elite disconnected from citizen reality.
Balance
Research shows that political actors who successfully embody and balance these three elements are more likely to gain support and create political consensus.
These elements are therefore found in the way in which candidates and political actors construct their leadership and try to stage it. They are highlighted during the electoral campaign, in their speeches, in political advertisements, and are also taken up in media reports and discussions between citizens on social media.
Several key elements of these political assessments are reflected in Donald Trump’s speeches. When he criticizes and attacks Kamala Harris by saying she is not intelligent, he questions her leadership skills. When he says she is not really black, he questions her authenticity.
For her part, Harris did not hesitate to call her opponent an abuser and a fraudster, a “type of man” she knows well, having already sued them when she was attorney general of California, thus attacking Trump’s authenticity and leadership skills. These various accusations are intended to sow doubt in the electorate about the opponents and to make them lose part of their credibility as leaders.
These types of accusations also resonate in a context where identity has become a key element of electoral campaigns and where identity traits (gender, sex, religion, race, for example) are mobilized to create the brand image of leaders and build links with the electorate.
Trump himself presents himself as an ordinary man, close to the people, who stands apart from the political elite. He also claims to be authentic, both in his way of dressing and in his uncensored vocabulary. Harris’s challenge will be to combine these three elements — competence, authenticity and proximity — in order to reach the electorate and convince them to vote for her and her team.
On the Quebec side, let’s bet that the candidates for the leadership of the PLQ will highlight their skills, their personal characteristics (youth, professional experience), their authenticity and their ordinary side in the coming months. It will be interesting to see what elements they will emphasize in their campaign, what the media will remember and, ultimately, how the party members will judge their abilities to lead the party.