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The Social Nature of Leadership

Author(s): Robert K. Merton
Source: The American Journal of Nursing, Vol. 69, No. 12 (Dec., 1969), pp. 2614-2618
Published by: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
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The
Nature

Social
of

Leadership
Whatmakesa leader? Whatdoes he
do? A noted sociologist answers
such questions in this consideration
of the concept of leadership as a
social transactionand social role.
ROBERT K. MERTON
From the obscure time of ancient
Byzantium to our own day, the
practice and theory of leadership
have engaged man's interest. Treading his way in the Lyceum, Aristotle was persuadedthat some men
were endowed by nature with the
capacity for leadership, and there
are still people who hold with him
that "from the hour of their birth,
some are markedout for subjection,
others for rule"(1). Almosttwo millennia later, Machiavelli, in his
handbook for princes, encompassed
courage, conviction, pride, and
strength among the qualities of

DR.

MERTON,

Giddings

Professor

of Sociology

at Columbia University, received his A.B. from

Temple University and his Ph.D. from Harvard. He holds honorary degrees from many
universities, among them, Emory, Western Reserve, Chicago, Yale, Wales, and Leiden (the
Netherlands). A specialist in the study of the
professions, he has been consulting sociologist
to the ANA since 1955. His most recent book
is On Theoretical Sociology; other books include On the Shoulders of Giants, Social Theory
and Social Structure and, as co-editor, Sociology Today and The Student-Physician.
2614

DECEMBER 1969

leaders. And as we approach our

own time, it still seems to many
that the question most worth asking
about leadershipis this: What personal traits distinguishleaders from
the rest of us? Answersto this question take us to a bottomless pit of
virtue. According to the mystique,
leaders distinctively possess such
traits as intelligence, emotional maturity, perseverance, tact, faith,
dominance,courage, insight, and so
on and on.
More recently, social science has
greatly restrictedthe search for the
personalitytraits distinctive to leaders. The reasons for this shift are
varied. It was found that the same
people proved to be leaders in one
type of group and not in others.
Correlatively, leaders in the same
groups were of quite differentkinds
at different times. Few traits were
found to be uniformly linked with
leadership. R. D. Mann, for example, examined 125 studies of leadership which had generated750 findings about the personalitytraits of
leaders(2). He could discover none
which yielded a significantrelation
with leadership in as many as half
of these studies. And to make matters worse, of the scores of traits
tentatively identified in one study
or another, many were diametrically opposed; in some groups, effec-

tive leaders were aggressive,in others, mild and restrained;in some,

decisive, in others, diplomatic. We
have come to recognizethat the apparentlysensible question about distinctive traits of leaders was largely misdirected, that answers to it
could yield little understandingof
the natureof leadership.
What we now know about leadership derives from quite another
perspective. This one holds that
leadershipdoes not, indeed cannot,
result merely from the individual
traits of leaders;it must also involve
attributes of the transactions between those who lead and those
who follow. Otherwiseput, we start
from the assumptionthat the leader is only one component in that
complex phenomenonwe call leadership. Like other discoveriesabout
human behavior, it may seem odd
that this one was so long coming.
For once announced, it appears
self-evident. After all, Robinson
Crusoe might have been brave,
bright, innovative, courageous,
adaptive, and so on, though it is
plain that until his man Friday
came along he could not possibly
have exercised leadership. And
since leadership involves directive
influence upon others, since it involves collective action, we will do
better to seek its workings in the
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system of roles and interactionsbetween people rather than simply in

the characteristicsof individuals.
Leadership is, then, some sort of
social transaction. Its outward and
visible signs are as evident as they
are familiar. Leaders exert an unusual degree of influence upon their
fellows. They more often initiate
ideas for the group and these ideas
are apt to make good sense to their
associates.When leaders are not engaged in initiating group action,
they are responding to others who
turn to them for counsel. As these
others find that the performanceof
their own roles is facilitated by
what leaders say and do, they tend
to express deference to them. Altogether, in the useful words of Stogdill, leadership is the process of "influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal-setting and
goal-achievement"(3).

leaders, recognized as such in the

behavior of their associates though
not in the organizationblueprint.
Once we keep in mind the basic
distinction between authority and
leadership, all manner of problems
come into focus. We can begin to
understandhow it is that some people who occupy positions of authority are effective in their jobs while
others in such positions do poorly.
The first type combine authority
and leadership; the second have
authority without leadership. In the
first case, the organization thrives,
in the second, it deteriorates.Sooner or later, something gives. The
people in positions of authority are
displaced or the organization becomes less and less effective.
One way of coaxing sociological
truths about leadership out of their
dark hiding places, then, is to center on cases in which people occupy
varying positions of authority and
to consider what is necessary for
them to exercise that authority effectively. This is only another way
of saying that we want to deal primarily with the question of what
makes for the joint exercise of authorityand leadership.
It was the distinctive genius of
Chester Barnardto recognize, some
30 years ago, that authority, at its
most effective, achieves willing rather than forced compliance. In the
relation between leader and follower, there is a "zone of acceptability": that range of behavior "within
which the subordinate is ready to
accept the decisions made for him
by his superior."'
Effective leadership operatesprincipally within that zone of acceptability. And to do this, as Barnard pointed out, four primitive
conditions must be satisfied. Evident as they are, these conditions

LEADERSHIP
VERSUSAUTHORITY
So it is that this transactional
perspective puts in question the ancient notion that leadership is only
an expressionof the individual qualities of leadership. This perspective
does more. It requires us to recognize that leadership, as a mode of
social influence, is not the same as
authority, which is an attribute of
a social position. The organizational executive, the judge, the foreman, the head nurse have authority by virtue of the positions they
hold. They may or may not also
exert leadership. Authority involves
the legitimated rights of a position
that require others to obey; leadership is an interpersonalrelation in
which others comply because they
want to, not because they have to.
This distinction between authority
and leadership is more than an academic exercise. It is fundamental
to our understandingthe major fact 1THE concept was called the "zone of indifferthat leadership can be found at ence" by Chester Barnard, The Functions of
the Executive, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard
every level of an organization.The University Press, 1938, pp. 168-169. It was
extended and called the "area of accepleaders, the influentials, sometimes then
tance" by Herbert A. Simon, Administrative
hold formal offices of authority; Behavior, New York, Macmillan
Co., 1947, p.
133 (whose language is quoted here). The
sometimes, they do not. At times, term
"zone of acceptability" is intended to
they are unofficially acknowledged capture the intent of both Barnard and Simon.

are nevertheless often neglected in

practice. First, the recipient of
the communication-suggestion, advice or order, as the case may bemust be able to understand it. Experience shows that much seeming
noncompliance with a directive is
in fact only a case of its not having
been understood. Second, the person must be able to comply with
the directive; he must have the resources to do what he is being
asked to do. Many an apparentfailure in leadership occurs because
this condition is unmet. Leaders
have not seen to it that people are
equipped with both the inner and
outer resources, with the skills and
knowledge and time and energy
and tools needed to do what is
being called for. Third, to comply
with what is being asked of them,
people must believe that the action
is in some degree consistent with
their personal interests and values.
They may be ready to act against
these interests for a time but asked
to do so continually, they will develop profoundly original ways of
evading orders or suggestions.
Fourth and finally, they must perceive the directive as consistent
with the purposes and values of the
organization.
Effective leaders intuitively or
explicitly provide for meeting these
four primitive requirements;ineffective leaders neglect one or more of
them and are puzzled by deteriorating organizational performance.
Analysis shows that the leader who
is losing his grip has been violating
one or more of these requirements:
his communications calling for action are unclear to recipients, they
are directed to people not equipped
to do what they are being asked to
do, they violate the personal interests or values of recipients or they
are at odds with group purposes,
values, and norms.
These observations bring out
once again the central idea that
leadership is less an attribute of individuals than of a social exchange,
a transaction between leader and

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2615

LEADERSHIP

led. And again, though some leaders sense this intuitively,the rest of
us must learn it more laboriously.
Leaders assist their associates in
achieving personal and social goals.
In exchange, they receive the basic
coin of effective leadership: trust
and respect. You need not be loved
to be an effective leader, but you
must be respected.
Identifiable social processes produce the respect that makes for effective leadership. First, respect expressed by the leader breeds respect for the leader. As he exhibits
respect for members of the group
and for their shared values and
normshe findsit reciprocated.
Second, he demonstratescompetence in performinghis own roles,
whatever these may be. No one is
better situated than subordinatesto
distinguishbetween a superior'sauthentic competence and its mere
appearance.
Third, the leader is in continuing
touch with what is going on within
the group. For this, it helps to be
located at strategicnodes in the network of communication. Located
there, he provides for two-way
communication. He not only lets
the other fellow get an occasional
word in edgewise, he lets him get
a good numberof words in straightaway. And the leader listens: both
to what is said and to what is not
said but implied. He allows for both
negative and positive feedback.
Negative feedback, as a cue to the
possibility that he has moved far
beyond the zone of acceptability:
positive feedback as a cue for support of his initiatingactions.
Fourth, though the leader in positions of authority has access to
the power that coerces, he seldom
makes use of it. Once he has gained
the respect of associates,it is they,
not the leader, who tend to ensure
compliance among their peers.
Leaders deplete their authority by
frequent exercise of power. For
2616

DECEMBER 1969

such action shrinksthe zone of acceptability.Group experimentshave

found that the more often group
leaders used the coercive power
granted them, the more apt were
they to be displaced. These experiments confirmwhat has long been
thought; leadership is sustained by
noblesse oblige, the obligation for
generosity of behavior among those
enjoying rank and power. Force is
an ultimate resource that maintains
itself by being seldomemployed.
Having noted this in a general
way, we must note also that styles
of leadership vary. The repertoire
of styles is large and few leaders
acquire the versatility to shift from
one to another style as changing
circumstancesrequire. There is the
authoritarian style in which the
leader is firm, insistent, self-assured,
dominating.With or without intent,
he creates fear and then meets the
regressive needs of his followers
that that fear has created. He keeps
himself at the center of attention
and manages to keep communication between others in the group to
a minimum.Ready to use coercion,
the authoritarianmay be effective
in times of crisis when the social
system is in a state of disorder.But
extreme and enforced dependence
on the leader means that the system is especiallyliable to instability.
The democratic style of leadership, in contrast, is responsive. It
provides for extended participation
of others, with policies emerging
out of interaction between leader
and led. The democraticleader initiates more than the rank and file
but the authoritariandoes so to a
far greater degree. Other familiar
styles of leadership can here only
find mention: the bureaucratic
leader, for example, who holds fast
to the rule book at all costs, and
the paternalistic leader, who converts directionof even the most impersonal task into inflexible but to
him benevolent control. The styles
of leadershipemerging in particular
cases are, to an unknown degree,
an expansion of the personality

structureand earlier socializationof

the leader. Leaders lead as they
have been led. But to perhaps a
greater extent, styles of leadership
are a function of the situation and
the character of the organization;
it is through the incessant process
of self-selection and organizational
selection that particularpersonality
types find themselves cast in leadershiproles.
WHAT DO LEADERSDO?

But whateverthe styles of leadership, what are its functions? All

apart from the flamboyantrhetoric
in which we ordinarilytalk of leaders, what in fact do they do? So
many and diverse are these functions that we sometimes wonder
that leaders, like self-consciouscentipedes, can navigate at all. The
saving grace seems to be that social
systems, once established, have
enough stability to limp along even
though some of those many functions are served ineptly. Here, then,
in swift review, are some of the
chief functionsof leadership.
* Leaders facilitate the adaptive
capacity of social systems. They initiate change that is responsive to
both the internal and external environmentsof the system.
* Leaders are distinctively alert
to the unanticipated consequences
of previous collective action. They
capitalize upon the consequences
that advance the group purpose
and counteract those consequences
that were both unforeseen and unwanted.
* Leaders are future oriented as
well as present oriented. They
search out currentlyhidden but impending problems. These anticipatory adaptationsassist the group to
prepare for impending problems,to
curtail their impact when they do
emerge and, in the ideal case, keep
them fromdevelopingat all.
* Whether assigned this task or
not, leaders represent the group to
its environment. Central to the internal organization of the group,

they are also at its boundarywhere

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interchange between the group and

its environmenttakes place.
* Leaders evaluate resources for
the system and cope with the problem of their allocation.This they do
in terms of priorities of achieving
group objectives and in terms of optimum technical allocations hedged
in by group-defined criteria of social justice.
* Leaders express aspirations that
evoke resonance among members of
the group. This is often phrased as
saying that leaders have vision. But
vision that is remote from the values
and wants of the group becomes
self-defeatingfantasy.
* Leaders mobilize, guide, coordinate, and control the efforts of
group members. When effective,
they deepen motivation and enlarge
output beyond that which could be
achieved without them.
* Leaders symbolize, extend and
deepen collective unity among
members of the system. They dramatize what would otherwise be
prosy, and in doing so, tap new energies that enable people to work
together.
* Leaders enunciate the values
and ideals of the group, and give
people pride in their group identity.
* Leaders arbitrate and mediate
the inevitable conflicts that emerge
in social interaction in such fashion
that most members of the group
feel most of the time that justice
has been done.
* Not least, leaders serve as
scapegoats. They must be prepared
to have the sins of their followers
and of the entire group symbolically laid upon them.
Having assembled these leadership functions, we should pause for
a moment to take stock. We first
touched upon the concept of leadership as social transaction and social role, rather than as merely a
quality of individuals. We noted
that leadership need not coincide
with appointed office, that it is
found, as potential and as actuality,
on every level of organizationalhierarchy. We glimpsed some of the

social process engaging leaders with

rank and file and noted how legitimacy and respect-prime characteristics of leadership-are generated by certain kinds of interaction
within the group. We glanced at
styles of leadership and noted that,
to be effective, these must be
geared into the characterof the organization and the conditions it
confronts. And we took partial inventory of the functions of leaders.
There are other aspects of this
complex social phenomenon called
leadership. Consider for a moment
how the operation of leadership differs for relatively stationary social
systems and for rapidly expanding
ones. In the stationary society,
where total resources are not being
greatly enlarged, growth in the
power, wealth, and authority of
some typically means decline for
the rest. This is the zero-sum situation in which what is good for
one is bad for the other. But in the
expanding social system, all this can
change. Leaders can expand the
scope of their influence without this
being at the expense of others. The
gap between them can widen. But,
as Boulding has shown, there is
nevertheless a basic difference between stationary and expanding
systems: in the second, unlike the
first, one need not rise only by
pushing others down(4).
In the same overly condensed
fashion, we must take note that
types of leadership required by
groups change under changing circumstances. As Fiedler has found
experimentally,effective group performance is contingent upon differing styles of leadership under differing conditions(5). Again without
benefit of sociological theory or experimentation, many of us sense
this intuitively. Bad times and good
call for different emphases in leadership. In time of crisis and gloom,
when previous procedures and values are being widely questioned,
groups turn to leaders who can affirm or reaffirmnewly emerging values. They are concerned more with

achieving a new state of the social

system than with the task-performance of that system. In time of
relative stability, the basic demand
is not so much for this kind of leadership as for enlarging the productivity of the system.
GENERICFUNCTIONS

All this takes us directly to one of

those great simplificationsabout the
behavior of social systems that can
provide much understandingif it is
not distorted into an oversimplification. The over-riding functions of
leadership can be instructively reduced to two, with all the specific
functions being of one or the other
kind. The first is the integrative
function providing for that socioemotional support to members of a
group which stabilizes systems of
social relations between them. The
second is the instrumentalfunction
providing for effective mobilization
and coordination of activity to enlarge the amount and improve the
quality of task-performance. Both
generic functions are of course essential to the operation of social systems. But phases in systems vary,
sometimes requiring more of the
first function, sometimes more of
the second. Paragons among leaders manage the difficult feat of directing their efforts chiefly toward
integrative or toward instrumental
functions as they diagnose the
changing needs of the system. But
leaders of this adaptable and comprehensive type are rare. More often, social systems evolve a division
of labor, with or without plan, in
which certain people serve primarily as system-maintainers and others
primarily as task-performers. But
whether encompassed in the same
people or allocated to different people these functions are basic to the
effective working of social systems.
Touching upon the character,
styles, conditions, functions, processes, and contexts of effective
leadership might convey the monstrous idea that all leadership is a

good thing, in and of itself. We all

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2617

experienced as sources of danger.

Related to both the "law" of oligarchy and differentials in sensiknow better. Like every other instru- tivity to behavior between leaders
mentality, social or technological, and led is the observed tendency
leadership lends itself indifferently for communicationwithin groups to
to good or evil. After all, Stalin and become less open as the same leadHitler were for a time effective ership continues. Just as with bioleaders. What, then, are some of logical systems, though for different
the principal dangers of leadership reasons, long-lived social systems of
within small social systems as well leadership are subject to hardening
as large?
of the arteries of communication.
To begin with, there is what There is a fundamental reason for
Robert Michels excessively de- this. Experiments have found that
scribed as "the iron law of oligar- people tend to see and hear what
chy"(6). He examined the par- is congenialto them and to insulate
adoxical case of leaders initially themselves from uncongenial opincommitted to democratic values ions and ideas. Confronted with
who abandoned these values as pleasant objects, the size of pupil
their attention turned increasingly dilates significantly: confronted
to maintainingthe organizationand with unpleasant objects, it conespecially their own place within it. tracts. All this suggests that longThe danger is plain: leaders long enduring leaders who would also
establishedare often the last to per- be effective ones will make a speceive their own transition toward cial effort to keep lines of commuoligarchy, toward a form of control nication open and particularlywith
in which power is confined to the those who do not see things as they
same few persons. And leaders long themselvesdo.
established are apt to confuse the
Another pathology of leadership
legitimacy of their rule with them- is found in the excess multiplicaselves. It was not only Louis XIV tion of rules in social systems. Rules
who announced "L'6tat,c'est moi!" can accumulateto the point of parAs the more recent story goes, De alyzing needed innovation. It has
Gaulle periodically intoned to him- been found that the number and
self: "Quandje veux savoir ce que specificity of rules increase as an
pense la France, je m'interroge"(7). adaptationto conflictbetween lead(When I want to know what ers and rank and file. What is
France thinks, I ask myself.)
equally in point, the reverseprocess
Leaders are apt to have other has also been observed: the rapid
blind spots. They are often unable, growth of regulations,which often
as Cartwrighthas noted, to recog- work at cross-purposes,goes along
nize that the very possession of with a greater potential for conflict.
power is enough to pose threats to These observationsprovide a social
those subject to that power(8). But diagnostic. If you find yourself in
subordinates know that even the an organizationthat is multiplying
most benevolent of leaders can rules at a rapid rate, you are being
make things hard for them. As a re- given a sociological warning signal.
sult, they are more sensitive to the There is more conflict in that sysbehavior of their superiorsthan su- tem than may at first meet the eye.
Another ailment of organizationperiors often are to the behaviorof
their subordinates. These differen- al leadership was long since diagtials in sensitivityexplain why lead- nosed by Chester Barard as "the
ers so often find even their best in- dilemma of time-lag"(9). By this
tentions being interpretedas malev- phrase, he referred to the problem
olent. As possessorsof power, lead- of discrepancy between organizaers are perenniallysubject to being tional requirements for immediate
LEADERSHIP

2618

DECEMBER 1969

adaptive action and the slow process of obtaining democratic approval for it. This is an authentic
dilemma. Democratically organized
groups can cope with this dilemma
only by having their memberscome
to recognize in advance that, remote as they are from the firing
line of daily decision, there will be
occasions in which decisive action
must be taken before it can be fully
explored and validated by the
membership. This comes hard for
democratic organizationswhich often prefer to pay the price of maladaptationin order to avoid having
their leadershipconvertedinto Caesarismor Bonapartism.
That leadership is of various
kinds, that it works its ways variously under variousconditions,that
it has its distinctive requirements
and its processes, that it has, too,
its pathologies-all this means that
leadershipis not simply a mystique.
Slowly our understandingof leadership grows and sometime, perhaps, it will emerge from the sociological twilight into the full light
of day.
REFERENCES
1. Aristotle. Politics Book I, Chap. 5.
2. MANN, B. D. A review of the relationships
between personality and performance in
small groups. Psychol.Bull. 56:241-270, July
1959.

3. STOGDILL,R. NM.Leadership, membership

and organization. Psychol.Bull. 47:1-14, Jan.
1950.

4. BOULDING,
KENNETH.Conflict and Defense.
New York, Harper and Row, 1961, p. 192.
5. FIEDLER,F. E. A contingency model of
leadership effectiveness. IN Advances in
Experimental Social Psychology, ed. by
Leonard Berkowitz. New York, Academic
Press, 1964, pp. 149-190.
6. MICHELS, ROBERT. Political

Parties; a Socio-

logical Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies

of Modern Democracy, translated by Eden
Paul and Cedar Paul. New York, Dover
Publications, 1959.
7. MONANE, j. H. Sociology of Human Systems. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts,
1967, p. 55.
8. CARTWRIGHT, DORWIN. Influence,

leader-

ship, control. IN Handbook of Organizations, ed. by James G. March. Chicago, Ill.,

Rand McNally and Co., 1965, p. 36.
9. BARNARD, CHESTER.

The Functions

of the

Executive. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1938, p. 8.

This article is based on a speech given at the
Fourteenth Quadrennial Congress of the International Council of Nurses in May, 1969 in
Montreal, Canada, and is printed with the permission of the ICN.
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