Styles of Leadership, Fears of Compassion, and Competing to Avoid Inferiority
Open accessAbstract
There is general agreement that styles of leadership evolved from mammalian group living strategies that form social ranks. In both non-human primates and humans, different styles of hierarchical dominant-subordinate and leader-follower behavior can be observed. These can be described in terms of dimensions of antisocial (relatively self-focused, aggressive and threat-based) and prosocial (relatively empathic, caring, and supportive) interpersonal styles. The aim of this study was to explore how a set of established self-report questionnaires might relate to these two dimensions. Two hundred and nineteen students completed questionnaires assessing ruthless self-advancement, coalition building, and dominant leadership styles, as well as hypercompetitiveness, narcissism, striving to avoid inferiority, compassion focused and ego focused goals, fears of compassion, social safeness and attachment (in)security. A principal component analysis supported an antisocial leadership style factor which comprised of ruthless self-advancement, narcissism and hypercompetitiveness. This was significantly correlated with fears of compassion, ego focused goals, insecure striving (striving to avoid inferiority), fears of losing out, fears of being overlooked, fears of being rejected, and avoidant relating in close relationships. It was significantly negatively correlated with compassionate goals. As the results did not reveal a clear factor solution for a prosocial leadership style, we chose to use the coalition building leadership style variable. This showed the opposite pattern, being significantly negatively correlated with narcissism, hypercompetitiveness, fears of compassion, fears of active rejection, and avoidance in close relationships. It was significantly positively correlated with secure striving, compassionate goals, and social safeness. We also found that fears of compassion for others was a partial mediator of the relationship between insecure striving with antisocial leadership style. Moreover, lower fears of compassion for the self emerged as a key mediator for the relationship between non-avoidant attachment with coalition building leadership style and, secure non-striving with coalition building leadership style. While the motive to accumulate social power, resources and dominance may be linked to antisocial forms of leadership, the intensity of the drive may also be linked to unaddressed threats and fears of rejection and fears of compassion. Efforts to promote more ethical, moral and prosocial forms of leadership may falter if such fears are left unaddressed.
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Antisocial leadership is fearful of offering compassion to others and resistant to compassion.
“Antisocial leadership is fearful of offering compassion to others and resistance to compassion”
From Whither compassionate leadership? A systematic review (2024) · cites this paper as Basran et al. (2019)
Prosocial leadership is associated with coalition building, secure striving, compassionate goals and feeling socially safe.
“Prosocial leadership is associated with coalition building, secure striving, compassionate goals and feeling socially safe”
From Whither compassionate leadership? A systematic review (2024) · cites this paper as Basran et al. (2019)
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“Given these individuals seek positions of power this is obviously a concern (Gilbert and Basran, 2019) especially FIGURE 7 | Outline of the competitive vs. caring social mentality as a therapy focus © Paul Gilbert.”
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- Authors
- Basran, J., Pires, C., Matos, M., McEwan, K., & Gilbert, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Derby (GB)
- University of Coimbra (PT)
- Corresponding author
- Gilbert, Paul
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2019-01-22
- Volume
- 9
- Pages
- 2460-2460
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6349715
- OpenAlex
- W2910909748
- Cited by
- 54
- References
- 63
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 6
- FWCI
- 8.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- University of Derby Online Research Archive. (University of Derby) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- leadership styles, prosocial leadership, narcissism, coalition building, compassion, insecure attachment, social safeness, compassionate goals, fear of rejection, attachment avoidance, social hierarchy, self-report questionnaire
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