Leadership, political

Political leadership is a process that involves at least one person aspiring to rule a country, party, or other organization, and a large group of followers. Being based on a mixture of coercion and discourse, political leadership places special emphasis on communicative forms of persuasion such as visions, slogans, images, and frames. The communication of political actors has become increasingly personalized, but findings on the effects of leader images on actual voting behavior remain somewhat inconclusive. The leadership styles in populist right-wing and left-wing parties constitute a particularly important topic for future research, as does the use of new social media technologies by political leaders that might lead to a new model of leadership that overemphasizes responsiveness and followership.