(Red Mirror.P. 39)
To be successful, leaders (1) must be seen as “one of us,” as representing the position that best distinguishes our in-group from other out-groups. Alexander Haslam and his colleagues suggested that a successful leader must be a group prototype—someone who represents the essential features and beliefs of group members.
Successful leaders (2) must be perceived to be “doing it for us.” Their actions must be seen as advancing the interests of in-group. Leaders must be able to take the ideas, values, and priorities of the group and embed them in reality. Leaders need to express these priorities and make them relevant and definitive of the group.
Successful leaders (3) must “craft a sense of us.” They need to be actively involved in shaping the shared understanding of “who we are” and “what we are about.” Without such work of defining and articulating the common sense of “we-ness,” groups simply cannot exist. Good leaders are always skilled entre- preneurs of identity. They help shape, transform, negotiate, define, and perform group identity.
And finally, successful leaders (4) must “make us matter.” Groups always compare themselves to and compete with other similar groups, although social context always shapes such inter-group dynamics, and competitive trends are by no means universal.29 The desire to raise group prestige and status are, on the other hand, universal. And successful leaders are those who can raise the pres- tige of belonging to a specific group.