Events around the globe provide us with an opportunity to examine leadership from a sociological perspective. Leaders, who are individuals or groups who help facilitate, guide, and be the representative voice of their members, don’t just exist in a vacuum. They require social groups to support and carry out their plans. For our purposes, a social group is defined as two or more individuals connected by common bonds and shared social relations. In other words, a group can range anywhere from two people, also known as a dyad, to a structured, purposeful, and goal-oriented collection of people commonly referred to as an organization. Let’s take a few moments to consider a variety of leadership styles by looking at a few examples in our world.
In the news, there recently has been coverage of the coup d’états’ in the African nations of Gabon and Niger. Coup d’états or coups are best described as violent seizures of government power. Since 1950, there have been over 480 military coups d’états around the world. At least 214 of these coups have occurred on the continent of Africa. Other recent examples of coups have been in the African nations of Mali and Burkina Faso in 2022. Coups typically involve military and authoritarian leaders, a leadership style that is based on orders and directives. Authoritarian leaders are in complete control of group activities and are a form of instrumental leadership in that they are very task-oriented. The leader decides the activities, directions, and goals of the group. This is a demanding leadership style. As a result, the desires of individual group members are less important than attaining the group goal. Authoritarian leaders are not limited to the military. Others can be found in the mafia, street gangs, and corrections officers.
