Justifying Leadership: A Social Cognitive Approach to Understanding and Predicting Egotistic and Philanthropic Leadership

This study extends the current literature on egotistic and philanthropic leadership by considering the role of social cognition in explaining self-serving versus collective- serving leadership behaviors. Specifically, this study proposed that the overt traits and behaviors that constitute egotistic and philanthropic leadership are surface manifestations of the justification mechanisms (JMs) stemming from uninhibited and inhibited power motives. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the JMs that egotistic leaders rely on to enhance the rational appeal of self-serving influence behaviors and the JMs that philanthropic leaders rely on to enhance the rational appeal of collective-serving influence behaviors. Additionally, this study aimed to develop and validate a conditional reasoning test designed to measure these JMs. It was hypothesized that the extent to which individuals’ rely on egotistic justifications mechanisms to rationalize behavior would be positively related to the extent to which they use hard influence tactics and manipulative influence tactics. Furthermore, it was also hypothesized that the extent to which individuals’ use philanthropic justifications mechanisms to rationalize behavior would be positively related to the extent to which they use soft influence tactics and rational persuasion to influence others. Preliminary support was found for the relationship between the egotistic JMs and self-serving influence behaviors and for the relationship between the philanthropic JMs and collective-serving influence behaviors. Thus, the initial validity evidence for using the conditional reasoning methodology in the prediction of egotistic and philanthropic leadership behaviors was promising.