Hot, Cold, or Ambivalent: Emotions and Leadership Styles in Social Movements

• In Event: 3451 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 8. Movements and Emotions

Abstract

Although much attention has been devoted to emotion dynamics in recent studies of social movements, the relationship between emotions and leadership styles is underdeveloped. In this article, I explore the connection between emotions and leadership styles. I argue that the construction of leadership styles involves emotion-mediated strategic choices because emotions shape the motivation, leader performance, and rational calculation of movement leaders. I categorize emotions into three types: hot, ambivalent, and cold. Each drives leaders to practice unified, fragmented, and dismissive leadership styles, respectively. The case for this article is the Wild Strawberries movement, a student movement in Taiwan in 2008. The analysis of this movement shows that emotions have independent influence on movement leaders’ strategic choice of leadership styles. The article concludes by discussing the contribution of an emotion-based approach to future leadership studies.

Author

• Yusheng Lin, National Tsing Hua University