Week 6: Implicit Leadership Theories

After my sixth week at Avascent I’ve been able to get a good feel for the dynamics around the office. Leadership appears to come in many forms, both explicitly and implicitly. The explicit emergences are more obvious, and personally, less interesting. So, I’ll center this blog post around the implicit leadership patterns I’ve noticed hear at Avascent.

Implicit Leadership Theories are based on the idea that individuals create cognitive representations of the world and use these preconceived notions to interpret their surroundings and control their behaviors. Implicit Leadership Theories suggests that group members have implicit expectations and assumptions about the personal characteristics, traits, and qualities that are inherent in a leader.

In the office, there is a fixed hierarchy that is undeniable. However, within the levels seems to exist its own implicit hierarchy: one for analysts, consultants, associates, and so on. Amongst the analysts, a typical ‘leader’ is also highly competent at being an analyst, this lends itself to the idea that other analysts look up to and/or follow other analysts who they perceive to me more competent than themselves. The ‘leader’ analysts also appear to be disproportionately outgoing, displaying the common belief that leaders are supposed to be extraverted and gregarious. For those higher in the corporate hierarchy, say the managing directors, implicit leadership seems to select for seniority. That is, the longer a managing director has been with the firm, the more likely they appear to be looked at as a leader amounts the other directors.

While there isn’t significant ‘deferential influence’ conferred by being considered an implicit leader in your respective hierarchy level, there are definitely implicit leaders that do emerge.