Week 8- Theories in Action- Implicit Leadership Theories

In this week of my internship, I have been able to think about the different implicit leadership theories that may arise from interns or employees when working at a large company such as Wells Fargo. When looking at the company of Wells Fargo, it is considered a banking company, and such companies often have limited diversity in executive positions. Due to this limited diversity in executive positions at many large banking institutions, lower level employees working at that banking firm and interns can develop implicit leadership theories, causing them to create preconceived notions about who should be in positions of leadership.

The implicit leadership theory was developed by Robert Lord and his colleagues and it draws on the idea that individuals of organizations have implicit assumptions about the characteristics or qualities that are inherent in a leader. This theory of leadership is extremely important in companies or in organizations that work with teams that have leaders. This theory is integral because if a company does not have a lot of diversity in leadership positions, the followers will begin to only experience leaders with only those limited characteristics in those positions. They will begin to develop implicit leadership theories about who the prototypical leader should be in that position. So, when a potential leader or an individual enters a leadership position within that organization and they do not match the followers’ expectations because of the lack of diversity in the current leadership positions, that new leader may receive resistance, even if that new leader possesses leadership competence. 

In a recent meeting with the CEO of Wells Fargo, Charlie Scharf, the interns were able to listen to Mr. Scharf talk about the decisions that he has made at the company and his journey to the position he currently holds. The interns also had the opportunity to ask him a variety of questions. In one of the questions that an intern asked, the topic of diversity in executive positions was discussed. Mr. Scharf explained to the interns that the company has made a lot of progress in the diversity of executives holding top positions at the company. While Mr. Scharf is most likely not thinking about implicit leadership theories when he is making sure the top positions at the company are diverse, whether he knows it or not he is making sure that the followers of leaders at Wells Fargo develop implicit leadership theories of many different potential leaders.