Week 7 – The Study of Political Leaders

Initially, I was interested to see the role of personality being discussed in this chapter as we debated about this topic in Chapter 2 as well. I remember by the end of the third week’s discussion, we reached to the conclusion that personality has minimal effect on politics, however, as I started reading this chapter, my views started changing slightly. The example of Robert Kennedy’s pragmatic leadership style is very inspiring as it not only made him a charismatic leader in the eyes of his followers but mainly aided in avoiding the war. In this context, to what extent can we give credit to his personality? Was he born a leader or made a leader? I think it is again a debatable topic but as much as we give credit to his personality traits like empathy, intelligence, and determination, we should also consider his strong educational background and early exposure to political environments in shaping his leadership identity.

While reading about destructive leadership, the most recent and relevant example of leadership in Israel clicked in my mind. Can we blame Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel since 2022, for the genocide happening in Gaza? Or can we say that the atrocities occurring in Palestine have lived longer than Netanyahu’s political tenure? Yet it all comes back to the same point that a leader alone holds less power to exercise that destructive leadership and it is a combination of susceptible followers, conducive environments, and destructive leaders that add up to destructive leadership. When I consider this example in the context of political psychology, I think the background of the nation matters a lot – if an individual grew up being exposed to manipulation by his nation’s leaders, he might end up being a destructive leader himself. As the chapter mentions such leaders are extremely narcissistic and dangerously charismatic, their manipulative tricks are far beyond what a normal follower might be able to comprehend.