The phenomenon of leadership in politics: Example of Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu

Leadership is a concept with its own characteristics, related to both politics and private sector. Political leaders have led to the concept of leadership upfront, due to its ability to manage society and mass. Which characteristics the concept of leadership should have or not is getting controversial. The fact that the leader is seen as a regulator of social life has made politics and leadership more identical. When viewed in this context, various studies have been conducted to present leadership characteristics of many political leaders in Turkey, especially ones in power in the past. The aim of the study is to reveal the leadership characteristics of political leader Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu and the study was conducted on the basis of qualitative research method. Depending on this method in order to present the leadership characteristics of the political leader Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, the main subject of our study, general information about his political life and important events in political life are given with conducting the literature review. In the third part, 20 people who worked with Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu in politics were interviewed by using a semi-structured interview technique, which is one of the qualitative research methods and the data obtained from these interviews were analyzed by using descriptive analysis method. It is seen that Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu did not show a constant leadership characteristic in the period he took part in politics. Additionally, it was seen that it was predominantly an authoritarian leader with its sudden and solitary decision before 1980, evaluating those who served the organization and dismissing those who did not. After 1980, it was more, because it paid attention to consultations, friendly behaviors towards its colleagues, being a reliable leader, creating a positive image in the idealist community, adopting its ideology and serving to people more than political success charismatic, democratic, paternalist, transformational and servant leader. Keywords: Leadership, Political Leadership, Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, Qualitative Research, Descriptive Analysis