The role of individuals' self-comparisons with existing leaders on negative leadership attitudes

Research shows that most people are not interested in taking on leadership roles, which hinders leadership diversity and effectiveness by narrowing talent pools. This dissertation explores how negative attitudes toward leadership develop, with particular emphasis on the role of individuals' self-comparisons with existing leaders. The central argument is that people may use existing leaders as reference points to infer whether they fit with leadership, and that the symbolic fit cues generated through these comparisons can shape their leadership attitudes. Chapter 2 presents the first empirical study in the organizational domain of leadership, which analyzed survey data from 335 employees across 38 organizations. Findings showed that a larger gap between the leadership styles employees reported they would use and the styles they perceived as common among their organizations' leaders was associated with higher worries about taking on leadership, a relationship fully mediated by lower levels of psychological safety. Chapter 3 reports the second empirical study conducted in the political context, using survey data from 344 local candidates of two competing parties during nationwide local elections. Path analyses demonstrated that perceiving oneself as more similar to the party leader was associated with lower leadership worries about holding office, an association fully mediated by greater participation in campaign activities. However, these significant paths were observed only among candidates from the ruling party and not the main opposition party, underscoring the importance of contextual factors. Chapter 4 introduces the Bottleneck Metaphor of Leadership Culture, which conceptualizes how reliance on existing leaders as reference points in leadership attitude formation may, over time, narrow and exclude the shared understanding of what leadership is and who can be a leader. Overall, the dissertation argues that negative leadership attitudes are not merely individual differences, but context-dependent responses shaped by symbolic fit cues drawn from comparisons with existing leaders.