Beyond prototypicality: identity leadership is about shaping and embedding a sense of social identity, not just representing it

Research inspired by the social identity theory of leadership has focused predominantly on the importance of a leader being seen to be representative of the groups they lead. However, beyond this, research suggests that leaders also need to create, advance, and embed a sense of shared social identity in those groups. In the present research, we explore how these different facets of identity leadership combine to form distinct leader profiles. We draw on two heterogeneous independent samples from the Global Identity Leadership Development project (N = 7,682; N = 7,855) to explore profiles of leaders’ engagement in identity leadership. In both studies, a latent profile analysis of the results of a CFA using a bifactor-(S – 1) model was conducted. In each case, the analysis identified two different predominant identity leadership profiles: ‘engaged identity leaders’ and ‘moderate-inconsistent identity leaders’. Employees working with engaged identity leaders reported substantially more positive job-related attitudes. The results were very similar across the two studies and suggest that this profile analysis is generalizable. The findings support suggestions that identity leadership is multidimensional rather than solely a matter of identity prototypicality.