Abstract

When one participates—in any genuine capacity—in a group or organization, they are beholden to that group’s ideology and values, and as such take those values into their own identity. An athlete, a college student, a boy scout, a member of the clergy; all of these organizations in one way or another influence our identities as we internalize them. There are some groups, however, that by their very nature take up more of one’s identity than another might. Being an athlete , for example, might take up more of one’s identity than being a normal student at a college on account of the time commitment, the potential for bodily harm, the emotional investment, and so on. Sociologist Lewis Coser calls these groups “Greedy Organizations”, and cites them as having the rather dangerous ability of supplanting one’s original identity with the values of the group, and all without the knowledge of the one being altered. My study looks into the nature and structure of different types of organizations, paying particular attention to the different types of people who run the organizations—what you might call a “leader”. By discerning the nature of both organizations and leaders, I hope to elucidate what exactly makes certain types of leaders so powerful, and how it is that those leaders are allowed to come into their power in the first place. What I found was that charismatic leaders emerge in the discrepancy between what the workers need and what the bureaucracy can provide. From that foothold, charismatic leaders are able to exert their influence over their group, who have now incorporated the leader’s vision at least partially into their moral identity. Before they even know it, they’re bound up in the leader’s pace, their original identity supplanted by this new, different one.

Advisor

Fitz Gibbon, Heather

Department

Sociology and Anthropology

Disciplines

Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance | Social Psychology and Interaction

Keywords

Charisma, Leadership, Visionary, Identity

Publication Date

2024

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2024 Colson Rudd