TY - JOUR

T1 - Leadership legitimacy and the mobilisation of capital(s)

T2 - disrupting politics and reproducing heteronormativity

AU - Stead, Valerie

AU - Elliott, Carole

AU - Gardiner, Rita

PY - 2021/12/1

Y1 - 2021/12/1

N2 - The rise of populist leaders in the political sphere mounts a challenge to normative understandings of leadership. To better understand this challenge, we examine how political leaders mobilise different forms of social capital in pursuit of leadership legitimacy, providing insight into the dynamics of how leadership norms are maintained. While research has tended to focus on specific forms of capital, this article considers capital as multi-dimensional and strategically mobilised. The article applies a multimodal analysis to examine interactions between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during peak ‘Twitter Moments’ of the three 2016 presidential election debates. We theorise the paradoxical dynamics of the mobilisation of multiple capitals and their intersection as a simultaneously disruptive and reproductive resource. While the mobilisation of multiple capitals operates to disrupt traditional notions of who can claim legitimacy as a leader in the political field, their disruptive mobilisation serves to reproduce implicit heteronormative leadership values. Hence, our theorisation illuminates the resilience of implicit leadership values, and their intimate connection with heteronormativity, calling for the need to interrogate leadership legitimacy claims that promise ‘new’ approaches.

AB - The rise of populist leaders in the political sphere mounts a challenge to normative understandings of leadership. To better understand this challenge, we examine how political leaders mobilise different forms of social capital in pursuit of leadership legitimacy, providing insight into the dynamics of how leadership norms are maintained. While research has tended to focus on specific forms of capital, this article considers capital as multi-dimensional and strategically mobilised. The article applies a multimodal analysis to examine interactions between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during peak ‘Twitter Moments’ of the three 2016 presidential election debates. We theorise the paradoxical dynamics of the mobilisation of multiple capitals and their intersection as a simultaneously disruptive and reproductive resource. While the mobilisation of multiple capitals operates to disrupt traditional notions of who can claim legitimacy as a leader in the political field, their disruptive mobilisation serves to reproduce implicit heteronormative leadership values. Hence, our theorisation illuminates the resilience of implicit leadership values, and their intimate connection with heteronormativity, calling for the need to interrogate leadership legitimacy claims that promise ‘new’ approaches.

KW - Leadership

KW - legitimacy

KW - capital

KW - multimodal

KW - heteronormativity

U2 - 10.1177/17427150211018314

DO - 10.1177/17427150211018314

M3 - Journal article

VL - 17

SP - 693

EP - 714

JO - Leadership

JF - Leadership

SN - 1742-7150

IS - 6

ER -