You might think being acknowledged as a leader has to do with your intelligence or even your natural charisma. But a new study suggests otherwise. According to the study, quantity far outpaces quality when it comes to communication that convinces others that you are leadership material. Research has dubbed the findings the "babble hypothesis" of leadership, since it suggests that the key to being regarded as a leader is to talk a lot, regardless of whether anything you say is useful or even relevant.
If you want to become a leader, start yammering. It doesn’t even necessarily matter what you say. New research shows that groups without a leader can find one if somebody starts talking a lot. This phenomenon, described by the “babble hypothesis” of leadership, depends neither on group member intelligence nor personality. Leaders emerge based on the quantity of speaking, not quality.
Researcher Neil G. MacLaren, lead author of the study published in The Leadership Quarterly, believes his team’s work may improve how groups are organized and how individuals within them are trained and evaluated. “It turns out that early attempts to assess leadership quality were found to be highly confounded with a simple quantity: the amount of time that group members spoke during a discussion,” shared MacLaren, who is a research fellow at Binghamton University.
While we tend to think of leaders as people who share important ideas, leadership may boil down to whoever “babbles” the most. Understanding the connection between how much people speak and how they become perceived as leaders is key to growing our knowledge of group dynamics.
Reading this I can't help but think of what goes on in a lot of occult discussion groups online. People who post a lot and get into a lot of online arguments tend to develop followings, while those of us who avoid much of that often find our work ignored. To be clear, I'm not saying that the more vocal folks have nothing useful to share, but rather than they tend to attract people regardless of whether or not they really do.
So that at least bears pointing out - don't assume that because somebody has a big following their work must necessarily be good. It might be, but if they are also the sort of person who gets into it with everybody on social media and is always posting, they might only have a following because of that. As is usually the case with magick, always do your own experiments so can you know firsthand what works best.
Brilliant post! Reverence!
ReplyDeleteAlso, if I may, don't be af aid to speak your mind in front of online posers. They and their followers might very well scold you, but it's merely their ignorance talking :)
Well, I am not in the least afraid to speak my mind when the right situation presents itself. I just am entirely unwilling to get into the tit-for-tat nonsense I sometimes see discussions devolving into, especially online. I state my position and leave it be.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean that someone just need to appear like he s talking
ReplyDeletesomething so people think he s on something!I read also that if someone s babbling but appear he s on something or mystifing stuff other people don t want to appear stupid.
I have no idea what the mechanism behind this is, or why people react the way they do as far as attributing leadership qualities to anybody who's really vocal. It might have something to do with people assuming they must know what they're talking about. It also might have to do with confident people speaking more and confidence being associated with leadership, whether or not competence comes with it. We probably need more research to work some of those details out.
ReplyDeleteFrom my studies so far people in general are weak and self-doubtful. They need someone to look up to and "lead" them in some direction, any direction. This is because they lack a direction in the first place. They're to lazy and/or scared to take any chances because that means having to take responsibility for their actions later on. But if someone were to "lead" them then they'd simply point the finger at that person in the end saying "N told me to do that" thinking they'd get away with it. Think of totalitarianism in the past. Not every German was fond of Hitler, for instance, but it was more convenient to say Hitler did it in the end.
ReplyDeleteI think the same applies in other areas of life on a smaller or larger scale. So if someone were to speak up against such a "leader figure" the fan base would react and scold that person because how dare they contradict the one who's giving them meaning.
One of the reasons I left social media behind is because of that. It's useless to look my out such a leader figure is wrong because barely anyone would listen. And I'm saying this with respect to being major wrong and making over the top statements that are hilarious because they're based on lack of knowledge and experience, being simply based on personal imagination or something. And I got bored with flipping people off anyway :)
There was one time where I happened to succeed in this, but the circumstances made it highly favourable. Back before the Clinton vs Trump elections some American rapper with a huge fanbase posted a thread saying people outside the US should stfu when it comes to US elections because they have no right to talk about them or even be interested in them. The thread received a great amount of applause, but at the same time people from other countries started reacting to it only to find themselves being scolded and even verbally abused by the guy and his American fanbase. I simply commented something along the lines of "people all over have every right to talk about the US elections especially if the US have military bases in their countries". This created a shockwave and more and more people had the guts to speak up. The guy said nothing to that comment of mine and neither did his fanbase, but a few hours later he deleted the message bread altogether and never spoke about it ever since.
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ReplyDeleteFor some reason I pressed Publish by mistake on my phone before finishing the previous comment.
ReplyDeleteThe point is people in the occult are doing a great amount of wrong to themselves imo for being groupies. I mean it's nothing wrong with appreciating someone. I too liked that rapper very much, but I found out early on in my life the person themselves can be very different from what they're doing regardless of whether they're an athlete, politician, artist and so on, even an occultist. But I noticed people in general don't make this difference and associate the person with their professional skills or something. So it simply doesn't amaze me to hear well known actors who come across as being very charming and decent in interviews to be real assholes in their personal lives for instance.