Social class, leaders and leadership: a critical review and suggestions for development

The consideration of social class in leadership research presents many exciting directions for research. In this review, we describe and summarize how social class research has been applied to the study of leaders and the leadership process, noting that while evidence suggests those from higher social classes are more likely to occupy formal leader roles in organizations, there is little evidence suggesting that they are more effective in these roles than those from lower social classes. We conclude with a discussion of important, unanswered theoretical questions about how social class relates to the process of leadership - most notably, whether those from different classes internalize different beliefs and expectations about how people in leader and follower roles should act, and how matches or mismatches in those beliefs and expectations shape leader-follower interactions and outcomes.