LP762-L2 week 3

Leaders perceived as distant and close. Some implications for psychological theory on leadership

Micha Popper Dept. of Psychology, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa, Israel

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 11 February 2011 Received in revised form 24 June 2012 Accepted 30 June 2012 Available online 4 August 2012

This paper deals with some principles derived from the concept of psychological distance, which are relevant to the differential view of distant and close leaders as perceived by the followers. The claim is that psychological distance is a subjective dimension that affects the manner of construal and attributions with regard to leaders. The more distant the leaders in the followers' perception the more they will be construed in abstract categories; more weight will be attributed to them in explaining occurrences of events; the followers will relate more to their traits and less to their behaviors, and will derive from their image more meaning for their own self worth. The theoretical and empirical significance of these arguments is discussed in the paper.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Psychological distance Close and distant leaders

1. Introduction

The question of distance and leadership was discussed in the literature as long as 85 years ago (Bogardus, 1927; Park, 1924). Moreover, even though it was not mentioned explicitly, it is implied in many writings on leadership that distance is an aspect that affects leader–follower relationships. For example, Halpin and Winer's (1957) definition of leader consideration implied that a leader was intimate and close to followers. Also, the scale of individualized consideration in the Full Range Leadership Theory (FLRT) refers to leader behaviors that provide individualized attention to followers, implying leader–followers closeness and intimacy (Bass, 1985, 1998). The issue of distance is also inherent in the Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory, by virtue of the assumption that the quality of relations between leader and followers depends on the mutual fulfillment of contractual obligations (Uhl-Bien, Graen, & Scandura, 2000), an assumption that usually exists with regard to close relationships.

Surprisingly, although the issue of distance in leadership has been mentioned or inherent in leadership writings for close to a century, only recently has it appeared explicitly as a subject that is seen as fundamental to theory and research on leadership and followership (Antonakis & Atwater, 2002; Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009; Antonakis and Jacquart (2012); Cole, Bruch, & Shamir, 2009; Collinson, 2005; Napier & Ferris, 1993; Shamir, 1995; Waldman & Yammarino, 1999).

Antonakis and Atwater (2002) claim that leader distance can be described in terms of three aspects: physical distance, interaction frequency, and social distance (defined as “differences in status, rank, authority, social standing and power, which affect the degree of social intimacy and social contact that develops between followers and their leaders” (Antonakis & Atwater, 2002, p. 282). Indeed, this kind of conceptualization made it possible to consider leader distance in terms of objective measurable variables (Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009; Antonakis and Jacquart (2012)).

Perusal of the literature reveals that the discussion on distance and leadership is complex and even obscure when dealing with the perceptual dimension of the leader's distance as perceived by the followers — a dimension that might be different or more complex than the aspects referred to by Antonakis and Atwater. For example, due to technological changes it is difficult to assume automatically that physical distance necessarily entails less frequency of interaction. It is certainly possible today to maintain frequent contact via the Internet between employees and their superiors on two sides of the ocean (Avolio, Kahai, & Dodge, 2001).

The Leadership Quarterly 24 (2013) 1–8

E-mail addresses: mpopper@psy.haifa.co.il, mpopper65@gmail.com.

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In other words, distance from the leader has a subjective aspect, which can be characterized, as psychological distance. It is this aspect that gives leader distance its elusive nature, which was already identified by the first scholar who dealt with this subject (Park, 1924), who claimed that the essence of the question of distance from the leader is not objective but psychological.” In fact, it is a question of the degree of understanding and intimacy, which characterize personal and social relations “ (p. 339).

Contemporary scholars who have dealt with the question of distance from the leader also adhere to this observation (e.g., Collinson, 2005; Yagil, 1998). Collinson argued that the terms distance and proximity are rather “slippery concepts, difficult to pin down” (p. 244). This slipperiness results from the nature of the concept psychological distance, namely that it is influenced not only by physical distance, frequency of interactions or differences in status and rank but also by other sources such as emotions, manners of construing social information, perceptual biases or attributions. These components are expressed in the followers' descriptions of the leader. For example, Hollander (1978) and Katz and Kahn (1978) claim that in the absence of detailed information exceptional characteristics can be attributed only to distant leaders.

This claim demonstrates that direct contact between follower and leader is a central aspect in the conceptualization of psychological distance. Indeed, this is the basis for defining psychological distance as suggested by Liberman, Trope, and Stephan (2007):

“…In relation to psychological distance, on a single starting point (zero distance point) which is a direct experience of the here and now. Anything else — other times, other places, experiences of other people, and hypothetical alternatives to reality, is a mental construal “ (p.353).

This definition advances the discussion of the concept psychological distance, and has indeed been the basis for many studies on the concept (e.g., Liberman et al., 2007). However, even though this definition appears to cover many, perhaps even most, situations, there are also cases in which there is direct contact between the follower and leader and yet the follower's relationship with the leader can be characterized by a sense of distance. For example, White and Lippit (1968) report that authoritarian leaders who were perceived as aloof were also perceived as distant, whereas those perceived as democratic leaders were perceived as close. This, for example, could be the feeling of a trainee toward the specialist who is training him or her (e.g., an intern in a hospital, a trainee lawyer, or a rookie soldier toward his/her direct commander) (Popper, 2012). This means that in addition to the dimension of degree of direct experience, there is also a dimension of sentiment, which originates in a feeling of awe or respect for the leader who is perceived as older and/or highly experienced or competent (e.g., Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005; Van Vuget, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2008). Thus, leaders can create in the followers a “halo effect” that stems from the follower as subject. This idea is expressed most distinctly by the psychoanalysts who discussed leaders as a “screen of projection”, a “subjective creation” that constitutes a response to the followers' wishes or anxieties (Halpern & Halpern, 1983; Kets De Vries, 1988). This view is most clearly expressed in the existing discussion on perceptions of leaders during times of crisis. Then, some scholars argue, there is a tendency to perceive certain leaders in a projective manner that magnifies them (see, for example, Lipman-Blumen, 2007; Popper, 2001; Volkan, 2004). Hence, it is possible to see that direct experience and other components in the followers' intrapsychic condition (such as anxiety) are the major components in the conceptualization of the term psychological distance. This view defines the discussion in this paper by the following questions:

1. How is the perception of psychological distance from the leader created in the followers? 2. What are the variables that influence the perception of psychological distance from the leader? 3. What are the expressions and the implications derived from the perception of leaders as psychologically close or distant?

These are the questions addressed in the paper and they will be analyzed through the discussion on followers' perceptions of the leader as a type of information that is subjected to construal, inferences and attributions, and these are influenced differentially from psychological distance. Hence, the principles proposed here are universal and the assumption is that they can be used in discussions on context aspects such as leadership in organizations, or in political or social contexts. In other words, these contexts are individual cases, which can be analyzed using the general principles propounded here.

2. Psychological distance and leadership

2.1. Psychological distance and construal

It is argued in studies in social psychology that there is a basic relationship between psychological distance and construal: that is, any distancing (i.e. moving beyond direct experience) involves construal. Construal Level Theory [CLT], Liberman & Trope, 1998), Trope and Liberman (2003) suggest two levels of construal and propose that more distal entities are construed on a higher level, that is, involve more construal. The reason suggested is that as we move away from direct experience of things, we have less information about those things. Thus, we simply know less about distant entities.

The lack of knowledge about the more remote entities, people, events, places, requires that they be represented more abstractly than proximal entities. In other words, an association is formed between psychological distance and level of construal. People typically construe distant entities more abstractly than close ones.

It is also argued that estimations of distance are subjective (Liberman et al., 2007). What determines the level of construal is not the physical distance (measured by meters, for example) but rather, the subjective experience of distance.

Because abstract representations necessarily impose one of many possible alternative interpretations, and because irrelevant or inconsistent details are omitted from the abstract representation or assimilated to it, it may be expected that abstract representations

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will be simpler, less ambiguous, andmore prototypical than concrete representations (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Smith, 1998). Abstraction thus involvesmoving to amore schematic, simple and coherent representation. There aremultiple levels of abstractness, as one could construct less inclusive or more inclusive categories of objects. In feature-based theories of categorization, more inclusive categories have fewer features and therefore are simpler than concrete categories (Rosch & Lloyd, 1978). In the same way, traits form hierarchies; so abstract traits are less detailed about the behaviors, objects, circumstances and people they involve (Hampson, John, & Goldberg, 1986).

This argument was reflected empirically by Shamir (1995) in a study in which the participants were asked to describe two types of leaders: a close leader with whom they had direct contact, and a distant leader with whom they had never had direct contact. A comparative analysis of the frequency and contents of the adjectives used to describe the two types of leaders revealed that the distant leaderswere characterized by fewer adjectives and less daily behaviors than the close leaders. Theywere describedmainly by general traits. As Shamir expressed it, ‘The distant leaders were described as figures “larger than life”’ (p. 23). On the other hand, the close leaders were described by more adjectives and the descriptions were more behavioral.

Thus, on the basis of frequency of construal processes, one may argue that psychological distance influences the extent of abstraction in describing information concerning people, characteristics, or events. Hence, the first proposition is as follows:

Proposition 1. Themore the leader is perceived as distant, themore extensive the abstraction of his/her description. In terms of construal, a leader who is perceived as more distant will be described in less detail than a close leader.

In other words, compared with a close leader, a distant leader will be described by fewer informative categories, and these will be more abstract and generalized (“strong”, “determined”,” brave”). The aspect of the leader as an informative stimulus raises another point that has not yet been discussed directly in the literature on distance and leaders — temporal distance. In this area, too, some principles that were formulated on the basis of studies in social psychology and are particularly relevant to the understanding of inferences concerning distant leaders (Liberman, Sagristano, & Trope, 2002) showed that participants used fewer categories when they imagined objects in a distant future scenario. This finding accords with the CLT assumption that distant future events are represented in terms of relatively high-level abstract categories, whereas near future events are represented in terms of relatively low-level concrete categories. A similar pattern was found with regard to past temporal distance. Semin and Smith (1999) asked participants to recall significant events from either the distant past (at least a year ago) or the recent past (the last twoweeks) and analyzed the abstractness level of the responses. They foundmore abstract language in descriptions of more distant events. On the basis of these studies, the second proposition is:

Proposition 2. The temporally closer the relations with leaders, the more specific the perceptions of them (i.e., more associated with technical or procedural aspects). The further the temporal distance from the leader (e.g., a leader from the distant past, or a distant future leader for whom the people may vote in elections) the more the perception of him/her will be in abstract categories.

The findings with regard to the general principles at the basis of construal processes, and their reference to the discussion on followers' perceptions of close and distant leaders, are also in accord with another category of studies in cognitive psychology —

attribution studies. Therefore, I will examine the issue of distance from the leader through this theoretical prism.

3. Psychological distance and attribution

3.1. Leadership and the fundamental attribution error

As is well known, Heider, who is considered the father of attribution theories, claimed that people coming to explain events formulate attributions which are in fact interpretations of causal relations (Heider, 1944). This point of departure is also relevant to the manner in which leaders are perceived. For example, when people are given the results of task performance in organizations, these results are commonly attributed to the leaders (Lord, Foti, & Devader, 1984), or to leadership styles (Reddin, 1970). In the nature of things, such studies restrict the discussion on attribution mainly to leaders in organizations. There has, indeed, been extensive discussion in the literature on leaders' effectiveness, namely the extent of the leader's influence on organizational effectiveness (Yukl, 1989). Clearly, this discussion is incomplete in that it is directed to a certain organizational context (particularly business organizations) and to leaders in organizations. When we address the fundamental issue of leadership and distance, there is room to formulate more general principles which will refer more explicitly to the general issue of distance and leader, and not only to the organizational context. In other words, it is possible to generate a discussion in which leaders in organizations, as mentioned, are a special case of a general principle.

Social psychology has dealt with general information and perception processing contexts that are relevant to the present discussion. For instance, the research on processes involving psycho-cognitive biases in information processing (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982) includes a discussion that is clearly relevant to the subject of leader and psychological distance. The bias that is known in the literature as the fundamental attribution error (Ross, Amabile, & Steinmetz, 1977) is a clear example of the relevance of general psycho-cognitive principles to the issue of leader distance. The claim is that when individuals are seeking to explain what is happening in a certain situation, they ascribe greater weight to people than to circumstances. From this theoretical viewpoint, political changes and upheavals are reported to be attributed to leaders rather than to complex processes (Calder, 1977; Mazlish, 1984). For example, the upheaval that occurred in the Soviet Union during the 1980s was attributed more to Gorbachev's leadership than to the complex processes that had been taking place gradually overmany years (Westlake, 2000). In fact,

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the fundamental attribution error can be seen as a case of the availability and representativeness heuristics (Kahneman & Tversky, 1972; Tversky & Kahneman, 1973), that is, the tendency of the individual to assess the probability of an event by the easewith which occurrences come to mind. It appears, then, that leadership is the most evident and accessible category of explanation in evaluating and judging informatively complex situations (Lord et al., 1984). The assumption is that psychological distance increases the fundamental attribution error. That is to say, when leaders are more distant, the circumstances in which they function are less clear and familiar to the followers, and the tendency to minimize the weight of the circumstances in interpretation processes is likely to be even more emphasized. Hence, one of the main propositions concerning distant leadership and close leadership in attributions terms is:

Proposition 3. The greater the distance from the leader, the stronger the likelihood of the fundamental attribution error; viz. the followers will attribute greater weight to the leader's personality than to the circumstances unfolding.

3.2. Leadership, psychological distance and attribution of traits and behaviors

Another argument that is often shared by attribution theories is that information is processed on the basis of clues received and interpreted by the individual. These clues are then rounded out to form a general picture of the leader. (Lord et al., 1984; Phillips, 1984). Lord and Maher (1991) argue that: “While leadership perceptions may not be reality, they are used by perceivers to evaluate and subsequently distinguish leaders from non-leaders, or effective from ineffective leaders” (p. 98). In such cases the causality of the outcome is more attributed to leaders' behaviors, whereas in the absence of such information there are more attributions to leaders' personality traits.

Attribution theories have been vague about relationship between causal allocation and trait attribution processes (Basil, 1989). The concept of psychological distance can help to increase the clarity in the discussion on these judgments; it is easier to attribute causality to close leaders (especially when there are many observed behaviors and concrete outcomes. Erickson & Krull, 1999).

In contrast, the behaviors of distant leaders are less observed; hence they do not necessarily “complete” the traits (that is, they do not lead to completion of the interpretation known in the literature as correspondence inference, Erickson & Krull, 1999), and consequently there are more perceptual limitations with regard to the congruence between behaviors and traits in terms of attribution theories (Hamilton, 1988).

This claim is consistent with Kahneman and Tversky's (1972) representative heuristic; namely, the easier it is to imagine the particular link, the more probable the link becomes in the observer's mind, particularly if it is representative of the expected effect (e.g., behaviors and organizational outcomes). It is also congruent with the argument of Hollander (1978) and Katz and Kahn (1978), that exceptional and general characteristics (usually traits) can only be attributed to distant leaders, and with Shamir's (1995) argument that the characteristics attributed to distant leaders are more schema based than those ascribed to close leaders. Thus, a major proposition relating to the clues that help to construct the image of the distant leader as opposed to that of the close leader is:

Proposition 4. The closer the leaders, the more the followers will pay attention to their specific behaviors; and the more distant the leaders, the more the followers will make inferences about their traits.

So far, I have dealt with the first two questions presented in the introduction, that is, the structural and cognitive aspects that characterize information processing regarding distant or close leaders. Now I will proceed to discuss the aspects of contents that leaders may represent according to the followers' perception. This discussion appears to be more relevant to the followers' perception of distant leaders.

4. Leaders as representatives of meaning

The abstraction of information is not merely organization of the information in more inclusive categories. This process also includes giving other or additional meaning; especially relating to information that concerns distant leaders. Eyal, Liberman, Sagristano, and Trope (2006) found that distant future is construedmore in terms of abstract principles than near future. For example, in one study participants read about distant-future and near-future situations that involved an abstract principle or dilemma (e.g., “in a few days / in a few years, the university will be set to increase the number of minority students“) and they were asked to choose a description of this situation in terms either of global principles or lower-level action, devoid of moral implications (e.g., “endorsing affirmative action” vs. “making changes to admission lists”). It was found that distant future situations were perceived in terms of high-level principles more than near future situations. Presumably, principles apply more easily to the distant future, but as the situation gets closer in time, moral issues and ideologies seem to be less central.

As we have seen, there is a similar attitude not only toward information relating to the distant future but also to information from the distant past (Semin & Smith, 1999). This finding, which is relevant to the perception of temporally distant leaders, is clearly demonstrated in relation to historical leaders (Burns, 1978), some of whom are perceived as representing ideological principles, personifying a “story of principle”. For example, iconic leaders like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were objects of considerable controversy while in office. With the passing of time they became myths of principled and moral leadership in the collective memory. (On the mythologization of these leaders, see Schwartz, 1987, 2000).

The mythologization — turning a (temporally distant) leader into a symbolic story — is rooted in certain psychological perspectives that have been discussed extensively in various contexts. One perspective, presented by Bruner (1986), permits conceptualization of the distant leader as a story that makes meaning. Bruner claims that stories are an unparalleled means of

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making meaning. Stories fascinate children; they help them more than any other medium to interpret reality. In this basic sense, the desire for stories and the role of stories in interpreting and shaping reality do not end with childhood. Distant leaders do indeed represent influential stories (Popper, 2012; Shamir, Dayan-Horesh, & Adler, 2005; Shamir & Eilam, 2005).

These arguments are consistentwith the assumptions of somemajor works in social psychology that dealwith the self concept, its origins and expressions (see reviews by Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Markus & Wurf, 1987). In principle, the argument is that people have expressive psychological wishes beyond the existential biological and economic needs (Hogg, 2001; Maslow, 1970; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993), and that attraction to leaders is also rooted in the human need to locate the self in socially recognizable categories in order to derive meaning from being linked to social entities (Shamir, Arthur, & House, 1994). Distant leaders, as Cooley (1964) claims, can serve these functions, that is: “to be a symbol the real question inmind is not somuchwhat are you? aswhat can I believe that you are? How far can I use you as a symbol?" (p. 341). Distant leaders can be transformedmore easily than close leaders into stories and symbols (Popper, 2012).

Finally, these processes lead to another psychological claim, that stories and symbols of leadership (particularly of distant leaders) themselves become input for the creation of schemas, of leadership prototypes (e.g., Phillips, 1984), which are formed in socialization processes when people are exposed, among other things, to various figures of leaders through textbooks, novels, films, and other channels of socialization (Schwartz, 1987). This claim is also consistent with the approaches dealing with long term memory and information processing (McClelland, McNaughton, & O'Reilly, 1995; Semin & Smith, 1999), namely, that past events are gradually moved into a long-term storage system, which uses an abstract, schematic form of information representation.

All these explanations: the tendency to use more ideological principles in describing events from the distant past, the “adoption” of the figure and story of a distant leader in order to strengthen one's self-worth, and the more schematic attitude to information that is a long-term memory, all lead to the next proposition.

Proposition 5. The more distant the leaders (in time) the more they can serve the followers as symbolic representations (compared with close leaders), which are relevant to the followers' construction of their self-worth.

5. Discussion

This paper deals with some psychological principles that are relevant to followers' differential perceptions of distant leaders and close leaders. The claim is that psychological distance is a subjective dimension that affects the manner of relating to leaders. It is suggested that the more distant the leaders are perceived to be, the more the construal will be in general and abstract categories, and the more weight will be attributed to the leaders in explaining the occurrence of events, more attention will be paid to their traits and less to their specific behaviors, and the followers will draw from the figure of the leader more meanings for self worth. To illustrate this argument, I shall analyze leadership in organizations compared with political leadership, which is generally more psychologically distant.

Jacquart and Antonakis (under review) point out that when the followers have information concerning organizational outcomes (success or failure, for example) they attribute the outcome largely to the leaders. In other words, data on effectiveness create inference associative to the leadership. It is easy to see how the inference is generated, since leaders in organizations emphasize proximal, specific goals and increase the subjective likelihood that goal attainment will lead to specific outcomes (Antonakis & Jacquart, 2012; House, 1971). On the other hand, distant leaders such as political leaders (e.g. leaders in election campaigns) emphasize vague and distal goals, articulate ideals and visions (Burns, 1978) and tend to use “symbolism, mysticism, imaging and fantasy” (Bass, 1985, p. 6).

The means of motivation used by close and distant leaders are also different. While distant leaders impact mostly through speeches, presentation of the “right” life-stories (Shamir & Eilam, 2005), execution of symbolic acts (Shamir et al., 1993), thus using symbolic means essentially to link the individual self-concept with broader entities and ideas (Shamir et al., 1993), close leaders impact (usually for performance and subordinates' satisfaction) by rewards. Sims (1977) summarized this rationale by arguing, “a leader is amanager of reinforcement contingencies” (p. 366). Indeed,many of the studies on leadership in organizations actually refer to leadership in terms of instrumental exchange dynamics described in words such as transactional leadership (Bass & Avolio, 2000) or Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). Such distinctions emphasize the behavioral component in the impact of leaders in organizations (e.g., Blake & Mouton, 1964; Fiedler, 1967; Hersey & Blanchard, 1969), The leader, according to this perspective, is an astute diagnostician (Zaccaro, Foti, & Kenny, 1991)whohas a broad and flexible behavioral repertoire enabling him/ her to respond appropriately across a wide array of complex situations (Chatman & Kennedy, 2010; House, 1971).

Bass (1985), following Burns (1978), brought to the attention of social scientists examining leadership psychology the claim that people are prepared to act, and indeed do so, “above and beyond” the expectations existing in the exchange dynamic between leader and followers. People are prepared to make endeavors, and even to risk their lives in a manner that cannot be explained by the commonly used instrumental motivation theories (Shamir et al., 1993). Such behaviors are attributed to leaders characterized as transformational leaders, who were also found to have impact on better outcomes in organizations (Bass, 1998). A review of the studies on transformational leaders in organizations indicates that their impact is based mostly on specific behaviors] (see, for example, the MLQ questionnaire derived from the FLRT (which is apparently the predominant leadership questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 2000). Popper and Mayseless (2003), in comparing characteristics of transformational leaders with parents evaluated as good in developmental psychology studies, found similarity between the two. In both cases those in their charge received benefits that can be expressed mainly in conditions of proximity that typically exists in work places or in family

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frameworks. Moreover, beyond the similarity of variables found in the literature on the two groups, most of the motivating expressions of transformative leaders and of good parents were, as stated, behavioral (Popper & Mayseless, 2003).

The analysis of the followers' inferences and the means of influence used by close and distant leaders indicates that it is possible to distinguish between two paradigms that have to be separated with regard to the theory and research on leadership. One of these is the “effective leader paradigm”, whereby inferences regarding leaders are made in relation to dependent variables of effectiveness (Antonakis & Jacquart, 2012). In the nature of things, this paradigm is particularly relevant to theory and research on leadership in organizations and focuses more on behavioral and outcome variables.

The other paradigm is relevant to situations inwhich it is impossible or extremely difficult to formulate inferences of effectiveness. In otherwords, there is no inference condition for the “effectiveness paradigm”. These situations fall into the category of the paradigm that may be characterized in Meindl's (1995) words as “romance of leadership”, namely the tendency of followers to glamorize the leaders' personality. This means that perception of leaders is not affected by the link between leaders' behaviors and deeds, and outcomes, but rather by the followers' longing and expectations, which are projected, construed or attributed to the leader, irrespective of indications of outcome. In the nature of things this paradigm is more relevant to distant leaders, perhaps especially political leaders and leaders of social and ideological movements.

The suggested distinction between these two basic paradigms has considerable significance for theory and research. The claim is that in the case of close leaders there is more room to pay attention to the leaders and their behaviors (or styles) (as actually happens), while in the case of distant leaders there is more room to pay attention to the followers and their psychological characteristics as a point of departure. Since the second approach is less common, I will examine some of the theoretical and empirical implications of this approach.

5.1. The psychology of the followers

As early as the 1990s, Meindl (1995) claimed that the theories on leadership were too leader-centric and should be more follower-centric (Meindl (1995). There has been growing resonance to Meindl's argument, especially in recent years, and we see more writers dealing with followers as a point of departure for discussion of the leadership phenomenon (Kellerman, 2008; Popper, 2012; Riggio, Chaleff, & Lipman-Blumen, 2008; Shamir, Pillai, Bligh, and Uhl-Bien (2007)). The present paper helps to refine and sharpen Meindl's general, and perhaps sweeping, argument in a more focused manner, attempting to characterize more specifically the conditions in which the psychology of followers is central.

Mayo and Pastor (2007), for example, referred to the phenomenon of social contagion in spreading leadership concepts. These scholars found that leadership concepts develop within social networks in a way that expresses the characteristics of the social network (the followers). This direction indicates the possible role of organizational and national culture in creating leadership concepts, a direction with which the research literature on leadership has dealt extensively in the past two decades (e.g., the GLOBE Project. See Den Hartog, House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, & Dorfman, 1999; Hofstede, 2001). Introducing the dimension of psychological distance into the discussion on leadership gives the intercultural differences dimensions that are more substantive. For example, research on cross-cultural psychology distinguishes between cultures that emphasize the individual's interdependence and interconnectedness with the collective and cultures that emphasize more the individual's independence from others (Markus & Kitayama, 1994). In terms of psychological distance, interdependent cultures may be characterized asmaintainingmore proximity or more intimacy between a person and his or her social surroundings.

Such observations might explain inferences regarding leaders. For instance, according to CLT, in more intimate interdependent cultures, leaders will be construed in low-level construal (e.g., using less abstract categories). This conjecture is consistent with the argument of Nisbett, Peng, Choi, and Morenzayan (2001) that in social interdependence more attention is given to relations and experience based knowledge, whereas social independence gives rise to isolating objects, attending to their attributes, and assigning them to abstract categories.

Finally, the addition of the dimension of time (Proposition 5) to the concept of psychological distance also casts more light on cultural dimensions related to followers' inferences, attributions and construals regarding the leader. This linkage clearly connects concepts such as collective memory and the manner in which it is formed (Halbwachs, 1926/1950), which is an important component in the shaping and characterizing of a national culture, with leadership prototypes, which are culture bound (Dorfman, 1996).

The basic argument, as mentioned, is that people are exposed to leadership figures through channels of cultural history, and this exposure creates engraved images of leadership which have considerable impact on their inferences regarding their leader, especially distant leaders, who are naturally more discussed in the various channels of cultural communication (Popper, 2012).

In this sense, leadership schemas, which are formed in processes of historical time and reflect perceptions of leadership, to a large extent express cultural differences. As Hofstede (1997) claimed, leaders are in fact “culture heroes” (p. 9), and the more distant the leaders are, the more they match this definition; that is, they reflect more the prototype of a certain culture. On the other hand, as suggested, the construals and attributions with regard to close leaders will be more detailed, behavioral and concerned with practices. Therefore, the relations with close leaders will be more universal and naturally will better match the “leadership and effectiveness” paradigm. It appears that expansion of the discussion on psychological distance can add new insights that also include subjects that have already been discussed in the literature (e.g., leaders and intercultural differences). Such a discussion, based on an integrative psychological term, provides a general conceptual scale that can give further insights to the differences that have been presented in the literature but require further exploration in the theoretical psychological sense.

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6. Conclusion

The distinctions between close and distant leaders have some theoretical implications. In the case of close leadership it is suggested that the leaders be placed in the center of the research and analysis, whereas in the case of distant leaders it is recommended that more attention be devoted to exploring the psychology of the followers, namely, their projections, their patterns of construal and attributions as key processes in explaining the image of distant leaders in the eyes of the followers.

These distinctions might also have practical implications. For example, the domain of leadership training and development might also be influenced by these perspectives. For instance, the training of close leaders — those who have direct contacts with their followers — might be oriented toward developing their relevant leadership behaviors. Naturally this kind of training will be largely based on feedback methodologies (Day, 2000). On the other hand, the development of leaders who are distant — who do not have direct contact with their followers — should be based more on knowing and understanding the psychological processes regarding followers' social judgments. This knowledge might help distant leaders to better use means of symbolic manifestations.

Last (but not least) this article illuminates the possibility (and maybe the need) to develop the followers to be aware of biases and unconscious processes that might affect their choices of leaders and their motivation to follow them. Improving the psychological capabilities of followers in choosing their leaders, and examining the limits of their willingness to follow might significantly improve the level of leadership in all spheres.

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