The attribution theory of leadership says that leadership is merely an attribution people make about others. We attribute the following to leaders: intelligence, outgoing personality, strong verbal skills, aggressiveness, understanding, and industriousness. At the organizational level, we tend, rightly or wrongly, to see leaders as responsible for both extremely negative and extremely positive performance. Perceptions of leaders by their followers strongly affect leaders’ ability to be effective.

We also make demographic assumptions about leaders. When identical leadership situations are described but the leaders’ race is manipulated, white leaders are rated as more effective than leaders of other racial groups. One large-scale summary found that many individuals hold stereotypes of men as having more leader characteristics than women, although, as you might expect, this tendency has decreased over time. Attribution theory suggests that what is important is projecting the appearance of being a leader.