Eye gaze and visual attention as a window into leadership and followership: A review of empirical insights and future directions

Joey T. Cheng*, Fabiola H. Gerpott, Alex J. Benson, Berno Bucker, Tom Foulsham, Tessa A.M. Lansu, Oliver Schülke, Keiko Tsuchiya

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

Illuminating the nature of leadership and followership requires insights into not only how leaders and followers behave, but also the different cognitions that underpin these social relationships. We argue that the roots of leader and follower roles and status asymmetries often lie in basic mental processes such as attention and visual perception. To understand not only how but also why leaders’ and followers’ behavioral patterns vary, we focus here on underpinning attentional processes that often drive rank-based behaviors. Methodologically, this focus on basic attentional and perceptual processes lessens the reliance on self-report and questionnaire-based data, and expands our scientific understanding to actual, real-world leadership dynamics. Here, we review the available evidence indicating that leaders and followers differ in whether and how they receive, direct, and pay visual attention. Our review brings together diverse empirical evidence from organization science, primatology, and social, developmental, and cognitive psychology on eye gaze, attention, and status in adults, children, and non-human primates. Based on this review of the cross-disciplinary literature, we propose future directions and research questions that this attention-based approach can generate for illuminating the puzzle of leadership and followership.

Original languageEnglish
Article number101654
Pages (from-to)1-19
Number of pages19
JournalLeadership Quarterly
Volume34
Issue number6
Early online date27 Dec 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank our editor Dr. Donald Hambrick and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper. We also extend our gratitude to Sophia Shi, Yumna Ikram, and Adrian Torres for their excellent research assistance. This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (File No. 430-2020-00814) awarded to J. T. Cheng and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG; File No. SFB 1528 – Cognition of Interaction, project A03) awarded to O. Schülke.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Funding

We thank our editor Dr. Donald Hambrick and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper. We also extend our gratitude to Sophia Shi, Yumna Ikram, and Adrian Torres for their excellent research assistance. This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (File No. 430-2020-00814) awarded to J. T. Cheng and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG; File No. SFB 1528 – Cognition of Interaction, project A03) awarded to O. Schülke.

FundersFunder number
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada430-2020-00814
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftSFB 1528
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

    Keywords

    • Attention
    • Eye gaze
    • Followership
    • Group dynamics
    • Leadership

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