Adapting the full-range leadership model to the study of political leaders across time and regime type: a case study of Venezuela

Abstract

The political science discipline lacks a comprehensive model of leadership through which to conduct the systematic analysis of political leaders. This is surprising given the critical impact that political leaders have on all sectors of society. The management discipline, however, has multiple leadership models that could be adapted for the analysis of political leaders. This thesis addresses the absence of a systematic model of leadership in the study of political leaders by modifying the full-range leadership model utilised in management studies. When this model is applied in the realm of political science it facilitates analysis of both different styles of political leadership and the influence of political regime type in enabling or constraining leadership behaviour. This thesis also adopts a defining moments lens to provide focus for data collection. Such a lens has been utilised by other studies of leadership in the private sector. However, its application in political science is undeveloped.

Venezuela provides an ideal case study to test how the full-range leadership model can be adapted to a political context, involving comparison of presidents across differing times and three distinct regime types: authoritarian, democratic and hybrid. From applying the full-range leadership model and defining moments framework, four key contributions emerged. First, the full-range leadership model was expanded to include a broader range of leadership styles to facilitate a deeper analysis. Second, the examined presidents from democratic and hybrid regime types were shown to predominantly utilise a hybrid leadership style approach, indicating that the ethical foundation of the regime type was not the most influential factor in the presidents’ choices of leadership style in defining moments. Third, the defining moments of the examined presidents were interconnected and served as a legitimating force for their leaderships. Fourth, in looking forward, the research suggested that a focus on the outcomes of the leadership style, rather than the ethical foundation of the leadership style in itself, was a more useful focus for the study of political leaders.