I've often seen that people who tend to talk first and more often start getting followed around by the group, and they more easily accept what he or she is proposing as the next action. It helps to have a strong personality, too.
People seem to be more willing to follow a strong direction even if it's wrong, than a weak one, even if it's the right one. That's because our brains associate confidence in something as being right. It's like a default for us: when in doubt, go with the most confident one. And we're most of the time in doubt.
But we usually go with it even if our gut instinct tells us otherwise, so it seems confidence overpowers gut instinct (which is just a way for your subconscious to calculate the decision in a split second, based on knowledge present in our brains and on our past experiences).
If we think of that person as an authority in a certain field, we also tend to think they are right more, even outside their own field of expertise.
There appears to be an obsession with leaders and leadership in American corporate/political culture. I would like to understand it better. Can someone explain it to me?
America has enormous disparities in terms of wealth and power. If you're not a leader then there's a good chance that you won't be able to get good healthcare, you won't be able to afford enough food or at least enough nutritious food, your kids won't get a good education, no one will respect you, you're much more likely to end up in prison, and you're very likely to have a shorter and less happy life in general. Thus there are a lot of people who are obsessed with trying to figure it how to become leaders, because the stakes are pretty high.
In short, if you're not management then most likely this is a fairly accurate description of your life: http://bit.ly/qVqbOb. Imagine being 50 and not being allowed to use the bathroom without asking, not being trusted to use the cash register, being watched by video cameras constantly, etc. That's what the life of the average American is like.
I think that's a bit on the dramatic side of things. Most people with a desk job can afford all of the things you mentioned (which doesn't necessarily mean they're going to buy them, like nutritious food). You don't have to be management to be able to use the restroom at your convenience -- I've never been in management, but I've never had a desk job where I explicitly had to ask before I got up to use the bathroom. I just went to the bathroom.
You are exaggerating quite a lot here. There is some distinction between peons and management but in general it's mostly a status/mental thing, not a necessities-of-life thing. In the office, advancement and accomplishment is made by politics and promotion. It's not like a construction worker who can survey his work site and visibly see the progress he made; in an office-centric culture, people want to get into management because management equates with much-needed validation that you're actually doing something valuable. If you are made a manager, it means your managers think you're cool enough to join the manager club. And, again, in an office-centric environment, politics play a heavier role than they reasonably should.
Leaders set the direction and the tone of the organization. In a previous career, I was in the Navy. When our Commanding Officer (CO) changed, it was clear that leaders can dramatically affect their teams. We went from an A- CO to a C- CO who ran our submarine around, but who was then replaced by an A+ CO. Seeing all of that happen across 6 months convinced me that leaders are very important.
Some thoughts on that, not proven by anything that I know of:
People who desperately want to be a leader are rarely suited for it. They tend to hunger for power, rather than feel the need to help the group. It's possible they are competent, but more likely that they will use the group to suit their own ends, rather than working for the group.
People get jealous easily. If someone asks to be leader and gets it, others may feel jealous. If the leader is chosen randomly, it's harder to be jealous, since it was obviously fairly done.
I think regardless of the reasons why, people who want to be leaders, on the whole, clearly shouldn't be. Since these people comprise a small subset of the total of all people, simply choosing randomly will tend to not choose them. I doubt it has to do anything with fairness.
Maybe "leaders" aren't as necessary as people think, and actually are a drain on productivity.
My $0.02 - Leaders are born and their skills are hewn over time through experience. Its more 'natural selction' then random selection as the author suggests that brings leaders into their natural position.
People seem to be more willing to follow a strong direction even if it's wrong, than a weak one, even if it's the right one. That's because our brains associate confidence in something as being right. It's like a default for us: when in doubt, go with the most confident one. And we're most of the time in doubt.
But we usually go with it even if our gut instinct tells us otherwise, so it seems confidence overpowers gut instinct (which is just a way for your subconscious to calculate the decision in a split second, based on knowledge present in our brains and on our past experiences).
If we think of that person as an authority in a certain field, we also tend to think they are right more, even outside their own field of expertise.