All Things to All People? Leadership Rhetoric, Conflicting Demands and the Influence of Leadership Style

As the utility of mass parties as aggregators of public opinion declines, it is commonly argued that leaders have come to ‘stand-in’ for parties in signalling directions and attracting voter support. Thus politics is personalised, and ‘mediatisation’ is said to have turbo-charged the trend. Effective communication is integral to the leadership repertoire; and essential to leader survival. What is less commonly analysed are the contradictory—in some cases incommensurable—imperatives that must be rhetorically managed by contemporary leaders. First, and above all, a leader must appeal for public support. But, second, survival also depends upon speaking to and for the party base, which may cling to values and opinions demonstrably at odds with majority opinion. And third, as mass parties wane in majoritarian systems and legislatures come to encompass minor parties and independents, a leader may have to mollify the party base as well as members of the cross benches and build coalitions if legislation is to be passed. This paper analyses contemporary cases of leaders who have concentrated on (or whose skills are closely aligned with) one of these imperatives, only to fail on others, undermining their command of the leadership repertoire. It finds a close alignment with familiar models of leadership styles: psychological proclivities favor particular skills and competence in responding to particular imperatives. But the capacity effectively to orchestrate all three imperatives is rare indeed and often fleeting at best. Has rhetorical leadership become an impossible task?