A Matter of Style? The Impact of Leader Types on Internal and External Success of Party Leaders

Despite all the debates about party decline, party membership remains relevant for both individuals and parties. Traditional, formal party membership has even gained in importance recently as intra-party democracy (IPD) has expanded; in Germany, for example, membership numbers are on the rise. Political parties are thus undergoing change, but their role as membership parties has by no means been undermined. At the same time, we are witnessing a need for parties to become more professional and personalised in order to be able to operate effectively in a competitive environment. Party leaders therefore have a decisive role to play, both in terms of their leadership role internally and usually as the most visible representatives externally. In this vein, party leaders can lead in different ways. A previous study by Minas (2026, publication in process), based on a large-scale survey of more than 22,000 party members in Germany, identified three ideal-typical leader profiles: the Political Media Idol (charismatic, media-oriented, symbolically and communicatively powerful), the Trust Beacon (authentic, empathetic, value-based, and trust-centred), and the Smart Commander (strategically adept, analytically oriented, decisive, and policy-competent). Overall, the findings indicate that these leader styles are closely linked to distinct models of party organisation and internal order within democratic party structures. In this conference contribution, we will build on this typology. We will analyse the effects of these different styles of party leadership on the internal and external success of party leaders. We argue that party leaders do have the choice how to lead – and that this decision will make a difference on their individual success, whereby the party organisational side (party-organisations role) and the public side (electoral role) must be differentiated. For our framework, we refer to three central strands of leadership, party and electoral behaviour literature in an integrated conceptual approach. We will use the three leader types (Minas 2026) to explain the success of party leaders both as heads of their organisation and as top candidates (electoral leaders). Crucially, given the substantial differences between party members and voters in terms of roles, ideological consolidation and expectation structures, we expect leadership styles to vary in their effectiveness depending on whether success is measured in organisational leadership or electoral performance. Empirically, we will conduct initial empirical analyses at the national and subnational levels in Germany to validate the explanatory approach. Therefore, we will identify real types of party leadership patterns in accordance to the ideal types and will analyse to which extent these real types can explain the success of party leaders. Germany is an ideal frame for the analysis due to its legalistic party culture, the high importance of party leaders, formal party membership, the expansion of internal party democracy, and the central position of membership parties in party competition.