. A new study could help us to better understand leadership. It was conducted after several studies of mammalian societies including humans, elephants and meerkats. The topic of leadership has become a hot issue in America, with the Republican and Democratic nominees for the US presidency making headlines every day. In Trends in Ecology & Evolution, the researchers published interesting views on leadership. Jennifer Smith is an assistant professor at Mills College, Oakland, California. She said that while previous research has assumed leadership was somehow more complicated in humans than it is in mammals, this work did not start with that assumption. Image courtesy of Mills College. Photo by Kate Yoshida. “By looking at this issue with an open mind, and using comparable measures to compare vastly differing societies, we discovered more similarities between leaders in humans and those of non-human species.” What are the differences between human and nonhuman leaders? The authors explain that while spotted hyenas work together when hunting, capuchins fight together and chimps go together on trips, it remains a mystery how their leaders encourage these collective actions. It is not known how many human leaders are similar to the heads of mammalian society captains in small scale societies. A team of biologists, psychologists, mathematicians and anthropologists met at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Syntheses to examine the evidence for leadership within four domains. They reviewed data on food acquisition, movement and mediation between groups. People with less control over their groups than non-human mammalian society have more power. They sought to identify five types of leadership: power, emergence, distribution across people, payoff relative to leadership and general across domains. Experience is often the driving force behind leadership. Despite the fact that the presidential primaries are currently underway, the research found that leaders can gain experience in both non-human as well as human societies. There were notable exceptions to the rule, as is often the case with nature. Leadership is more inherited than it is gained by experience, as shown in the Nootka (a native Canadian tribe of human beings). Human leaders may not be as powerful as other mammalian species. Non-human leaders have more control over their groups than human leaders. Professor Smith believes that the similarities are due to cognitive processes that govern dominance, subordination and alliance formation. We are mammals, too, Prof. Smith has said. The difference between human leadership and that of non-humans may be partly explained by the fact that humans have more specific roles in society. Professor Smith said that even in complex societies of humans, collective action can be more important for survival and reproduction. The researchers plan to quantify these dimensions in the next study. They said that there is much more to be learned. Professor Smith stated that, “As challenging as our task was,” we only scratched the surface of characterizing mammalian leadership. The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis funded the study and was supported by The University of Tennessee in Knoxville and The National Science Foundation. Citation: “Leadership within Mammalian Societies – Emergence, Distribution. Power and Payoff” Jennifer E. Smith. Monique Borgerhoff Mulder. Paul L. Hooper. Claire El Mouden. Daniel Nettle. Kim Hill. Susan Perry. Anne E. Pusey. Mark van Vugt. Eric Alden Smith. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. November 6 2015. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2015.09.013. Video: Spotted Hyena social structures Spotted Hyenas are members of clans that have a matriarchal structure. The group’s female head is responsible for the organization.
