For this blog I’m going to look at the leadership style of Jim Jones, leader of the cult The People’s Temple, whose influence forced over 900 people to “drink the Kool-Aid” and commit suicide in November 1978. I will compare Jones’ leadership to the characteristics of transformational leaders (and their followers) outlined in our lesson in order to argue that Jim Jones was an effective transformational leader, despite not being “good.”
Transformational leaders inspire followers to look outside of their personal desires and needs into the needs of the “greater good” (The Pennsylvania State University, 2018). There is no doubt that The People’s Temple followers believed strongly in their greater purpose. In fact, this belief was proven in an extreme way when the followers gave up their own lives, martyring themselves for the larger cause.
One of the characteristics of followers outlined by our lesson is that followers of transformational leaders submit willingly to the leader. In fact, they do so to the point that they set aside their own thinking skills. The People’s Temple followers submitted willingly to Jim Jones, partly because they were dependent on him. Their dependence deepened when Jones moved them all to Guyana, further isolating them from influences (including their own families) that he thought could threaten his psychological and physical hold on his followers (Johnson, 1979).
Good transformational leaders have good rhetorical skills and can appeal to followers at an emotional level (The Pennsylvania State University, 2018). Jones demonstrated his powers to his followers through deceptive tactics through staged miracles and other deceptions (Johnson, 1979). Pretending to cure terrible diseases in followers (like cancer, for example) most certainly appealed to followers on an emotional level and helped reaffirm loyalties to Jones. Successfully convincing his followers that he was Jesus Christ reincarnated probably helped his efforts a good deal as well.
Jones started his movement in California, which was a good choice of location–progressive people who were eager for social change (Johnson, 1979). This was the best choice for Jones’ vision, which was to promote communist social goals. It’s possible that he was able to make communist goals attractive to poor people if the people felt that capitalism was responsible for their lower social standing. Because he had a strong vision for a perfect society, Jones demonstrated the transformational leader characteristic of vision: future-oriented with a desire to change and overcome the problems of the present (The Pennsylvania State University, 2018). To Jones, the problem of the present was capitalism, and the proposed change was communism. Further, it was easy to rally support in a progressive, frustrated, social-change-oriented state like California was in the early 1970s. “Charismatic leaders who are widely admired may be seen as having outstanding qualities which are particularly suited for helping solve the crises of the time” (Johnson, 1979, p.316).
When the group moved to Guyana, everyone was expected to pitch in on the hard work that was required for 900+ people to survive in wilderness: knocking down trees, growing food, building shelters, etc. This demonstrates the situational characteristic of “task interdependence,” whereby part of Jones’ transformational power came from his followers having to work together to complete tasks. Guyana was a paradise for his followers who felt that they could finally create the socialist utopia they had been promised and working so hard to manifest. Here, though, is where Jones’ power started to unravel, as newspapers from home began demanding investigations into the Guyana compound. His solution to this problem, this threat to his power over these people, was to exert more power than ever before–have them all commit mass suicide, giving the ultimate sacrifice for “the cause.”
Jim Jones had charisma and a need to control, a dangerous combination. He used his oratory and interpersonal talents and his transformational leadership skills to manipulate hundreds of people to believe his lies, fall for his stunts, abandon their families, leave their country, and excuse his physical and sexual abuses. Transformational leaders can inspire great things, as evidenced by JFK and MLK (perhaps a clue as to whether someone was a transformational leader is whether you can identify them based on their initials). But, the kind of powerful ability that can inspire people to hold a cause over individual liberties should always be in check.
References:
Johnson, D. (1979). Dilemmas of Charismatic Leadership: The Case of the People’s Temple. Sociological Analysis, 40(4), 315-323. doi:10.2307/3709960
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2018). PSYCH 485 Lesson 10: Power and Influence. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1942231/modules/items/25010877
gbw5049 says
This was an interesting blog post and I appreciate the effort that you put into developing your comments. I think that when I think of leadership it is always from a positive perspective. Leaders try make things better. In some sense of this the followers of Jones probably thought the same thing. Here is our leader trying to make things better. From a societal perspective, however, it was the exact opposite. Jones is universally denounced and abhorred by many due to his actions but your post does make a few good points that within his group he was seen as a savior of sorts.
Leadership on a basic level is thought of as the influence someone has over someone or group of people motivating them towards a common goal (Northouse, 2016). The darker side of leadership is usually seen with individuals like Jones, Hitler, or Stalin. They are the antagonists of history that are used to show the dangers of following the wrong person. You mentioned that in California during the 1970’s individuals were eager to create social change and be involved in a movement. This vulnerability was clearly exploited by Jones and likely most transformational leaders attempting to gain power over others.
This topic for me, brings up more questions about how we define and perceive leadership as a whole. The difficulties in viewing leadership in an unbiased light and breaking it down to emotionless factors or characteristics regardless of motivation seems like a difficult task. Being able to call Hitler a great leader feels wrong in a way but using the bare qualifications of leadership it is clear that he was very inspirational and able to achieve his goals, for the most part. In all I think that it is an interesting dichotomy because most if not all followers believe in the leader and their intent on doing what is right but the outside world can perceive the leader and followers very differently.
Thank you for your post.
Grayson
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice. Seventh Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Lilian De Sousa Rego says
The pseudotransformational leadership is so powerful as the transformational leadership itself.
When a transformational leader turns his leadership to the dark side it’s hard for the followers to notice because of the amount of respect, trust and devotion they have towards their leader. “A pseudotransformational leader has a strong inspirational talent and appeal but is manipulative and dominates and directs followers toward his or her own values”(Northouse, 2016, page 163).
The persuasion power of pseudotransformational leadership is amazing. In your blog post, you exposed Jim Jones and the outcome of his followers in 1978, and how he was able to convince 900 people to commit suicide, as per Northouse toxic leaders leave a path of destruction and don’t respect the human rights of its followers (Northouse, 2016, 339).
In our present time, we have so much access to information about our emotions, ethics, and behavior, that it is hard to believe that such persuasion still takes place and so many people live under oppression and fear.
As a matter of fact being smart and successful, it is not an antidote against the emotional dependency created towards a specific leader. In the United States, we have recent cases that were denounced involving including the actress Allison Mack “Former Smallville actress is ‘second in command of sex cult under investigation for extorting, beating and branding its members – including Catherine Oxenberg’s daughter’”(Daily Mail). The actress used her position and popularity to influence and recruit members to the cult which was primarily presented as a “help group”.
Another trending case of pseudotransformational leadership is the one presented by the actress Leah Remini about the Scientology abusive power towards its members. Leah Remini currently has a television show where she shares her experience as a former Scientologist and describes the aftermath of being under a pseudotransformational leadership for such a long time.
Gladly Leah Remini was able to get out before it was too late for her, she emerged as a leader in building a case against Scientology and she is proving to have great leadership characteristics, she is self-confident, intelligent and determined to expose all the dark side in the Scientology. Hopefully, she will be able to help many others to regain their psychological freedom.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications
https://www.aetv.com/shows/leah-remini-scientology-and-the-aftermath
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5063683/Former-Smallville-actress-second-command-sex-cult.html