Leadership Studies Commons^™

Self-Directed Universalists: Social Heroes And Value-Oriented Challenges To Authority, Michael Condren

Heroism Science

This study investigates the role of values in the actions of social heroes, which previous research has suggested may play a role in motivating principled challenges to authority. Kelman and Hamilton’s (1989) orientation to authority framework was used to identify when value-oriented challenges to authority – suggestive of later social heroism – first emerged in their lives, and the values associated with those behaviors. Analyses of archival interviews with 15 leaders of a social activist group found that all participants acted on a value orientation to authority, and they considered these actions to be important experiences in their development as …