The application of “The Looking Glass Self” to leadership development

Abstract

This article introduces “The Looking Glass Self” as one of the widely discussed sociological concepts in academic settings across cultures. It proffers the argument that “The Looking Glass Self” could be experimented with as an approach to leadership development in the formal sector or private organization. It opines that in the context of “The Looking Glass Self” followers act as the “mirror” in which a leader must imagine how he/she appears in the eyes of followers, how he/she is evaluated based on followers’’ observation and perceptions, and how the feedbacks that comes from observation and perceptions can help influence the development of a leader’s sense of self. It employs the competency model and the values model as the theoretical framework that guided the study. Regarding the methodology, the qualitative approach was used to explore this topic. Precisely, it employs content analysis of relevant documents, articles, or papers as a source of the data from the Google search engine. The paper concludes that although followers’ perception plays one of the main roles in leadership development, it all depends on how leaders interpret their followers’ perceptions. The article recommends that as an experimental concept, “The Looking Glass Self” could be inculcated or infused into a leadership development training module.

Keywords: Followers, influence, leaders, mirror, perception.