Uncovering Leaders’ Identity Processes Through the Use of Natural Language Processing

It is well known that leaders face a potent mix of elevated expectations, high visibility, and high levels of responsibility (Kark et al., 2022). This could make the transition from a regular employee role to a leadership role particularly challenging. Furthermore, transitioning into a leadership role may instigate the development of a leader identity (Epitropaki et al., 2017), with feelings of impostorism likely to occur in the early stages of the leadership tenure (Kark et al., 2022).   

The traditional way to study transitions to a leadership role within management research has been through interviews or surveys (Conger, 1998). While useful, these methods rely on people’s self-reports and, hence, may be prone to desirability biases (Phillips, 1973). To mitigate these limitations, recent advances in AI and natural language processing have enabled researchers to study people’s language use in various naturalistic situations.

Research Objectives

Using natural language processing, this IAS/@FlourishDurham project aims to explore whether new leaders display differences in their language use (e.g., looking at language related to leader identity and impostorism) as a result of being promoted to a leadership role, and how these unfold over time. Principal Investigator, Dr Matt Sjoberg, has received access to a one-of-a kind large dataset from Reddit. This large dataset contains 218,942 comments from users which would enable the project team to detect small changes in their language use as a result of transitioning into a leadership role. Relatedly, the project will explore if it is possible to predict an employee’s transition to a leadership role by studying small changes in their language use. Recent research has suggested that tiny changes in a person’s language may predict future events in their lives. For example, Seraj et al. (2021) looked at Reddit posts among people going through a romantic breakup and found that it was possible to see changes in a person’s language use after going through the breakup (e.g., increase in the use of I-words). This points to the importance of natural language processing in picking up on psychological and social changes in a person’s life.

Interdisciplinarity

The project draws on expertise from three departments: Management and Marketing, Psychology, and Computer Science. h

Innovation

This project builds on the Dr Sjoberg's current work on leader identity processes and impostorism within the Centre for Leadership and Followership at Durham University Business School. His work is funded by a multi-year external research grant from the US Army Research Institute (PIs: Professor Susanne Braun and Professor Olga Epitropaki), involving a international research network of collaborators in the UK, US, and Israel. However, this project extends beyond the original grant. It expands the research by incorporating recent advances in AI and natural language processing to better understand what goes on in the minds of new leaders.

References

Conger, J. A. (1998). Qualitative research as the cornerstone methodology for understanding leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 9(1), 107-121.

Epitropaki, O., Kark, R., Mainemelis, C., & Lord, R. G. (2017). Leadership and followership identity processes: A multilevel review. Leadership Quarterly, 28, 104-129.

Kark, R., Meister, A., & Peters, K. (2022). Now you see me, now you don’t: A conceptual model of the antecedents and consequences of leader impostorism. Journal of Management, 48(7), 1948-1979.

Phillips, D. L. (1973). Abandoning method. Jossey-Bass.