Party Leaders

Party Leaders were first described by Burns (1978), as one of his five types of transactional leaders.  The other four leadership styles include group leaders, legislative leaders, executive leaders, and opinion leaders.  Party leaders are political leaders that represent a particular political party.  For example, we can have democrats versus republicans.

Party leaders protect their own interests, and establish the expectations in the followers that their interests will be protected too.  This results in the followers rallying behind the party leaders, and creating a larger social resource available to the politician.

Although many of the examples that Burns used for party leaders were from the U.S. democracy, corporations can also have party leaders.  For example, company and labor union representatives during contract negotiations will bargain and compromise to move from deadlocked positions.