Past Educational Context and Legitimacy of Leadership Styles at the Workplace

Introduction: This research examines the role of past school socialization on the dynamics of social influence at work. Aim: Our goal is to explore whether the employees educated during the Communist era in Albania would consider an authoritarian leadership style at work more legitimate and be more influenced by it, whereas employees educated after the Communist era would consider a democratic leadership style more legitimate and be more influenced by it. Methods and Results: Adapting a procedure originally designed to measure the role of beliefs on the dynamics of influence within an ideal group of friends ( Mugny et al., 1997 ), the results showed that employees’ beliefs about legitimate authoritarian leaders are influenced by past educational context. Furthermore, it demonstrates that a legitimate leadership style yields greater influence than an illegitimate style when the leader’s persuasive message corresponds to employees’ beliefs. Conclusions: This research indicates that examining effective leadership within a society benefits from understanding past socialization, especially regarding leading figures.