Social Identity Leadership in Canada: The Impact of Group Identity and Individual Prototypicality on Leadership Attainment.

This article examines the applicability of identity leadership theory (ILT) to understanding why certain individuals become successful political leaders in Canada, focusing on the initial electoral appeals of two Alberta premiers, William Aberhart (1935) and Peter Lougheed (1971). ILT posits that leaders succeed by presenting themselves as prototypical members of a social group and aligning their agendas with the group's collective identity. The study finds that neither Aberhart nor Lougheed clearly met these ILT conditions: Aberhart's appeal incorporated Albertan group identity but lacked personal prototypicality, while Lougheed's campaign was technocratic with minimal identitarian framing. The findings suggest that ILT alone does not decisively explain leadership attainment in these cases, indicating that other political, contextual, and movement-specific factors played more significant roles, and that ILT's relevance may vary depending on the sociopolitical context and leader strategies.