Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The Leadership Quarterly journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/leaqua Full Length Article What do the followers want?: The core functions of leadership M. Ghufran Ahmad a, ⁎ , Christoph Loch b a Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan b Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Introduction There are many leadership models, which partially contradict one another and may fail. For example, charismatic leadership, a widely usedmodel(Yukl,2013),hasbeenfoundtobecomeroutinized(Trice& Beyer, 1986) and fail on many occasions (Conger, 1990; O'Connor, Mumford,Clifton,Gessner,&Connelly,1995).Onelikelyreasonofthe failure is mismatch between the needs of the followers (or an organi- zation or a society) and the design features of a particular leadership model. The mismatch is likely to arise when one fails to ask a funda- mentalquestion:whatwasthemodeldesignedtodeliver?Ischarisma required for its own sake, or are leaders performing the functions that are needed by the followers? Diferent leadership models prescribe diferent functions, some of which do not overlap (Burke et al., 2006; Lord, 1977; Yukl, 2013; Zaleznik, 1977). Thus, the question arises whether there are any essential functions of leadership which explain its universal presence (Brown, 1991)andnecessity(Bennis, 2007)? In this experimental study, 1 we frst identify two important social needsofthefollowersthatrequireleadership:(a)whenteammembers needtocoordinatetheiractionstoreachacollectivegoal,and(b)when they need to cooperate to achieve a goal, requiring that they resolve conficts of interests. Second, we investigate the efectiveness of lea- dershipinsuchsituations.Inexaminingleadershipfromtheperspective offollowers,werespondtothecallsforstudyofleadershipthroughthe reversedlensoffollowers(Bligh,2011; Carsten,Uhl-Bien,West,Patera, &McGregor,2010; Uhl-Bien,Riggio,Lowe,&Carsten,2014).Ourstudy contributes to the leadership literature in three ways: a) we study the demand for leadership from an evolutionary perspective, in contrast with most leadership studies which focus on traits, behaviors, efects, andstylesofleaders,b)wedevelopaunifed framework and research design that integrates diferent strategic games, and c) we compare leadership with other alternatives as responses to strategic situations across a variety of incentive structures. Leadersinmoderncomplexorganizationsareexpectedtopossessa suiteofpersonalitytraits(Zaccaro,Kemp,&Bader,2004),changestyles tosuitsituations(Vroom&Jago,2007),andperformamyriadofroles (Kets de Vries, 2007). We argue that from the point of the origin of leadership in the history of our species, achieving coordination and cooperation among individuals and organizational units are the two most formidable challenges that made leadership necessary from fol- lowers' point of view. Lawrence and Lorsch (1967, p. 142) call these activities integration, defned as “the achievement of unity of efort amongthemajorfunctionalspecialistsinabusiness”.Inspiringvisions, sharedvalues,charisma,rewardsystems,andotherinfuenceprocesses described in the major leadership models are the tools designed to achieve functional integration and may be used when necessary. Coordination involves concerted (mutually consistent) action by twoormoreindividualstoachieveaparticularoutcome.Coordination problems are prevalent in social, economic, and organizational activ- ities(Friedman, 1992; Schelling, 1960).Cooperationissuesarisewhen there are conficts of interest, when individuals can beneft from the actions of others without carrying their share of the cost; social di- lemmas such as the public goods dilemma and the common resource dilemma, represent cooperation issues (Komorita & Parks, 1996). Col- lective existence becomes difcult unless these problems are solved, and scholars from many disciplines have argued that leadership plays animportantroleintheresolutionoftheseproblemsforthefollowers. Wenowreviewextantresearchoncoordinationandcooperationissues andtheroleofleadership,beforedescribingtheexperimentalstudyand its results. Leadership theory and hypotheses Leadership and coordination Coordination problems are challenging to resolve (Camerer, 2003; Schelling, 1960) and are a major topic of research in economic and organizational decision making (Friedman, 1992; Shapira, 1997). Calvert (1992) and Foss(2001) haveproposedleadershipasasolution totheproblemsofcoordination,andtheefectiveness of leadership in resolution of coordination problems has been studied by Weber, Camerer,Rottenstreich,andKnez(2001).Leadership,defnedthisway, impliescoordinationofgroupactivity;yetcoordinationproblemshave mainlybeeninvestigatedbyeconomistsratherthansocialpsychologists https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.04.003 Received31May2018;Receivedinrevisedform10April2019;Accepted27April2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ghufran.ahmad@lums.edu.pk (M.G. Ahmad), c.loch@jbs.cam.ac.uk (C. Loch). 1 Wedonotpresentageneraltheoryofleadership.Instead,wefocusonsomeimportantevolutionaryfunctionsofleadershipwhichmeettheneedsofthefollowers andhowdiferentenvironmentsmayresultintheexerciseofdiferent forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 1048-9843/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: M. Ghufran Ahmad and Christoph Loch, The Leadership Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.04.003