Both loved and despised: Uncovering a process of collective contestation in leadership identification
通过分析詹姆斯·梅雷迪斯在1960年代高等教育种族融合中的领导力，发现领导身份构建不仅需要社会认可，还伴随着社会争议，反对者的集体仇恨同样塑造了领导风格。
Our critical examination of James Meredith’s leadership during the racial integration of higher education in the early 1960s reveals an important, missing companion to social endorsement in the leadership construction process: social contestation. Through the lens of moral conviction theory and using a combined ANTi-History/Microhistorical method, we analyzed over 250 letters written to James Meredith by opponents undergoing a process of social identification leading to collective hate and opposition of Meredith’s defiance to racial norms. Their shared moral conviction that what Meredith was doing was ‘evil’ worked in conjunction with the collective social endorsement of supporters to cement Meredith as a polemic leader of the racial integration movement and affect his leadership style. Therefore, leadership construction processes triggered by actors in defiance are underscored by both shared social endorsement and contestation.