Tim Bale is Professor of Politics, at Queen Mary University of London, and this article is adapted from a piece that appeared in the December 2024 edition of the Political Studies Association’s magazine, Political Insight.

Our understanding of what constitutes a good and bad leader is cultural and even, perhaps, psychological. So when, just after the 4 July general election, we asked both voters and party members about, among other things, leadership, we included some questions and statements designed to tap into the so-called dark triad – Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.

What we discovered is that there are very significant distinctions between what the members of different parties want from, and expect of, leaders – distinctions which, for the most part, split people who belong to the Reform and Conservative parties, on the one hand, from those who belong to their ‘progressive’ counterparts, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Greens.

Strikingly, the overall gap between Labour and Conservative grassroots members is huge: we’re not just talking chalk and cheese but Mars and Venus – carnivores and herbivores, even.  Their very different responses suggest many Labour members have all sorts of reservations and compunctions which many Tory members would regard as unnecessary, indeed positively counterproductive hang-ups.

It is clearly far more important, for example, to Tory members than to Labour members to have a leader who can demonstrate ‘strength and authority’ (which Tories ranked at number four from the list we provided compared to number eight for their Labour counterparts), while ‘being able to unite the party’ was considerably more important to them too.

It is, though, when we move on to what we might call the darker side of leadership (investigated by getting respondents to agree or disagree to a series of statements designed to tap into the dark triad) that the differences get really big – and, some would say, really revealing.

Tory members turn out to be far more inclined than their Labour counterparts (and, indeed the general public) towards self-confident, charismatic, even show-off leaders who regard themselves as exceptional, who are capable of dominating people, occasionally via displays of aggression, and who aren’t afraid to speak bluntly and stir up controversy.

They are also more inclined to favour leaders who are ‘prepared to hurt the feelings of others without worrying about the consequences’ and ‘able to manipulate situations to get their way’.

No-one, however, should to run away with the idea that all ordinary members of the Conservative Party are somehow narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopaths who therefore like leaders who are just like them.

For one thing, their responses will seem to some to be merely realistic rather than hopelessly idealistic: to those who believe, albeit in heavily diluted form, in ‘survival of the fittest’ rather than in ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’, politics is inevitably a no-holds-barred sport played by people engaged in a permanently competitive struggle to climb to the top of Disraeli’s now-proverbial greasy pole.

This is one reason, along, perhaps, with a degree of respect for plain speaking, why there are a couple of things on which they appear to be no further away from the public than Labour members, such as the need for leaders not to suffer fools gladly and to give as good as they get on social media.

For another, the willingness on the part of Tory members to tolerate the darker side of leadership – something, incidentally, which research suggests might be characteristic of populist voters – only goes so far.

True, fewer Conservative than Labour members may disagree with the idea that ‘Leaders must be able to take revenge on those who cross them’; but only just over one in ten actually agree with it.

And eight out of ten disagree when it comes to a leader using ‘any means at their disposal in order to get things done, including lies and deceit’, while almost as many Conservative members disagreed with the statement that ‘Britain needs strong leaders who are prepared to break the rules in order to get things done’ as agreed with it.

All of which raises a question: to what extent do views of what makes for a good leader determine the politicians who are selected by their party members to take charge?

The answer is clearly impossible to calculate with any precision, but it’s hard to escape the impression that they do play an important part. Take, as a case study, Boris Johnson.

In 2019, Johnson could lay fair claim to ticking both boxes when it came to the qualities ranked first and second by Tory members, namely being able to stand up for the UK in dealing with other countries and being a good communicator.

But, perhaps, more importantly, he was almost the personification of the kind of the leader they like when asked about the darker side of the job – a self-confident, charismatic, show-off who regards himself as exceptional, who is capable of dominating people and displaying aggression, who isn’t afraid to speak bluntly and stir up controversy, who is willing to manipulate situations to get his way, and who is prepared to break the rules in order to get things (in his case Brexit) done.

Interestingly (at least when we surveyed them just after the general election) those Tory members most likely to see merit in what some might see as the darker arts of leadership tended to favour Kemi Badenoch. But whether Badenoch will turn out – for good or ill – to be the new Boris remains, of course, to be seen.

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