Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

72 Understanding Rational Decision Making

Rallying Decisions: Responses to Attempts to Inspire and Lead

Audience members, acting as agents or followers and often as a group, make rallying decisions when

others try to inspire or lead them. Examples of rallying decisions include the decision of exhausted

employees to work harder, the decision of a disenchanted voting block to throw its weight behind

a political candidate, and the decision of a losing sports team to go out and “win just one for the

Gipper.”

Agents make rallying decisions in order to determine if supporting a leader and her vision

for the group’s future is worthwhile. Principals, acting as leaders, seek rallying decisions from

agents when they try to garner support for themselves, a project, or a mission by boosting fol-

lower morale. The show of support may take many forms—a donation,^60 a sacrifi ce of some

sort, or simply a vote of confi dence. Documents and presentations principals produce in order

to elicit rallying decisions include introductions of new employees, participants, and speakers.

They also include commencement speeches , elegies , farewells , campaign speeches , motivational speeches ,

mission statements , vision statements , and pep talks. It should come as no surprise that coaches’ pep

talks have been shown to lift the spirits of collegiate football players and to inspire them to

perform at higher levels.^61

Followers’ schemata for one type of rallying decision—the decision that groups make when

choosing their leaders—has generated much research interest.^62 A group will often choose

as its leader the member who best fi ts the schema of the group, in other words the member

who is most representative of it.^63 A group will also tend to rate that member as more likable,

infl uential, and charismatic than other group members.^64 The decision criteria groups use to

choose leaders from among their members also include that member’s endorsement of the

group’s norms, goals, and aspirations, as well as the member’s preferential treatment of other

group members.

Followers’ schemata for a second type of rallying decision—the decision they make when evalu-

ating a leaders’ charisma (i.e., the leader’s ability to rally and inspire them) has also generated much

research interest.^65 Charisma is an important attribute for leaders to possess. Compared to leaders

who are not charismatic, charismatic leaders get higher performance ratings from their follow-

ers,^66 attract more new followers, promote greater follower identifi cation with the group, and

more effectively regulate followers’ emotions and reactions to crises.^67 Charismatic leaders also

motivate followers to perform better and help them feel greater job satisfaction.^68 The decision

criteria followers rely on most when evaluating a leader’s charisma include the leader’s sensitivity

to the followers’ needs, the leader’s sensitivity to constraints on the followers, the personal risk the

leader takes on the followers’ behalf, and the leader’s vision for the group’s future, a vision which

must embody the followers’ ideals and aspirations.

The following list of questions expands on the criteria identifi ed previously and provides a start-

ing point for predicting agents’ decision criteria for any particular rallying decision. The list can

Memo

To:

From:

Date:

Re:

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with displaced staff to try to locate other comparable positions within the company.

Every effort will be made to assist those individuals who have been impacted by this

decision.[12. Who will “assist” these people?]

[13. So, effective 12/1/14 the medical management activities and staff of RE and M-S will be

combined and some of us may be looking for another job.]