British researchers from the University of Leeds have recently determined that people who tend to act as leaders of their groups do not necessarily appear in the center of the crowd. Rather, they remain at the fringes, exerting different traits.
British researchers from the University of Leeds say that some of the most important characteristics leaders must display include decisive behavior and acting faster than most people in their vicinity. Additionally, would-be leaders were discovered to spend less time listening to the advice of others, AlphaGalileo reports.
When large groups of people come together to form a mass, a host of events take place, changing the way these individuals would normally act. This has important consequences, for example, on the way humans manage their physical environment. “For instance, a better understanding of human crowd behavior can help us design buildings more effectively for evacuation scenarios. It can also inform strategies for moving large numbers of people, useful for events where large crowds need to be moved as quickly and efficiently as possible by a relatively small number of event staff,” Faria adds further.
The researchers found that people were able to identify their leader by what position the leader takes, which goes some way to explain how animals in groups – such as birds and fish – can be led by only a small minority, even when leaders don’t signal their identity. Their findings have illustrated a general principle behind group behavior. The investigation was conducted using money secured from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
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