The widespread notion that leadership is a form of manipulation stems not only from the fact that manipulation is practiced by many leaders, both in organizations and in mass communication, but also from the fact that the two concepts share common ground: they are both processes of influence that use persuasion to change the ways people think, feel, and act. Both leadership and manipulation have concrete objectives and use behavioral tactics to achieve them. In practice, it’s easy to slip from leadership into manipulation when we want others to behave as we wish.
However, manipulation and leadership should not be confused. Manipulation is a form of social influence that is deceptive and abusive, in which the manipulator seeks to satisfy their own interests, hiding their true objectives and using underhanded tactics. One of the most common definitions describes it as a form of influence or control in which hidden, misleading, or dishonest means are used to gain advantages at the expense of others. Manipulators base their power on position and coercion. They use emotional exploitation tactics such as fear, guilt, pressure, and flattery, as well as cognitive tactics that can involve conditioning critical thinking, controlling information, framing selectivity, shaping perceptions, and lying.
Leadership, on the other hand, is a form of influence conducted with clear and transparent objectives, using tactics that respect others and aim for the benefit of both the leader and their followers. It is based on mutual trust, shared values, and common goals, generating authentic relationships of loyalty and commitment.
Since both leadership and manipulation are processes of influence, what truly distinguishes them is the intention behind the influence and the tactics used. Is the goal to get something from people, or with people and for people? That’s why the distinction between manipulative persuasion and ethical persuasion is essential to guide practices in the fields of institutional communication, relationship marketing, and politics.
A frequent form of manipulation in political leadership is emotional manipulation, which is characterized by the attempt to control voters’ behavior by influencing their feelings. Given his position as the leader of the world’s largest economy, Donald Trump has been one of the most studied political leaders. Research has shown that a significant part of the success of his election campaigns is due to the effective use of a manipulative narrative with a strong emotional charge. Psycholinguistic mechanisms play an important role in the communication of populist nationalisms, and Trump uses them with great skill. His rhetoric, far from being mere improvisation, reveals a socially cognitive construction that is politically impactful and capable of garnering strong electoral support for candidates outside the system.
In the election campaigns in which he participated, Trump’s rhetorical strategy-intentional or not-was based on three pillars. The first is America’s historical greatness. His speeches emphasize how the country was once a prosperous nation, with opportunities for all and international respect. Bringing this glorious past into the present is a way of creating a “nostalgia effect” among voters, stimulating the desire to return to an ideal (whether fictional or not) state that has been lost.
The second narrative pillar is America’s current crisis. Trump uses a narrative loaded with emotional elements to exaggerate America’s crisis in three key areas: economic and social crisis, the actions of the country’s external and internal enemies, and the decay of the political elite. The crisis narrative amplifies the negative perception voters already have of their own condition, the country’s situation, and global threats. Trump managed to create the scenario of an imaginary “America on the brink of collapse,” contrary to statistical evidence, and identified the causes: job loss and poverty, crime and violence, illegal immigration and drugs, Islamic terrorism, imbalances in international trade, government spending, and “leftist wokeness.” Trump even described America’s current state as “a third world country” and “a dumping ground for other countries’ problems.”
The third narrative element aims to pit Trump against his main opponents. The “others” include foreigners who enter the country illegally, the leaders of countries who only seek to exploit the U.S. and contribute to its disrepute, and the “stupid,” “corrupt,” and “incapable” political elite that has governed America. In his rhetoric, America’s crisis will continue “only as long as we keep relying on the same elite that created it.” This polarization erects a discursive barrier between the “true people,” with Trump as their legitimate representative, and America’s enemies.
The rhetorical construction of an America in crisis stirs feelings of insecurity, anxiety, and indignation, and stimulates the desire to return to the “lost paradise” through the narrator’s political agenda. Trump built a narrative capable of using nostalgia for a lost past and revolt against a frustrating and humiliating present to present himself as the one who, as an outsider, is able to make America great again.
This is the discursive basis of his populist leadership: the creation of a rhetorical bond that identifies him with the people, and in which the people see themselves in his redemptive proposal. This bond gains particular effectiveness by relying on a narcissistic personality that displays unlimited conviction and confidence in his own abilities. He has made statements such as “I am the most presidential person I’ve ever met” and “I understand things better than anyone else.” This rhetoric also serves the purpose of differentiating him from the elite that led the country to disaster.
Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory helps explain the heuristic underlying voting decisions in Trump’s favor. Faced with the picture of crisis that was presented, and the prospect that more losses and humiliations would occur, people become inclined to take riskier options to avoid greater harm. In other words, they feel that, faced with the threats presented to them, they have nothing to lose by betting on radical solutions that promise to restore the control, predictability, and security of the past, with authoritarian policies, radical solutions, and outsiders as protagonists.
This rhetorical strategy served to manipulate the psychological framework of voters and was essential in mobilizing the vote. The exaggeration of the crisis, the threat of external and internal enemies, and the incompetence of the political elite led many to accept the risk of trusting in the nationalist radicalism of an outsider who promised them a return to America’s glorious past.
The success of this emotional manipulation-which we will never know for sure was intentional or not-shows that the role of language in determining behavior can be subtle, but is never innocent, and psycholinguistics cannot be ignored in the interpretation of leadership.
Luís Caeiro, Professor at CATÓLICA-LISBON