What makes an individual the leader of its group? An evolutionary concept of distance regulation and leadership

Abstract

It is argued that leading is the outcome of an asymmetry between two or more individuals regulating their distance to one another and to other resources. The asymmetry which decides on leader and follower(s) is a momentary or permanent difference in the so-called critical distance to a particular partner. Beyond this distance, following the partner is more profitable in terms of reproductive fitness than staying back when he leaves or leaving when he stays. The individual with the greater critical distance to the partner can tolerate greater distances from him and thus will be the leader. The basic evolutionary model that is outlined allows us to understand various forms of leading and to specify some characteristics that enhance the probability of an individual to be the leader of a group, i.e. its “leadership”. For achieving a broader unifying framework that covers more than the most simple forms of leading, extensions of the basic model to several partners, objects or places, to manipulation of the partners' “landscape” of expected fitness payoffs, to time rather than space, and to prior negotiations on goals of joint action become necessary. Such extensions are outlined and discussed.