Boris Johnson's blundering was political genius. But now that moment has passed

In the midst of the greatest crisis most of us have known in our lifetimes, we are in more need than ever of effective leadership: to bring us together, to resolve uncertainty and to help guide us out of this pandemic. So how have our leaders – the prime minister in particular – measured up?

By most criteria, not very well. The UK has one of the highest death rates in the world, and as the carnage has increased so Boris Johnson’s standing has decreased. His approval ratings fell from a hefty +40% in April to minus figures in June. The percentage of people who felt his government had done a good job fell even more sharply, from +51% to -15% between March and the end of May.

Yet Johnson was supposedly the populist with the golden touch. After an unlikely victory in the 2016 Brexit referendum and winning an 80-seat majority in the 2019 general election, even those who saw him as a political clown had to admit he was highly effective in winning public support: the New York Times referred to his “blundering brilliance”. So how can we explain all this?

One of the most potent and enduring myths in our society is that leadership is reducible to the power of the leader. A few special individuals are blessed with special qualities that set them apart from the rest of us and entitle them to rule. As Thomas Carlyle asserted, “Universal history … is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here.” If only we could isolate the qualities that make these leaders exceptional.

Such ideas launched numerous studies that sought to find personality characteristics that predict leadership success – none of them particularly fruitful. For such an approach misses a very obvious point: leaders only achieve anything through their followers, and “great man” theories write the followers out of history.

And leaders are never just leaders, they are always leaders of a particular social group – a nation, a political party, a religion. The same is true of followers. Those on the inside often cannot understand why outsiders don’t revere their leader. Those on the outside are equally uncomprehending of how anyone could. Think Thatcher. Think Corbyn. Think Johnson. So, leadership is a group process: and, more specifically, it is the cultivation of a “we” relationship between leaders and followers.

Effective leadership, then, is not about what separates the leader from others. It is about what brings the leader together with group members and allows him or her to represent them. An effective leader is one who is seen to be one of us, to work for us and to achieve the things we value. That isn’t about being ordinary or typical. It is about being prototypical – of representing the values and the qualities that make our group distinctive.

In addition, effective leaders are not passive. They actively craft the group narrative and their own personal narrative to make the two mesh: they are skilled entrepreneurs of identity.

Hence, no given set of qualities will guarantee effective leadership, for these will change according to the identity of the group.

Johnson’s rise was as a populist, harnessing the resentment of those who were experiencing a sense of decline, of being voiceless and of being ignored. He successfully created a divisive narrative whereby “the people” were abandoned and betrayed by “the liberal elite”. He was equally effective in creating a narrative of himself as part of the people and not of the elite, so he could help the former “take back control”.

Some might object that the notion of a Bullingdon Club Etonian as “anti-elite” is ridiculous (I would agree). But the populist’s “people” are not defined in class terms. It is more about nation and culture and, above all, style. The elite are those who ignore “us” and sneer at “us”. Johnson characterised them as the “political class” and Brussels.

His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.

None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance.

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But the performative politics of populism can backfire by making one unrepresentative as the groupings change. In the midst of a pandemic where the widest possible compliance to restrictive measures is necessary, the nation and its communities must be unified and inclusive. The inherently divisive categories of populism are no longer tenable.

Moreover, we need competent governance to get us through, rather than insurgent incompetence to get our votes. In this global crisis, our blundering prime minister is no longer of the group, nor for the group, and certainly not achieving what the group needs. The “Boris” shtick simply doesn’t wash with the new “us”.

Of course, the world may well change again, and Johnson may regain his effectiveness. But perhaps his greatest achievement will be to help debunk the “great man” view of history. For if Johnson demonstrates anything, it is that quality and qualities alone do not make the leader. Rather, it is the fit between those qualities and the nature of the groups they lead.

• Stephen Reicher is professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews, and co-author of The New Psychology of Leadership