Understanding Leaders of Social Movements and The Persuasion Strategies Employed By Them: A Comparison Between Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi by Maral Cavner

1. Understanding Leaders of
Social Movements and
The Persuasion Strategies
Employed By Them:
By Maral Cavner

2. A Comparison
Between Adolf
Hitler and
Mahatma Gandhi

3. The Three Types of
Leadership - Democratic
• What is a democratic leader?
o A democratic leader is “concerned about the task getting done, group
identity, and group satisfaction,” and would rank highly on both the
personality and task dimensions of leadership (Dudash-Buskirk, Jan. 2015).
• What are the advantages of having a democratic
leader?
o This is the most desirable type of leader in that their wishes for group
identity, group satisfaction, and completion of the task done are equally
balanced when dealing with a membership that is large enough to be
representative of a social movement.
• What are the disadvantages of having a
democratic leader?
o In life there will rarely be complete agreement amongst everyone and, as
a result of this fact of life, sacrifices to any one of these values and goals
(group identity, group satisfaction, and completing the task) may very
well need to be made in order for the social movement to not be in
permanent stalemate.

4. The Three Types of
Leadership – Laissez Faire
• What is a laissez faire type of leader?
o A laissez faire type of leader is one that is concerned with group
satisfaction and unity (the group staying together). A laissez faire leader
would rank highly with regards to their personality, but less so with regards
to their task oriented nature or ability given their great desire for universal
group satisfaction.
• What are the advantages of having a laissez faire
type of leader?
o They are very focused on group unity and satisfaction.
• What are the disadvantages of having a laissez
faire type of leader?
o While everyone on some level desires to be well-liked, this is nearly an
impossible feat, one that could very easily result in a laissez faire type of
leader hindering, albeit likely not for malicious reasons, the forward
progress of the social movement and the achievement of its goals.

5. The Three Types of
Leadership – Authoritarian
• What is an authoritarian type of leader?
o A leader who is very task oriented, but less focused on the group and the
opinions of others with regards themselves or their decision-making on
behalf of the movement.
• What are the advantages of having an
authoritarian leader?
o This type of leader would be more polarizing than either the democratic
or laissez faire leader, but would have the advantage over the other two
in terms of decisions being made at a quicker rate.
• What are the disadvantages of having an
authoritarian leader?
o The clear drawback of this faster decision-making made by an
authoritarian leader is that the decisions made might not always be
representative of the wishes of the majority of the membership of the
social movement.

6. How Do Leaders of Social
Movements Become Leaders?
• Three primary ways:
• 1) By being charismatic, which seems simple enough,
but is an incredibly important aspect to any and all
social movements.
• The leader of a social movement, particularly the leader
who acts in a spokesperson type role, becomes
representative and symbolic of the movement itself.
• If a leader is not charismatic and able to use words and
actions to inspire others’ devotion to their cause (social
movement) then the movement’s chances of success
both in terms of gaining and retaining membership and
overall achievement of goals are greatly decreased.

7. How Do Leaders of Social
Movements Become Leaders?
• 2) An individual can become a social movement leader
through prophecy.
• A standout example of a social movement leader
whose ability to lead came (at least partly) through
prophecy is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King
advocated for change and prophesized about what
was to come most notably in his “I have a dream
speech” delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
• This speech inspired hundreds of thousands of individuals
to stand up for basic human rights, whether they
themselves were personally subjected to discrimination
or not. Dr. King’s speech is easily one of the most
recognizable speeches given to this date and is a clear
example of the power and influence a prophetic style of
leadership can wield over a nation.

8. How Do Leaders of Social
Movements Become Leaders?
• 3) The third way one becomes a social movement
leader, by pragmatically being in the position to do
so, is based on the realities of life:
• A person who has the resources, most notably of
which are time and monetary stability and/or
affluence, which allow them to devote themselves
to the social movement.

9. Social Movement Leader
#1: Adolf Hitler
• Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who
was the leader of the Nazi Party.
• Hitler was the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945
and Fuhrer (leader) of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.
• While his official titles were “chancellor” and “Fuhrer” in
all purposes Hitler was a dictator of Nazi Germany, living
and acting as one.
• Hitler’s style of leadership would thus be considered
authoritarian. He was incredibly task oriented, despite
the obvious moral boundaries he crossed in his pursuit of
his goals for Germany: the elimination of Jewish people
and the establishment of a new world order to right the
(perceived) wrongs that emerged after the conclusion
of World War I.

10. How Did Hitler Become a
Social Movement Leader?
• Hitler’s charisma in front of a large audience was
notably inspiring to a significant amount of people.
• A member of the Hitler Youth, Alfons Heck,
explained Hitler’s charisma by saying that in a
reaction of one of Hitler’s speeches,
• “We erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic pride that
bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end, we
shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming
down our faces: Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! From
that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler body
and soul” (Sisson, 2014).

11. How Did Hitler Become a Social
Movement Leader? (Continued)
• While Hitler never gave a speech as clearly prophetic as Dr.
King’s “I have a dream” speech, in his desire to establish a new
world order there were undeniably prophetic elements about the
“better” world to come. This desire on the part of Hitler and the
Nazi party to establish a new world order, one that was as equally
horrific as it was revolutionary, sought to replace current ways of
thinking and doing, thus making this social movement
spearheaded by Hitler revolutionary in nature.
• Lastly, Hitler was pragmatically able to lead the Nazi Party in
Germany. Hitler was a decorated World War I veteran and thus
in a position of influence and power that allowed him the ability
to promote his (horrible) agendas and gain the resources to
continue to do so through his ever-increasing popularity in the
1920s and 1930s.

12. Social Movement Leader
#2: Mahatma Gandhi
• Gandhi was, and remains in memory, the world-
renowned leader of the Indian Independence
Movement in formerly British ruled India.
• Gandhi differentiated himself from Hitler in a variety of
important ways, but chiefly among them is Gandhi’s
employment of nonviolent civil disobedience, which set
the precedent that other social movement leaders,
notably Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, would later adopt
as their own and adhere to.
• Gandhi was concerned with completion of the task and
goals at hand, group identity, and satisfaction and thus
ranks highly on both the personality and task scales of
measurement typifying a democratic leader.

13. How Did Gandhi Become a
Social Movement Leader?
• Gandhi, like Hitler, was a charismatic and inspiring
speaker, but in a much more humble, but not less
impassioned manner of doing so.
• As the author Sara Lloyd-Hughes, who has written
extensively on Gandhi’s public speaking put it,

14. How Did Gandhi Become a Social
Movement Leader? (Continued)
• “People followed him, even when
they did not see his point or grasp
its significance. Examples of this
are easy to find. Gandhi
addressed a public meeting on
the sands of the river Kathjori in
Cuttack, and he spoke in Hindi
(rather Hindustani, as he called
it). Thousands attended the
meeting, it is reported, and it is
unlikely that the whole audience
understood what he was saying.
He reached his audience with
passion and even though his was
the voice of quiet certainty, it
reverberated loudly in the hearts
of his audiences” (Lloyd, 2013).

15. How Did Gandhi Become a Social
Movement Leader? (Continued)
• Gandhi spoke of the ability and trust that a higher power
had placed in him and the work he and his fellow group
members were doing, as well as what tragedies would
occur were they to not use their given talents for the
betterment of their society.
• Gandhi was also pragmatically able to step into a role of
leadership in the social movement. Gandhi was trained
as a barrister in his younger years and spent twenty-one
years in South Africa working as a legal representative
for the Muslim Indian Traders during which time he
developed his ethics, political views, and leadership skills.
• His extensive skill set and network of contacts from his
many years in the political arena, coupled with his ability
to completely relate to the plight of others suffering
under the conditions of the time, made Gandhi a
natural choice for the leader of the Indian
Independence Movement.

16. Hitler and Gandhi - Two Very
Different Social Movement Leaders
• Despite somewhat similar circumstances in how they
became social movement leaders and the shared ability
to posses a platform from which to shape the use of
language for their cause, Adolf Hitler and Mahatma
Gandhi are representative of two very different social
leaders. Despite their similarities in terms of shared
language strategies (identification, polarization, and
power), the key question of what is the difference
between these two prominent social leaders from the
1900s remains.
• The answer: the ends to which Hitler and Gandhi used
their abilities, circumstances, and strategies related to
conflicts of the time period.

17. Hitler and Gandhi - Two Very
Different Social Movement Leaders
• One actively encouraged the use of violence against
innocents, while the other refused to partake in it, despite
being personally subjected to it himself.
• One promoted a message of violence and hate, while the
other preached a message of tolerance and understanding,
even when it was not reciprocated.
• One used his abilities, circumstances, and strategies for evil
discriminatory reasons and for his own personal gain, while
the other used them for the benefit of all persons.
• In the Chinese language the character for the word
“conflict” is made up of two different symbols: one that
indicates danger whereas the other indicates opportunity.
While social movements are not without either danger or
opportunity, Mahatma Gandhi, unlike Adolf Hitler, took the
opportunity to make strides towards a more equitable, kind,
and understanding world for all people. We can only hope
that more people will chose to do the same.

18. References
• Dudash-Buskirk, Elizabeth A. "COM 566/660: Class Lecture by Dr. Dudash-
Buskirk.” Persuasion Theory. Missouri State University, Springfield. 13 Jan. 2015.
Lecture.
• Dudash-Buskirk, Elizabeth A. "COM 566/660: Class Lecture by Dr. Dudash-
Buskirk.” Persuasion Theory. Missouri State University, Springfield. 24 Feb. 2015.
Lecture.
• Hitler, Adolf. "Adolf Hitler Quotations About the Jews - Quotes from Mein
Kampf." Adolf Hitler about the Jews - Quotes from Mein Kampf. Jewish Upps,
n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <http://www.mosaisk.com/auschwitz/Adolf-Hitler-
about-the-Jews.php>. Website
• Lloyd-Hughes, Sara. "Be the Change - Public Speaking Lessons from Gandhi."
Ginger Public Speaking. N.p., 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.gingerpublicspeaking.com/gandhi-public-speaking-be-the-
chang>. Website
• "The Quit India Speech - 1942." The Quit India Speech by Mahatma Gandhi.
Word Power – An Educational Resource, 2002. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.wordpower.ws/speeches/gandhi-quit-india.html>. Website
• Sisson, Edward H. America The Great. EHS Publishing, 2014. 709. Print.
• Stewart, Charles J., Craig Allen Smith, and Robert E. Denton. Persuasion and
Social Movements. 6th ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 2012. Print. Book