Identity leadership theorizing suggests that leadership effectiveness derives from a potential leader’s perceived ability to create, embody, promote, and embed a shared group identity. However, little is known about how people integrate this information to form a judgment of a leader. We use cognitive modeling to operationalize leadership judgments as exemplar-and prototype-based categorization processes. Analysis of attribute rating data for 80 highly recognizable Americans revealed that leadership judgments were well-characterized by an exemplar-based model. Judgments were based overwhelmingly on promoting shared collective interests and embedding group identity. The pattern of attribute weightings was consistent for judgments of a general leadership role (i.e., as a competent leader) as well as judgments for a specific leadership role (i.e., as an effective US president). We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of identity leadership as well as for integrated social-cognitive models of individuals’ judgements of and responses to leaders.

身份领导理论表明，领导有效性源于潜在领导者创造、体现、促进和嵌入共享群体身份的感知能力。然而，人们如何整合这些信息来形成对领导者的判断却知之甚少。我们使用认知模型将领导判断操作化为基于示例和原型的分类过程。对 80 位知名美国人的属性评级数据的分析表明，领导力判断在基于示例的模型中得到了很好的表征。判断主要基于促进共同的集体利益和嵌入群体身份。对一般领导角色的判断（即，作为有能力的领导者）和对特定领导角色的判断（即，作为一位有效的美国总统）。我们讨论了这些发现对我们理解身份领导以及个人对领导的判断和反应的综合社会认知模型的影响。