Leadership image-building: After Clinton and Watergate

Abstract

Leadership images are built collectively by leaders and their relevant constituencies - elected officials, the news media, and the public. The process of building leadership image rests on prior expectations about the leader, policy outputs, the course of events, and the disposition of political resources. In building images of leadership, each of the three constituencies puts more weight on some aspects of image-building than on others: The public sees the president primarily in terms of his previous behavior, the media view the president through the lens of immediate events, and other elected officials focus on political resources. One of the president's most important resources is his public image. It can help him to maintain the loyalty of other officials, which in turn contributes to balanced news coverage, even in times of crisis. President Clinton was able to preserve his public image through the impeachment debacle in large part because of low public expectations about his personal moral behavior and satisfaction with his economic leadership. Conversely, President Nixon was forced to resign because of high public expectations about his personal probity and disappointment with his management of the economy.