Regional Leaders of the New Generation: Results of a Political- Psychological Analysis

As a result of the new personnel policy, which began in 2016, a significant renewal of the governor's corps took place in Russia. A whole galaxy of young regional leaders entered the political scene. Some of them are 30 to 40 years old. Based on the results of a political and psychological analysis of the updated governor's corps, the authors highlight aspects reflecting the new principles for selecting candidates for the post of the head of a region. Among them are: a stake on experience and competencies, education and applied knowledge, development of "soft skills" in the process of training managerial personnel. In other words, for the federal center, the regional leader of the new generation is a young, energetic, efficient, educated professional in his/her field. A person holding this post is required to be a crisis manager with extensive management experience. An important criterion today is the presence of emotional intelligence and the ability to be open with the population, but demanding with officials. In addition, the authors note that the system of relations between the federal center and the regions, which is based on the absence of their independence, leads to the "managerization" of the governor's corps. Such an approach can lead to the accumulation of negativity associated with the exclusion of old regional elites and the formation of alternative centers of influence. According to the methodology developed at the Department of Sociology and Psychology of Politics, Faculty of Political Science, Lomonosov Moscow State University, the authors analyzed the identities of individual representatives of the regional leaders of the new generation and identified their typical political and psychological characteristics. First of all, this is a desire for development, for results, a focus on achievements, high motivation and ambitiousness. The vast majority of young governors strictly maintain the political style of "administrator" set by the federal government and are also distinguished by extroversion and a fairly high level of domination. Such personal characteristics, ceteris paribus, can contribute to the solution of ambitious tasks and the implementation of large-scale projects if they arise. At the same time, the authors note that the overestimated self-esteem of regional leaders can cause underestimated reactivity to social incentives. Also the lack of a link between the motive of achievement and the motive of affiliation (focusing on results in combination with building relationships with colleagues and partners) can be interpreted as a conflict potential.

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