British researchers have suggested that true leaders lead at the edges of a crowd, they are not in the middle of the action.

Successful leaders display more decisive behavior, spending less time following others and acting more quickly than others in a group, found a research team at the University of Leeds led by Jolyon Faria, who conducted the study as part of his doctoral dissertation.

Faria said in a statement, "It was interesting to find that the most effective leaders remained on the edges of the group and attempted to lead from the front. You'd think leaders in the center of the group should interact more often with others and therefore be more effective but here this wasn't the case."

It was further found by the study that leaders on the edge of the group were able to move their group toward a target much more quickly than those who chose to stay in the center, even if no one in the group knew who the leader was.

Faria said, "We wanted to find out how people decided who to follow. We found that people were able to identify their leader by what position the leader takes, which goes some way to explain how animals in groups, such as birds and fish, can be led by only a small minority." (With Inputs from Agencies)