Reporter/s: Julian Donato Ajos

Mikhail Chester T. Ceniza

Charismatic Leadership
This written report gives an overview of various leadership types and focuses on the
charismatic leadership. It goes further and explores the attributes that a charismatic leader
possesses. This written report also tries to find out various effects of charismatic leadership on
the organization. While mentioning the positive effects of the charismatic leadership, it also
investigates the dark side of the charismatic leadership.
What is Charisma?
The term charisma has two senses: 1) compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire
devotion in others, 2) a divinely conferred power or talent.
[
o A certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from
ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least
specifically exceptional powers or qualities.
o These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of
divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is
treated as a leader.
o Is a special quality that people possess that serves as a magnet, of sorts, but it is really
made up of many traits. One of the most important element is self-confidence.
What is charismatic leadership?
Weber defines charismatic leadership as resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity,
heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order
revealed or ordained by him.
Weber focuses on the social patterns and conditions under which the leader exists.
Research shows that charismatic leaders appeal strongly to the values of the followers and it is
this psychological bondage between the two which makes the charismatic leadership succeed.
Charismatic Leadership Process
Charismatic leadership process is seen as a compound product of three factors: The leader and
his attributes, the social situation which demands for such a leader and the interaction between
the leader and his followers. Charismatic leadership process undergoes six steps from the rise
of the leader to the final routinization and thus the fall of the leader.
Reporter/s: Julian Donato Ajos
Mikhail Chester T. Ceniza
Step 1: Identification
This step takes place from the composite mixture of the three factors mentioned above. It is a
stage where the aspiring leader is on the social horizon; the followers are in distress and are
looking forward to someone who will identify himself with their problems. The social situation
is increasingly getting worsened in this stage. This is the time when the leader establishes him
as a potential leader but the followers, by large, remain passive.
Step 2: Activity Arousal
In this step the leader arouses the follower to become the part of the change. Followers who
were passive admirers of the leader till the earlier phase become active supporters of the
leader and the cause for which he is identifying himself. The longer this stage lasts the longer is
a span of the charismatic leadership.
Step 3: Commitment
Commitment stage in the charismatic leadership is without any doubt the most interesting step
in the process. This step takes the charismatic leadership at the peak and at the same time this
is the phase when the charismatic leader starts losing his charisma. This step starts by
demonstrating the extreme commitment of the leader towards the goal and same commitment
from the followers towards the leader. This demonstration often takes the shape of some kind
of sacrifice on the part of the leader or impending danger on the leader. This sacrifice or danger
makes the image of the leader as courageous and dedicated in the eyes of many followers.
Interestingly, this same act makes some of the elite followers disillusioned and they start
suspecting their leader as pompous and hypocrite. This is the stage where the leadership can be
bifurcated into two categories as a personalized leadership and socialized leadership. The first
type of leadership tends to become authoritarian and exploitative. The second type of leader is
more egalitarian and he will share power and responsibility with others. In either way, the
personalized leader will become dictator and will lose his charisma and the socialized type of
leader will help routinizing the leadership!
Step 4: Disenchantment
This phase is quite unavoidable and sometimes even intentional on the part of the leader.
Many times social structure brings the disenchantment stage. Sometimes, because the leaders
themselves know that they are not immortal, they try to bring the routinization in the
leadership. This routinization brings the feel of loss of goal to some followers. This step may
lose some of the strongest followers from the leader. This step is also an outcome of the
scenario when the leader seems to be failing. As the charismatic leaders are not very good at
Reporter/s: Julian Donato Ajos
Mikhail Chester T. Ceniza
the formal procedural leadership more routinization brings more failure and more
disenchantment of the followers.
Step 5: Depersonalization
This step is a logical follower of the earlier step of disenchantment. Disenchantment starts
because of routinization and it leads to the depersonalization and formalization of the
leadership. The leadership style becomes more and more like bureaucratic leadership. The
leader starts delegating his tasks to his followers.
Step 6: Alienation
This is a process of disintegration of the three factors mentioned in the beginning which had
come together in phase one. In this step, due to the formalization and bureaucratization of the
leadership, charismatic leadership becomes increasingly redundant. The followers feel that the
organization and the leader are going away from the initial goal and thus they start alienating
themselves from the organization and the charisma of the leader fades as the social situation
which has made him appeal to the masses has changed. This stage does not necessarily mean
the failure of the leader. In many cases, having achieved the goal for which the charismatic
leader had risen, the leader becomes redundant for his followers and the goal itself becomes
redundant for the leader.
Attributes of Charismatic leaders
After having described what is charismatic leadership and how does it work, it is interesting to
find out what makes one a charismatic leader.
Parental Attachment Style and Parental Psychological Control
It has been observed that a way a child is attached to his parents in his adolescence plays
important role shaping him as an effective charismatic leader. It is seen that young adult
securely attached to his parents tends to form a positive relationship with his followers in the
later life. Many of the qualities possessed by a charismatic leader such as self-confidence, self-
esteem are also found in a child who has a parental attachment style which is secure,
autonomous and displays relatedness. These attributes are considered as positive attributes in
parental attachment style for the development of a charismatic leader. It is also obvious that
these qualities in the parental attachment style make the child emerging to an adult more self-
aware and help him making sense of his place in the world. Thus, it is proposed that there is a
positive relationship between parental attachment style and displays of charismatic leadership
by emergent adult.
Reporter/s: Julian Donato Ajos
Mikhail Chester T. Ceniza
It is seen, on the other hand, that parental control impedes the development of an emergent
adult. Excessive psychological control by parents on the child makes him insecure and less
confident. This proves to be a barrier in his development as a charismatic leader. Parental
psychological control also acts as an obstacle in establishing social relations and it create a
situation of isolation for the emergent adult. Psychological control is seen as a negative factor
in emergent adults displays of charismatic leadership.
Self-Monitoring
One of the qualities of the charismatic leaders is that they watch themselves. They are
constantly aware of the fact that their followers are watching them and so they find it
important that they portray a good picture of themselves for their followers. As the charismatic
leaders are born out of the blend of social scenario and followers needs, it becomes imperative
for such leaders to constantly identify themselves with that social scenario and the need.
Charismatic leaders can manage that only if they monitor themselves to make sure that they
are still answering to the same plea which made them such a popular leader.
Self-Actualization
Self motivation is an important part of charismatic leadership. The leader gets motivated by the
social scenario without being prompted about it. He can address his followers with the vigor
only when he is self-actualized himself. It has been observed that such leaders not only
motivate themselves but they have a capacity to transform this self-actualization to their
followers as well. They actually raise their followers from one level to the higher level.
Motive to Attain Power
Charismatic leaders often do not seek conventional power. They may not ask for an official post
or position but what they look for is a social power. They want their follower to respect them
and see them as their saviors. They want to win the position in their followers hearts. They
look for identifying themselves with their followers values and shared beliefs. Such leaders are
rated high on their social skills to persuade the masses and appeal them to their hearts. It is this
power which keeps them popular for longer time.
Self Enhancement
Charismatic leaders are known for their self-correcting nature. They judge themselves on a
strict scale. They continuously strive to become better. They, in fact, know that it is this
superiority in them which makes them different from their followers. Charismatic leaders
believe that when eventually they will bring their followers to their present level of
superiority, they themselves should have gone one step above it to remain their leaders.
Reporter/s: Julian Donato Ajos
Mikhail Chester T. Ceniza
Openness to Change
While most of the other types of the leaders try to maintain status-quo as they are often afraid
that change might depose them from the power, charismatic leaders are open to change. In
fact, they represent the change and many times they prove to be the ones who bring about the
changes. It is interesting to note that charismatic leaders are most powerful in the situation
which demands the changes.
Outcomes of charismatic leadership
Having seen the process of the charismatic leadership and the attributes which the charismatic
leaders posses, it becomes unavoidable to discuss the outcomes of the charismatic leadership.
Many scholars see charismatic leadership as positive force which yields desirable results.
However there are some scholars who focus on negative aspects of the charismatic leadership.
We will see both sides of the charismatic leadership. It is observed that charismatic leadership
motivates followers to give extra output than what is expected from them otherwise. It also
achieves self-actualization in its followers. It is seen that charismatic leadership works in a social
structure to heighten the morale of the followers. It shapes the society the way the followers
and the leader had dreamt.
Charismatic leadership also has severe negative effects in some cases. The shared vision and
ideas between the leader and followers create enormous energy in the organization. The leader
can employ this energy in destructive way. The more the leaders self-confident is the more are
the chances that the leader will misuse the power. Its been observed in many cases that
charismatic leaders have abused their powers. Many companies have witnessed their high rank
leaders going corrupt . Because of excellent communication abilities of the charismatic leaders
and due to the fact that they display some kind of charisma, the whole organization follows
these leaders wholeheartedly and there remain absolutely no resistance for the leader.
Without any check on the power, it doesnt take time for the leader to go corrupt. Any healthy
organization shows competition for power which also represents tussle between values and
with lack of this tussle there remains no control on the leader. Followers of the charismatic
leaders are so blinded by his charisma that they might even do some acts that they wouldnt
have done ordinarily. Atrocious acts by German soldiers under Hitlers leadership are an apt
example. It was an unquestionable loyalty for their leader that compelled them to act in the
way that they mostly wouldnt have acted otherwise.