Is charisma important in being a good leader? “There is no good or bad leader but thinking makes it so” Shakespeare phrased once and it seems relevant to perceive the importance of charisma in being a good leader. Who are the good leaders? What makes a good leader? Are charismatic leader always good? Good in whose eyes and in what time frame? It is trivial to get bogged up with intuitive questions when we are asked such a straightforward but complex question about the importance of charisma in being a good leader. Max Weber (1947, pp.358-359) tossed the term charisma in early 1920s as being “set apart from ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.” Up until 1970s, Weber’s hypothesis lay dormant and it wasn’t until 1977 when Robert House further developed the charismatic leadership theory. This literature review will argue that charisma isn’t important in being good leader by bringing together various literature studies focusing on both the sides of the coin but ultimately filtering the core argument.
According to Ehrhart and Klein (2001), the primary research on charismatic leadership was conducted by firstly House (1977) developed by Bass (1990) but majorly contributed by Conger and Kanungo (1987), and then Shamir (2001). Charismatic leaders can only be perceived as charismatic when leaders express themselves with certain behaviours and skills for the followers to attribute charisma back
This is called the Halo-Effect. We can take the example of the 1961 uS presidential debate. People who listen to the debate on the radio thought that candidate to recharge Nixon would lean but people watch the debate on television clearly believed that John F. Kennedy would be the wiener. They were in their right. John Kennedy and up taking the White House. As we all know John Kennedy was a good-looking man, who had that x-factor that made him lovable and trustworthy. That's very charisma. You need to have that plus if you want to be a charismatic leader. Charisma and political communication is essential. As mentioned earlier coma and according to its etymology call mom charisma is a gift with defined origins. Nature lease, it means being a blessed by the gods.nevertheless Kumar from the end of the 19 century in on wards coma this word was received in the political sphere when we wanted to explain the rise of political leaders and mostly when trying to explain the power politicians or leader could have on a specific group. In politics it's called the reason that is used as a seduction tool.a charismatic leaders is usually a skilled orator, admired and idolized by a large number of a given group. Charismatic leaders embodied confidence intelligence through their voice, their intelligence, their body language and even the way they dress. For example, when learning for office, as it was shown in the
In What Makes an Effective Executive, Drucker (2011) outlines eight simple practices or rules that all effective executives follow (p. 23-24). He reminds us that during his 65-year consulting career, some of the cream of the crop executives have not exactly fit the leader stereotype who exudes charisma and charm. Rather, they are diverse with regards to their personalities, attitudes, values, strengths, and weaknesses. Harry Truman is an excellent example of this – a president who lacked charisma yet became one the most effective presidents in our history.
19). Still a part of the Great Man Leadership era, these trait theories just went a step further in attempting to pinpoint exactly which traits of these “great men” were consistently associated with the leaders, in an effort to more clearly define what a great leader was. This was again a further attempt to be able to identify a leader early on and predict which individuals were born to become leaders. It is thought that a major flaw with these theories was the failure to account for external factors, such as the environment in which the individuals were brought up in, as well as the situations they experienced (Horner, 2007, p. 270). Still today we do continue to study the characteristics of leaders in order to better define and understand what makes someone a good leader.
Charisma is just a trait and means to have a vibrant persona. The difference between a charismatic leader and a normal leader is that a charismatic leader is more charming and is usually more persuasive than a regular leader.
One of the single most important traits to possess in order to be an effective leader is charisma. Jeff Skilling exuding charisma and was able to convince the media, shareholders, employees, and everyone in between that he was acting in their interest and running a company with integrity and honesty. Skilling’s charisma can be seen in many instances during his career at Enron, but one of his more striking instances of charismatic leadership was how he was able to influence all of the workers at Portland General Electric to convert their 401k’s into company stock (Gibney, 2005). Though this may sound like a relatively commonplace act, it took massive amounts of charisma to gain the trust and confidence of an entire company’s employees.
As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.
All effective leaders, past and present, must have charisma in order to accomplish anything. Charisma - defined by Merriam Webster’s Dictionary as “special magnetic charm or appeal” - is one of the biggest reasons why Adolf Hitler was able to convince an entire country that the genocide of an entire nation of innocent people was what Germany needed in order to cleanse
The Trait Approach was the 1st systematic attempt to study leadership. In the 20th century it was known as the “great man” theory. This approach takes a look at the leaders personal attributes such as but not limited to: motivation, energy, intuition, creativity, persuasiveness and foresight. Some of the traits that are essential to this list include: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability. Thus it focuses mainly on the leader and not on the followers or situations. The strengths of the Trait Approach includes: 1) it is intuitively appealing, 2) it has research to back it’s theory, 3) it highlights the leader, 4) it identifies what the traits of a leader should have and whether the traits we do
Antonakis, J., Fenley, M., & Liechti, S. (2011). Can Charisma Be Taught? Tests of Two Interventions. Academy Of Management Learning & Education, 10(3), 374-396. Antonakis et al starts off research by posing a question. “Can leadership, and in particular charisma, be taught? The authors set out to prove in fact that training can training managers a specific set of charismatic leadership tactics not only improves their charisma, but their effectiveness as leaders. Charismatic leadership is defined as by Antonakis et al as being a sub element of transformational leadership. In the first study researchers assigned 34 middle managers from a Swiss company into two groups randomly. One group received training in charisma and the others received no training. The group receiving training were trained in principles on charismatic leadership. In the second study focused on 41 MBA students enrolled in a leadership course at a Swiss public university monitor charismatic leadership. The students were videotaped giving a 4 minute speech addressing problems within the company while also giving a plan of action to staff. After, speech was done, each participant received training in charismatic leadership and was asked to deliver the same speech 6 weeks later by videotape. Results reveal that improvement and effectiveness as a leader were made in both research groups. This study concluded that feedback is important to the growth and development of leaders and must be provided to
Transformational leadership are classified into four components which are pointed out by Bass (1990, p. 28), ‘charisma, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration’. Apart from these basic roles, charisma leadership, a collection of personal characteristics, has its own role of literature since it has similarity with transformational leadership and they are contribution to each other (Bertocci, 2009, p. 43; Judge & Piccolo, 2004, p. 755). Leaders’ behaviour reflects them being role models for their followers. Followers respect, admire and trust their leaders who have charismatic effect on their followers to an extremely high grade are willing to take risks
Bryman, A., 1993, ‘Charismatic leadership in business organisations: some neglected issues’, Leadership Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 289-304.
Many great leaders have one thing in common and that is charisma. Charismatic leaders are those that have the capability to inspire and encourage people to do more than they would normally do, despite obstacles and personal sacrifice. (Daft, R.L, pg. 364) Charisma is what provokes energy and commitment out of its followers. These leaders possess the power to motivate their followers to do almost anything. They create an atmosphere of change and express an ideal vision of a better future. The most common characteristics of the charismatic leader involve maturity, communication, humility, and inspiration. These unique qualities impact their followers and conduct themselves in such a way that allows for remarkable results. Then
“Leadership is more ability than job. Moreover, it is all about determination, ability to solve problems, set direction for followers, gather them for common purpose and motivating people to achieve tasks. Furthermore, it is a charisma and the ability to reacting at the right time for a particular competitive situation” (L.Mullins, 2010, P372).
The Political scientist George Mac Gregor Burns, has been one of the first one to take the challenge for a throughout analysis of this topic. He has developed Max Webber’s thinking on the sources of authority and charisma by bringing a distinction between transactional and transformational leadership.
Researchers have proposed several characteristics of leaders described as ‘charismatic’. The widely accepted characteristics of charismatic leaders are (Bryman et al., 2011, p. 90-91):