Charismatic Leadership

Charisma is a Greek word meaning “divine gift.” The ancient Greeks saw people with charisma as inspired by the gods and capable of incredible accomplishments. Charismatic leaders have strong, confident, dynamic personalities that attract followers and enable the leaders to create strong bonds with their followers.

Followers trust charismatic leaders, are loyal to them, and are inspired to work toward the accomplishment of the leader’s vision. Followers who become devoted to charismatic leaders may go to extraordinary lengths to please them.

Therefore, we can define charismatic leader-ship as the behavioral tendencies and personal characteristics of leaders that create an exceptionally strong relationship between them and their followers. Charismatic leaders also articulate a clear vision for the future that is based on strongly held values or morals; model those values by acting in a way consistent with the vision; communicate high performance expectations to followers; and display confidence in followers’ abilities to achieve the vision.

In general, there are two kinds of charismatic leaders, ethical charismatics and unethical charismatics. Ethical charismatics provide developmental opportunities for followers, are open to positive and negative feedback, recognize others’ contributions, share information, and have moral standards that emphasize the larger interests of the group, organization, or society. By contrast, unethical charismatics control and manipulate followers, do what is best for themselves instead of their organizations, want to hear only positive feedback, share information that is only beneficial to themselves, and have moral standards that put their interests before everyone else’s.

Because followers can become just as committed to unethical charismatics as to ethical charismatics, unethical characteristics pose a tremendous risk for companies.