The Source of Leader Charisma (SLC)
Hanoch Ben David
Agile Transformation Coach, Associated Certified Coach (ICF). Certified Resilience Coach (CReC). Resilient Workplace Partner (CReW)
Introduction
Charismatic leadership is firmly rooted in humans’ ideals, values, and beliefs and has received overwhelming attention in the past few decades. Nevertheless, leadership theories are context dependent. The relationship between leader charisma and culture has been determined as important, and studies from North America and Southeast Asia found that characteristics of leadership charisma translate across cultural contexts. Although many scholars agree that charisma is an essential element for excellent leadership and that charismatic leaders can influence others’ beliefs, efforts, attitudes, and behaviours and, consequently, induce improved organisational performance, there are some inconsistencies about the concept of charisma, the structure of charismatic leadership, and the effect of charismatic leadership (Vergauwe et al., 2018). New studies suggest that these inconsistencies result from not distinguishing two essential concepts: leader charisma and source of leaders’ charisma (SLC) and some studies suggest that SLC and charisma are interdependent concepts (Cao et al., 2013).
Conceptual Background
Charisma is historically derived from the ancient Greek word ‘gift’. The early Christian church later adopted this to describe charisma as a gift from God that enabled carrying out extraordinary tasks such as prophecy or healing. Charisma as a secular concept in leadership appeared later, starting with the work of a German sociologist, Max Weber. According to Weber, charisma is attributed to an outstanding leader by his followers and refers to an extraordinary quality of a person. However, there are two aspects of leader charisma: sociological and organisational.
There are different approaches to charisma by sociologists and organisational behaviourists. Weber, a German sociologist, theorised that charisma includes a social crisis or situation of desperation, an extraordinarily gifted person who provides ideas to solve the crisis, and followers who believe that that person is linked to transcendent powers by repeated successes by that person to solve the crisis (House, 1999). Other sociologists describe charisma as a social structure that emerges from complex interactions of elements that cannot be separated into causes, moderators, and effects. Organisational behaviourists, on the other hand, define charisma as a relationship between an individual and others, based on deeply held shared ideological values or an individual who achieves unusual accomplishments and leads others to the above outcomes using their loyalty, a high degree of trust, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices (House, 1999).
Thus, sociologists and psychologists have many inconsistencies in charismatic leadership theory derived from the unattained consensus on leader charisma. Other inconsistencies include opposing beliefs about charisma and leadership, where some scholars believe charisma is rare and that a leader must have exceptional personal qualities to be charismatic. Others suggest that charisma may be a much more common phenomenon, and charismatic leadership can be found at all levels of the organisation. There is also a disagreement between scholars about the charismatic effects. Some scholars argue that charisma is a transient phenomenon because it combines factors likely to be temporary. If charismatic leaders stay in place relatively long, their vision may be fully realised and will likely be routinised. Other scholars argue that some charismatic leaders could retain their charisma throughout their lives. Although definitions of leader charisma are not consistent, there is an agreement between scholars that charisma is an essential element for excellent leaders. Accumulated research, including a series of meta-analytic studies, has found that charismatic leadership is positively associated with leadership effectiveness, such as productivity and turnover across various types of organisations. Leadership is about moving organisational members from an existing state to an aspired future state, and charismatic leaders are recognised by their ability to identify problems with the current state and communicate a vision to change it. Most leadership researchers interested in charisma embrace this notion of charismatic leadership as a force for change. Hence, the understanding and study of SLC is essential for the research of organisational leadership (Berdugo, 2007; Cao et al., 2013; Vergauwe et al., 2018).
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The relationship between charisma and SLC
The source of leader charisma (SLC) comprises a set of characteristics and behaviours that are recognised and appreciated by others. This leads to the perception of the person who holds them as charismatic. These sets of characteristics and behaviours are interdependent on the concept of charisma. They are related to it by context and the perception of others. For example, when some employees in China were asked about their leader’s charisma, they replied that their leaders hold the spirit of self-sacrifice highly. The ‘spirit of self-sacrifice’ is not charisma but the SLC (Cao et al., 2013). As opposed to SLC, charisma is a subjective relationship between leaders and followers. It is a perception by the followers who hold high regard for the characteristics and behaviours of that leader (their SLC). In this context, a charismatic leader might hold several SLCs that act like a ‘signal’ they continually send out. The signals are ‘detected’ by their followers’ perception and attribution system, which then in specific contexts such as environmental need or a social crisis, respond by perceiving these leaders as charismatic. This means that the combination of the follower’s personalities, belief systems, and values, the leader’s SLC, and the context that those followers located in (which affects culture and norms), affects the perception of charisma. Different followers have different values, belief systems, and patterns of perception and attribution. Hence, a particular leader can emerge as charismatic or not to different followers. For the followers that consider the leader as charismatic, there is some degree of match between SLC and followers’ perception and attribution system (Cao et al., 2013).
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Why is it important to understand SLC?
Charismatic leadership is intrinsically linked to change and innovation in both social and organisational contexts. Many scholars concur that charismatic leadership is primarily associated with social change and rejuvenation. Charisma plays a pivotal role in the process through which leaders transform their organisations and guide their followers. Cultural factors also influence the fundamental processes that underlie leaders-followers’ relations. In different cultures, such as individualistic and collectivistic cultures, individuals adopt different types of information processing, such as recognition-based and inference-based, when attributing charisma. However, the most common misconception about charisma is that it is located in a person’s quality or combination of qualities. SLC is not the same as charisma, and distinguishing SLC from charisma can enable a better understanding of charismatic leadership theories and the emerging mechanism of charismatic leaders. However, the main focus of current studies is on charisma and not SLC, and, as a result, the content and structure of SLC remained unknown for many years. Even though SLC is very important for the understanding of the complexity of charismatic leadership, empirical research has rarely investigated it (Berdugo, 2007; Cao et al., 2013; Vergauwe et al., 2018).
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So, what is SLC exactly
SLC is a complex set of charismatic personalities and behaviours. The charismatic personality comprises three dimensions: high morality, outstanding talents, and attractive characteristics. The charismatic behavior also comprises three dimensions: visional inspiration, character development, and morale stimulation (Cao et al., 2013).
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Source of Leadership Charisma
Charismatic Personality
More stable. Comprise of:
Charismatic Behaviors
More dynamic. Comprise of:
SLC is an objective reality attached to the leader, which serves as the raw material of their leadership charisma and is comprised of charismatic personality and charismatic behaviour. The mechanism by which the SLC can emerge into charisma in followers’ eyes is complex and has three key elements: the leader’s SLC, the follower’s attribution pattern, and the contexts or situations. The leader has a charismatic personality and behaviour. In specific context/situations there is a match between the leader’s charismatic personality and behaviour and the followers’ attribution patterns which then causes them to think of the leader as charismatic. The follower’s attribution style is a critical element in the emergence of charisma. Charismatic leadership is essentially a follower-driven phenomenon, and the inter-follower social contagion processes are more relevant to explaining charismatic leadership than anything the leader does or says. Follower’s personal characteristics, values and belief systems will affect their attribution pattern. Contexts or situations are the other essential elements in this mechanism as they moderate the relationship between the leader’s SLC and the follower’s personal characteristics, values and belief systems. Different contexts or situations may change the effectiveness of the leaders’ SLC in the eyes of their potential followers (Cao et al., 2013).
Hence it is essential to distinguish SLC from charisma for developing effective charismatic theories as it proposes a new perspective in the understanding of prior arguments of charismatic leadership. For example, since various people in an organisation have SLCs, the concept of charisma as a rare phenomenon is challenged. On the other hand, it is believed that SLCs are different from ordinary traits and behaviours. For example, SLC, such as ideological vision articulation, exceptional risks taking, self-sacrificing for the common good or in the interest of the vision and behaving in unconventional ways can hardly be characterized as ‘ordinary behaviours. Further, charisma emerges from the interaction of SLC, follower’s personal characteristics, values and belief systems, and contexts or situations. In other words, all elements should be present to some degree for charisma to occur so in this context charisma may be a rare phenomenon. Another question that the understanding SLC could help with is whether charisma a transient or lasting phenomenon? Some scholars argue that charisma is transient, while others argue that it is lasting. Later studies suggest that different SLCs will produce different effects. The charismatic personality of an SLC that is more stable in the leader may produce a lasting influence on their followers. Contrary to that, the charismatic behaviour part of SLC which is more dynamic in the relationship between leaders and followers may produce a transient influence on the followers (Cao et al., 2013).
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Summary
Charisma is a relationship between leader and follower, that is subjectively perceived by a particular follower. Source of Leader Charisma (SLC) is an objective reality attached to the leader, which could be the raw material of leader charisma and it is mainly comprised of charismatic personality and charismatic behavior. SLC combined with contextual patterns and the followers’ perception and attribution system may cause the leader to be perceived as charismatic. This means that in certain situations and with some audience the same person might be considered charismatic but in others they might not. Source of Leader Charisma (SLC) is essential to leadership charisma, but can it be developed? And if so how? More on that in future articles?
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References
Thanks Hanoch Ben David interesting read! You should note that there’s also a dark side to charisma. It can often lead to dictatorship or narcissist leadership. It can also leads to complicit folowers calture which can can easily turn into a cult.