Charismatic Theory

Certain leaders, such as Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, inspired their followers to throw heart and soul into creating a better world. Other leaders led their followers down paths of destruction and disaster—perhaps the most notable being Adolf Hitler. Whatever history's judgment on their goals and the outcome of their efforts, these leaders all share the quality of charisma. Defined as a special power to attract and inspire followers through a compelling vision and perceptions of extraordinary capabilities, the phenomenon of [Page 163]charisma is based in followers' perceptions, as described below.

The German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) was the first to apply the adjective charismatic to leaders. He posited three forms of authority in society (the traditional, the rational-legal, and the charismatic), with charismatic authority being based on people's collective perception that a given individual is extraordinary and therefore worthy of leading. In contrast to leaders whose authority derives from tradition or rules or elections, leaders whose authority derives from charisma are “set apart from ordinary men and … treated as endowed with … exceptional powers and qualities … [which] are not accessible to the ordinary person but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary” (Weber 1947, 358–359).

While Weber did not give a detailed explanation of the behaviors associated with this form of leadership, his writings do provide us with elements of the character and the course of charismatic leadership. Weber describes the condition under which it typically arises (distress), one requirement for its maintenance (success), its likely outcome over time (institutionalization), and some of the means by which charismatic leaders exercise their authority (powers of vision, speech, heroism). Because of Weber's sociological perspective, however, he largely overlooked the issues of personal attributes and relational dynamics between the leader and followers. Only later in the twentieth century did organizational theorists turn their attention to those particular gaps in our understanding.