CHARISMA AND OBEDIENCE:

A RISK COGNITION APPROACH

Stephen Turner*
University of South Florida

Weber’s account of charisma solved certain specific problems in the philosophy of law by using a
concept from the history of church law. The concept Weber generalized from, originally formulated
by R. Sohm, relied on the notion of divine inspiration; Weber’s uses required a substitute causal force.
The standard substitutes are culturahst, in which the power of the charismatic leader or the state
comes from meeting cultural expectations for leaders, or contractual, in which leaders give followers
something they want. Neither account squares with the fundamental use of the idea, to explain cultural
innovation and internal change in followers. A new model of the character of charisma that fits these
needs is proposed. In it, the leader is seen as a person who both offers a choice of a new vision of
risks and opportunities and, through his or her own conduct, provides evidence of the realizability
of this vision through submission. The example of Frank Lorenzo, a case of business charisma, is
discussed in detail.

Weber’s comments on charisma are scattered throughout his work, and out of this huge
mass of material it is difficult to extract a simple “theory.“There are two broad headings
under which his comments may be put-the legal and the religious. The temptation
is to construct a conception of charisma that makes sense of one set of comments, and
then interpret the other kind of usage in terms of this conception. Ordinarily, this has
been done in one direction-to make the comments on religious charisma fundamental
and explain political charisma by derivation, as a subordinate case. The comments on
religious charisma make reference to religious enthusiasm, ecstatic states, collective
frenzy, and the like (Smith, 1988, 1990). In modern, rationalized, societies, characterized
by what Weber himself called the “mutual strangeness of religion and politics” (Gerth
& Mills, 1946, p. 335) the connections are difficult to make. But the connection can

* Direct all correspondence to: Stephen Turner, Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida,
4202 East Fowler Ave., Tampa, FL 33620.

Leadership Quarterly, 4(3/4), 235-256.

Copyright @ 1993 by JAI Press Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISSN: 1048-9843
236 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 314 1993

be made, notably in special circumstances, such as war,’ and certain political rituals,
such as coronations. This has led to one major line of interpretation, which holds that
all authority is fundamentally sacred (cf. Shils, 1975, pp. 127-134).
The obstacles to this line of interpretation are nevertheless formidable, and one is
fundamental. Sacralization ordinarily rests on religious traditions. People must be
culturally prepared if they are to regard a given occasion, personage, or institution as
“sacred.” Therefore, this line of interpretation has the effect of reducing charisma to
culture. Weber, however, typically stressed the personal character of charisma, the
power of the leader to produce inner transformations, metanoia, of attitudes in his
followers, and the historical character of charisma as a “force” opposed both to tradition
and rationality (1978, p. 1117). These elements, and the paradigmatic or primal political
charismatic himself, the heroic warlord, can be assimilated into the sacralization model
only with difficulty.
But the sacralization model does provide an answer to one of the central puzzles
about the concept of charisma. Weber characterized the charismatic leader as one
considered to be “extraordinary” (1978, p. 241) or, in a more literal translation of the
original German, “un-everyday-like.” The connection between the quality of
exceptionality and the facts of obedience and inner transformation on the part of
followers is obscure. Why should a person, however extraordinary, gain the submission
of followers as a result of his or her extraordinariness? What is the inner connection
between extraordinariness and submission? Weber himself was not very enlightening
on this point. In one passage, he commented that “charismatic authority . . . rests on
a belief in the sanctity or value of the extraordinary” whereas traditionalist “domination
rests on a belief in the sanctity of everyday routines” (1947, p. 297). The connection,
in short, is the same as for other kinds of legitimation: there are beliefs which are part
of the culture which say, in effect, “obey people who meet the following criteria.. . .”
But this is a peculiar opposition. Is there any such thing as a generalized belief in
the sanctity of the extraordinary? Also, does the personal appeal of paradigmatic
charismatic leaders rest on such pre-existent beliefs? The answer to this question
depends, of course, on who is taken to be a paradigmatic charismatic leader. Is it a
figure such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, who gives edicts with legal force but whose
authority rests ultimately not on his person but on the prior beliefs of his followers
which enable them to recognize him as a semidivine figure? Does the charismatic appeal
of the heroic warlord rest on analogous pre-existing beliefs?
There are several problems with the line of interpretation that answers “yes” to these
questions, which we may call the culturalist interpretation of charisma. The major
problem is innovation. Presumably, either the belief in the sanctity of the extraordinary
is a part of the pre-existing culture and has a specific content, such as those that were
the basis of the claims of Khomeini, or it is-in some unspecified sense-the product
of the charismatic leader himself. If it is the product of a religious tradition, presumably
the tradition itself defines the notion of “extraordinariness” and the deference due to
the charismatic leader but also greatly constrains the behavior of the leader and limits
the innovations that the religious leader may adopt. Certain acts or edicts, for example,
might be taken as proof of a lack of the proper religious qualifications. Indeed, since
the authority of the leader rests on these criteria and beliefs, the possibility of innovation
is circumscribed by tradition. It is difficult to see, in the end, how this kind of authority
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 237

could constitute the radically transformative force that it would need to be to perform
the large role that it plays in Weber’s conception of history.
The culturalist solution to what I will call the problem of attachment, the question
of what is the character of the connection between “extraordinariness” and obedience,
thus comes at a theoretical price, and at such a high price that it seems inconsistent
with Weber’s own uses of the concept. In this article, I explore an alternative solution
to the problem of “attachment,” one that allows for the possibility of radical cultural
innovation through charisma. The solution has a basis in Weber’s texts, but it does
not purport to be an interpretation of these texts. Weber himself, I believe, never gave
an adequate account of the connection between extraordinariness and obedience.
The first part of the article deals with the historical background to the problem. The
second proposes an account of the connection between extraordinariness and obedience.
The third part provides a contemporary example, taken from the business world. The
point of the historical section is simple: to extract from the mass of remarks on charisma
in Weber a core problem, the problem of the ultimate character of authority. I show
that Weber believed that the origin of authority in its familiar form-obedience backed
by compulsion, rational self-interest, or tradition, such as state power-may be found
in obedience without compulsion, rational-self interest, or tradition. The concept of
charisma was borrowed by Weber for the purpose of accounting for obedience in terms
other than compulsion, rational self-interest, justification from rational “normative”
principles, or tradition. But Weber, in borrowing this concept, created an insoluble
problem for himself with respect to the “power” or “force” of which charisma was an
embodiment. His source had an answer to this question, as we shall see, but one that
Weber could not adopt. In the second section, I provide an alternative that solves this
problem and also solves the problem of “attachment.” The connection, it is argued, can
be made by reference to fundamental considerations of the cognition of risk. The third
section shows these considerations operating in some familiar cases in the business world.

THE ORIGINS OF THE CONCEPT

As with many of Weber’s other “sociological” ideas, the sources both of the concept
of charisma and the major theoretical problem he used it to resolve were the
jurisprudential theorizing of the academic generation before his own, and especially
the jurisprudential thinkers on which he was himself trained as a lawyer (Turner &
Factor, 1993). The two thinkers most relevant to the concept of charisma are Rudolph
von Ihering and Rudolf Sohm: Sohm, who was both a historian of Roman Law and
of Christianity, was Weber’s direct source for the concept. The term “charisma” is used
in a recognizably modern way in Sohm’s history of the church and its law. This work
deals with a problem in the philosophy of law. Sohm attempted to explain the theoretical
anomaly of a “law’‘-church law-without the element that his own legal tradition took
to be a part of the definition of law: the possession of sufficient force to compel
obedience. The main application of the concept made by Weber was to the problem,
central to the legal thinking of his time, of the origin of the law. This problem had
been given its standard form by Ihering.
For Ihering (1968, 1979), the law was a product of the interests of the parties to the
legal order-a kind of contract that was not really “consensual” because it was based
238 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 3/4 1993

not on consent prior to the establishment of the order but on de facto consent obtained
once the dust of conflict had settled and the beneficial effects of the new “legal” order
had become visible (1968, pp. 176-325). This basic account had a basic problem which,
for Ihering, took a familiar chicken-and-egg form. If coercion preceded legality, how
could it make “law”? If law preceded the coercive use of force by the state, how could
law (as mere words) acquire the force actually necessary to enforce it? His answer to
the chicken-and-egg problem was straightforward and brutal: coercion without law
precedes legal coercion. The law itself was, for Ihering, a product of lawmaking which
ab initio could not have been “legal.” Law, thus, was made by the winners of struggles.
“Winning,” he thought, was constrained practically by the fact that to win, it is necessary
to make alliances that can be made only by serving a wide range of interests, so there
is a basic constraint on legal orders that pushes legal change in the general direction
of satisfying wider ranges of interests.
Coercion is, nevertheless, the core fact about law, and the distinctive fact about legal
coercion is that it is effectively a monopoly. The reality of coercion and the possibility
of nonlegal coercion are always present alongside legal authority, in the forms of
revolution and criminality. Nonlegal coercion in the form of simple criminality is
“illegal;” the forces of legal coercion are authorized and required to counter and suppress
this kind of coercion. Failure to do so means anarchy or the absence of law. If a legal
order is opposed by a revolutionary force which avails itself of the illegal power of
coercion, the issue is somewhat different. The state could outlaw and define the coercive
actions of the revolutionaries as illegal. But unless they can prevail against the
revolution, and preserve a practically effective monopoly on coercion, the “illegal”
power of the revolution might prevail, and a new de facto monopoly on coercion could
be established. Such a monopoly could be transformed into a monopoly of “legal”
coercion by a simple proclamation to the effect that the revolutionary law is the law.
Criminality does not pretend to make law. But revolutionaries do, and when they
succeed in the realm of violent struggle, the claim is no longer a pretense-it is a new
legal reality no less valid than the legal reality previously represented by the deposed
order.
Weber’s account of the origins of the state closely parallels this account (1978, pp.
904-910). The state is an effective monopoly of coercion within a given territorial base.
The roots of the state are in bands of robbers who subdue the population within a
territory and rule by intimidation. But the egg of the band of robbers requires the chicken
of leadership of the band of robbers. Leadership within the band of robbers that is
the primordial state is charismatic, in the manner of the heroic warrior. In the case
of the primordial state, the power to punish those who disobey itself rests in a practical
sense on the authority of the leader of the band of robbers, an authority that enables
him to order some of his band to punish the disobedient. The robbers invent a
legitimating rationale for their rule-but this rationale is for the subjects of the state
to believe in, not for the ruling band, and is merely a form of intimidation.

Obedience without Compulsion

The contrast between Weber’s application of the concept and its source could not
be stranger. Sohm’s (1923, 1958) studies of the history of the church and of church
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 239

law (canon law) are models of Protestant piety and anti-Catholic controversialism. The
early church and its character were the basis of the self-constituting fiction of the
“Reformation’‘-the idea that Protestantism represented a return to true Christianity.
Thus, the character of the church before its institutional structures were fully developed
was a problem charged with high religious significance.
Sohm was a believer. He understood charisma theologically. It was of divine rather
than human origin. In Apostolic times, it was opposed to the idea of legal authority
in the spiritual domain. As Sohm quoted Matthew, “The princes of the world exercise
dominion and authority; but it shall not be so among you.“Instead, “God, that is, Christ,
rules and binds together all the members of Christendom solely through the gifts of
grace (charismata) given by Him.” Gifts come in various forms. “To one is given the
gift of teaching, to another the gift of interpretation, to a third the gift of comfort.
The gift of teaching is at the same time the gift of government.” Sohm said that the
Apostles ruled by “teaching.” But “with the prophets and teachers . . . their government
was purely spiritual; in point of fact they ruled, but without legal authority” (1958, p.
33). The congregants generally, not the bishops or priests, were the possessors of the
power of recognition. “God’s people, the ecclesia, is to be ruled, not by man’s word,
but by the Word of God proclaimed by the divinely gifted teacher; and the ecclesia
obeys the word of the teacher only if, and so far as, it recognizes therein the Word
of God” (1958, p. 33). But the word of God is alive in every ecclesia, apart from the
special gifts of the apostle, prophet, or teacher, all members of the body of Christ, by
the Holy Spirit living within them, are “priests and kings” (1958, p. 34). The existence
of canon “law” in the Catholic church does not change these divinely ordained facts.
But it is an anomaly to be explained away. Sohm does so by denying that actual church
institutions are divine. The church, in the sense of the invisible Church, the body of
Christ, is God’s gift. But particular visible churches are merely associations that come
and go in history (1923, p. 66) and in which God is present.
God’s gifts are to individuals, not institutions. All Christians have gifts of the spirit.
The office of the Bishop is founded on the gift of the deed. Persons who have the gift
of teaching or prophesy have a higher rank, but are rarities. But they alone make for
a direct connection between God’s will and the corporatively organized community:
charismatically endowed teachers are possessed by the Holy Spirit, who speaks
prophetically through them. Such speech, according to Sohm, is always authoritarian
(1922, pp. 3941). Thus, the direct authorizing action of the Holy Spirit in relation to
the organized Church (as distinct from providing administrative talent to individuals)
is always through charismatic individuals.
The visible church, thus, is a charismatic institution only indirectly, through following
the commands of these individual vehicles of the Holy Spirit.* They are “Ftihrers,” with
authority, but only in the sense that they can witness authoritatively: they have no rights,
as Sohm put it, only duties (1923, pp. 118-119). Catholic theology, of course, says
something different: that the church, the bishops, and the legal order of the church
are established by the a gift of authority from Jesus to Peter, the Petrine donation (1923,
pp. 161-162). In contrast, the “constitution of the Protestant Church” is based on the
premise that any claim to legal power makes the church into a temporal, political
organization in competition with the state, and annuls the claim of the church to spiritual
authority: “the instrument of government [of the Protestant Church] is the Word of
240 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 3/4 1993

God alone, ‘without bodily force”’ (1958, p. 173). This account of the theology of
charisma and its relation to ecclesiastical “authority” may be boiled down to a few simple
points.

1. The charismata are given to individuals;

2. They are diverse, and include gifts of “deed” and “word;”
3. Gifts of teaching, or “word,” have their effects through recognition by believers;
and
4. The sole common element of charismata is their source, the Holy Spirit.

Weber’s Generalization of the Concept

Weber reasoned that although Sohm “developed [the] category [of charisma] with
regard to one historically important case,” the early church, “in principle these
phenomena are universal, even though they are most evident in the religious realm”
(1978, p. 1112). The way the concept was formulated by Sohm lends itself to the kind
of transformation Weber subjects it to: the gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit
are diverse and mysterious; Weber’s are simply more so: The category covers any case
of extraordinariness that is “recognized” and compels obedience through an inner
transformation on the part of the followers.
“Universalizing,” however, creates a problem for Weber. Sohm attributed mysterious
workings to the Holy Spirit and believed that the Holy Spirit was a force in history.
Weber also treated charisma as a force in history. But without a substitute for the Holy
Spirit, the character of charisma as a “force” becomes mysterious. In Sohm, the
charismatic element given by the Holy Spirit was added to human activities that are
not pure acts of the Holy Spirit but are divinized by the addition; in Weber, the element
of charisma was combined with and appears in many activities.
In practice, the charismatic “element”in the various situations to which Weber applied
the term is the element which is left over or cannot be explained by economic
considerations, tradition, coercion, and the like. Everything from the use of ordeals
as sources of evidence (1978, p. 1116) to the granting of credit without security, to
“robber” capitalists (1978, p. 1118) is said to have a charismatic element. In short,
anything involving legitimacy that is not explained in some other way is explained by
the contribution of a supposed charismatic element. Therefore, it is a radically
heterogenous residual category. This means that the simple model, derived from Sohm,
of the individual “witnessing” in a way that is recognized by others as authoritative
because it is divine has no obvious relation to these cases. All that these residual
“charismatic elements” have in common is the element of “extraordinariness.” But this
is really only another way of saying that these are residual phenomena, unexplained
by ordinary considerations. Extraordinariness, by itself, is not a “force.”
The closest Weber came to a unified account of charisma was to construct a series
of genealogical stories in which the charismatic element, for example of the Roman
Principate, figured as a remnant of past practices that were more fully based on
charisma; in this case, the designation of a dictator on the field of battle through
acclamation (1978, p. 1125). By “genealogical,” I mean simply that these accounts derive
from unambiguous cases of personal charisma through some series of connecting steps
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 241

that preserves the “charismatic” element in part. The “election” of a Pope is perhaps
the paradigmatic case of such a genealogical account, for it operates under a theology
in which the creation of the office of the papacy is itself the product of actions of the
possessor of original, personal charisma-Jesus-and the continued intervention of the
Holy Spirit in the step of transferring the charismatic endowment of the office (1978,
p. 1126). Weber suggested that quasi-magical notions of “election” of this sort are
commonplace in the history of charisma, and went on to argue that there is a “transition”
from this quasi-magical kind of “election” to democratic suffrage. Elsewhere, he said
that “kingship is normally charismatic war leadership that has become permanent and
has developed a repressive apparatus for the domestication of unarmed subjects” (1978,
p. 1135). In this case, charisma supports the establishment of legal authority. In other
cases, it supports tradition or becomes transformed into it (1978, pp. 1135-39).
It could reasonably be inferred from these statements that the charisma of office
is always derivative of a prior case of personal charisma, though one which is perhaps
now lost in the mists of time. We could then construe the problem of providing a
general interpretation of Weber’s account of charisma as one of identifying the possible
contents or common elements of all cases of personal charisma. We could treat all
other cases, such as the charisma of democratic office-holders, as derivative. However,
in Weber’s own account, a charismatic element in the genealogy of a phenomenon
is not necessary. In the case of the Germanic reverence for the state bureaucracy, for
example, there is no genealogical story of the origins of the attitude in a prior “purer”
charismatic form: the “cause” is Lutheran theology and its reverence for authority in
general. Consequently, there is no way to unify Weber’s uses of the term through a
common genealogical element by showing all cases of charisma, including office
charisma, to derive from initial cases of personal charisma. This is important to keep
in mind in connection with the revised theory of charisma that is presented in the
next section, which is an account of personal charisma. Neither this nor any other
account that attempts to derive all cases of charisma from personal charisma can fully
match Weber’s uses.
If historical derivations from initial cases of personal charisma cannot yield a common
element, it might be supposed that Weber’s concept of charisma as a “force” might
do so. Weber routinely characterized charisma as a force in history opposed to others.
He designated it “the strongest anti-economic force” (1978, p. 1113, italics in original)
and saw it in tension with material interests, as in his remark that:

Every charisma is on the road from a turbulently emotional life that knows no economic rationality
to a slow death by suffocation under the weight of material interest: every hour of its existence
brings it nearer to death (1978, p. 1120).

Despite this metaphorical language, Weber’s account of this process of slow death is
rather mundane. The instrumental practicalities of maintaining a staff or following cause
the charismatic leader to employ means, such as salary payments, that undermine the
charismatic character of the bond by weakening the mystery element, the
extraordinariness, of the leader. But this mundane kind of “opposition” does not point
to any deep, potentially unifying notion of charisma. Weber identifies no intrinsic reason
why the charismatic leader should elect to pay salaries and the like-indeed, the necessity
242 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 3/4 1993

of the loss of charisma is a mystery. Why should a charismatic leader choose to substitute
non-charismatic means, if their use necessarily diminishes the leader’s charisma?
This short history of the sources of Weber’s account of charisma thus ends with a
fundamental problem. The question of the philosophy of law that the concept of
charisma was supposed to answer was this: how can authority, the kind of authority
that employs “bodily force” but is more than bodily force, “valid” force, be produced
by mere bodily force? The answer is that it cannot, that the basis of authority with
compulsion is in authority without compulsion. When Weber looked for a concept of
authority without compulsion he found “charisma,” Sohm’s concept of the mysterious
and polyform gifts of the Holy Spirit, among which is the gift of teaching or prophecy.
Weber solved the problem of authority without compulsion by taking over the concept
of charisma. But this is a highly problematic borrowing. Sohm, as a believer, thought
of the Holy Spirit as a genuine “force” that in fact intervened in history. Weber kept
the polyform notion of charismatic powers. But he redefined it in a naturalistic and
psychological way: the belief of others in the extraordinary or supernatural powers of
the charismatic figure, rather than actual possession of the supernatural force of the
Holy Spirit, is the criterion.
The reduction of charisma to the beliefs of potential followers created a problem
that Weber could not resolve. Charisma cannot be understood in a generalized way
as a “force.” There simply is no common element of “force” to replace the Holy Spirit
understood (as it was by Sohm) as a real force. The only commonality among the gifts
of the Holy Spirit resides in the intentions of the Holy Spirit, which are a mystery.
Without providing something to replace the unifying but inaccessible aims of the Holy
Spirit, there is no common element of force to charisma. Though Weber spoke as though
there was, he was not entitled to do so.
The usual response to these inadequacies has been to supplement Weber’s account
by identifying a different basis for charisma as a causal force. One approach is to see
the relation between leader and follower as a quasi-contractual one, in which the leader
meets the hidden and unmet emotional needs of the follower (e.g., Camic, 1980). The
granting of obedience in exchange for the meeting of needs is the source of power.
This account is a simple variant on the Hobbesian formula of the exchange of protection
for obedience. But it is evident that this account will not suffice for cases that Weber
himself took to be central, such as the case of the leader of the primal warband that
becomes a state through its monopolization of effective force in a given territory. Nor
does it fit with the specific kinds of charismatic authority Weber identified within the
market.
Unifying all of Weber’s cases of charisma is probably a goal that is impossible to
reach. The history presented here suggests a reason why it cannot: the cases Weber
placed into the category were unified by similarities with respect to the belief by followers
in the extraordinariness of the leader rather than by a common force or common history.
But perhaps a close variant of this problem can be solved. The essence of Weber’s
approach was to try to identify a “pure” type or case of charisma, a type of authority
that could not be reduced to either rational calculation on the one hand or traditional
belief on the other.
We may alter the terms of his problem slightly by asking whether there is any way
to salvage the idea of a basis for authority that is not reducible to calculations of self-
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 243

interest, tradition, or doctrine. Approaches which reduce the leader-follower bond to

a quasi-contract, in which the leader meets the psychological needs of followers, collapse
the relationship into the therapeutic bond, which is a rational one of sorts, at least for
the person with unmet needs. This approach, then, has the effect of collapsing charisma
into rationality. Attempts in the management literature to measure “1eader”personality
or behavioral types collapse into tradition-the measures are practically effective only
within a particular set of cultural expectations on which leader-managers rely. The
behavioral traits of a successful visionary manager can be identified because, in the
limited setting of contemporary corporate life, the expectations of employees are more
or less fixed.
Pure charisma is supposed to be something else-it transforms people, and creates
“culture.” It is not reducible to, or a form of, self-interested calculation, but a force
opposed to it, which transforms the goals of the people who are touched by it. Is there
anything that corresponds to this? If not, perhaps the concept of charisma should be
given up. There should be some sort of intelligible mechanism by which leaders produce
these transformations. In what follows, I suggest that there is, and that it can be
understood, if not as a “force” opposed to rationality and tradition, as something with
a basis outside of and in conflict with rationality and tradition.
We may summarize the desiderata for a new account of charisma very simply. What
is needed is a distinctive basic force underlying charisma, something which does not
collapse into utilitarianism or culture, which preserves the distinctiveness of charismatic
authority, particularly its power to generate new ideals and goals, and is highly general,
which is to say, separable from particular religious traditions or ideologies. Put simply,
charisma must be something other than tradition or rationality; it must be opposed
to both, and it must have a source distinct from but analogous to the power of reason
or the weight of tradition.

ATTACHMENT: THE COGNITIVE LINK

BETWEEN EXTRAORDINARINESS AND METANOIA

Weber’s Basic Argument

We begin by providing an epitomization of Weber’s account of charisma. If the

theological content (i.e., the intentional activity of the Holy Spirit) is excised from
Sohm’s account, the criteria for the possession of charisma must be relativized in two
ways: first, to the specific claims made on behalf of the leader that justify his or her
particular claim to personal authority, and second, to the specific audiences for these
claims who will “recognize” the authority of the leader. These two aspects are often
confused, and for good reason: In many circumstances, the promises or deeds of the
leader fit with and indeed embody the expectations of the audience of potential
followers. To the extent that the conduct of the leader is simply a response to these
prior expectations, the “charisma” in question is “impure,” because it rests entirely on
culture. In general, of course, leader-follower expectations are in large part “traditional.”
The images of good leadership are fixed, sometimes by the exemplary standards of
past great leaders. Impression management and self-promoting propaganda trade on
these expectations. It is possible to construct, rationally, a swindle or a public relations
244 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 314 1993

campaign only because there is a base of stable expectations on which the constructors
of social reality may rely to produce a predictable response in a given audience.
“Extraordinariness” is something that may be proclaimed on the basis of these
conventions and expectations.
Weber recognized this. He stressed that the tests that the charismatic leader had to
meet were more or less given. The charismatic leader, he said, “must work miracles,
if he wants to be a prophet. He must perform heroic deeds, if he wants to be a warlord”
(1978, p. 1114). Weber also stressed that the bond between leader and follower was
quasi-contractual and utilitarian in character. He added that “most of all, [the leader’s]
divine mission must prove itself by bringing well-being to his faithful followers; if they
do not fare well, he is obviously not the god-sent master . . . the genuine charismatic
leader is responsible to the ruled-responsible, that is, to prove that he himself is indeed
the master willed by God” (1978, p. 1114). What matters is “success” in meeting tests
and success in bringing well-being. But the criteria of “success” are not wholly fixed
in advance. The claim of a divine mission or military leadership also involves the setting
of new goals and therefore, the creation of new tests.
Weber did not, however, disentangle the various sources of the expectations that the
potential leader must meet, nor did he satisfactorily explain the connection of charisma
to well-being. The following formulation, however, is consistent with his usages. The
expectations of a given target audience, we may say, are not infinitely malleable. But
they may be changed or formed by the words and miracles of the charismatic prophet,
or by the actions of the hero. Thus, the promise of eternal life may have no role in
the theology of the target audience, but the audience may become persuaded by
prophecy to accept such a promise. In cases where prophecy takes more or less
traditional forms, such as shamanism or the prophets of Ancient Judaism, the matter
is simpler: prophet and audience share expectations which are grounded in tradition
or rationalized religious ideology. The underlying process of acquiring charismatic
power in each case, however, is the same. The leader must accept tests and fulfill them.
If they are tests of his or her own devising, they must fit with his or her claim to
extraordinariness. Also, the followers must benefit as it has been promised to them
that they will benefit, even if the benefits are intangible or spiritual. The relation is
fundamentally contractual but nevertheless open, at least in the sense that the leader
may change the terms of the contract by making new promises and devising new tests
and benefits. The cycle of charisma is the cycle of promises begetting tests and producing
benefits, thus producing more charisma. There is, in short, a charismatic career, which
may develop in various ways: it may be transformed into a largely economic one, for
example, or it may continue to be “charismatic.” But to continue to be charismatic,
the leader must, Weber insisted, continue to pass the tests put before him, or seek out
tests that demonstrate his charisma: he “gains and retains it solely by proving his powers
in practice” (cf. 1978, p. 1114).

The Mysterious Connection Between Extraordinariness and Obedience

If the “benefits” and “tests”in question are simply those defined by the pre-established
expectations of given audiences, charisma collapses back into culture and self-interest.
The idea that the charismatic leader has the power to change culture or expectations
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 245

cannot be accounted for solely in terms of the cycle. But the only other conceptual
resource within Weber’s discussion of charisma is highly problematic: the notion of
extraordinariness. If the notion is glossed as “extraordinary power to produce benefits”
we are back at the point at which we began: charismatic followership collapses into
a form of instrumental rational self-interest. We need an account that explains how
a leader can change followers’ ideas of benefits. And this forces us to try to make
something else out of the notion of extraordinariness. But in making anything of the
notion of extraordinariness, we face a fundamental problem.
The problem is “attachment”-the nature of the connection between the
extraordinariness of an individual and obedience or the creation of a following. Weber
seemed to reason as though there is a connection, and that this connection is sufficient
to start the cycle of charisma, whose continuation may be explained through the twin
devices of the continued meeting of tests and the continued satisfaction of the well-
being of followers. But there is nothing inherent in extraordinariness that commands
obedience. How, then, is the fact of extraordinariness attached to command? The usual
answers to this question appeal to non-charismatic elements. A rational self-interest
in benefits is one connecting link. But if this is the basis of the relation, as we have
seen, it collapses charisma into contract. As already noted, in some cases there is a
different connecting link: traditions, such as those of particular religions, which specify
who is “extraordinary” and that such people are to be obeyed. Laws that dictate
obedience to a person whose selection is through a procedure that involves charismatic
tests of some sort could serve the same purpose. But these are not, by definition, cases
of pure charisma. So we are back to the question with which we began: Is there such
a thing as “pure” or original charisma? Is there a nontraditional, nonlegal device or
causal process by which extraordinariness does confer the power of command?

Pure Charisma

To answer this question, it is useful to divide the problem into two parts. Sohm
distinguished several kinds of divine gifts, among them gifts of the word and gifts of
the deed. Weber made the same distinction, between prophets and heroes. We may
characterize heroes conveniently enough in the language of Machiavelli-heroes must
possess audacity, prowess, and fortuna or luck (1975, p. 63) in order to perform
extraordinary deeds. The prophet who seeks to change the expectations of his or her
audiences through a prophetic message to the effect that God will punish the prophet’s
audiences unless they change their conduct, for example, must be spiritually
extraordinary. The message is “follow me” in the case of the hero, “heed my warning”
in the case of the prophet. The problem in each case is to understand the connection
between the followers’ response, the change produced in them, and the qualifications
of the speaker.
In the case of the hero, one connection is this: the hero, by his or her audacity, has
changed his or her audiences’ expectations about the possibilities or probabilities of
various outcomes, especially about the risks associated with them. These are cognitive
changes, changes in a person’s unstated assessments of the risks or possibilities inherent
in a given course of action in a given situation, that can be produced by the action
of another person. Actions can demonstrate or reveal risks through action and, thus,
246 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 3/4 1993

transform a person’s unarticulated ideas about what is possible. Actions of one person
produce an internal change in another person.
Under most circumstances, the effects are modest. In cases where the activities are
routine and our experience is wide, a person’s implicit assessments of risks will not
affected by single additional cases or actions. If I hear that you have had a pedestrian
accident at a crossing that I use daily, my own behavior as a pedestrian will probably
not change very much. The data that is the basis of my actions, my decades of experience
in crossing streets, is so voluminous that this single new case will have little effect. But
in some circumstances, new information, derived, for example, from observing someone
fail or come to harm as a consequence of performing an act that was previously thought
not to involve serious risks, may have large effects.
One reason for variation in the strength of effects of new information about risk
is that tacit estimates of risk are often not well-founded on experience and, thus, are
readily transformed on the basis of small pieces of information. In some domains, there
are general reasons for the weakness of the grounding of our risk estimates. Gaining
knowledge that would allow a person to improve his or her assessments is not cost-
free. The costs of learning-of political, military, or financial experiments, for
example-may be enormous. The particular kind of risk may not lend itself to testing
or permit the kinds of comparisons that would allow the person to feel confidence in
the evidence. The costs and possible consequences of violating a given sexual taboo
in a given society may be very great, information may be scarce, and “testing” through
one’s own actions or “observing” may be out of the question. In consequence, many
beliefs about risk are traditional, in the sense of being passed on as part of a culture,
and, not surprisingly, risk assessments generally vary between societies. These
assessments are often, paradoxically, socially powerful in their effects, but nevertheless
fragile, because they rest on little direct experience and, therefore, are highly susceptible
to new evidence.
In the case of an act which is imitable, the action, if successful, changes the
expectations of a member of an audience about the risks they would face if they took
the same action. Rosa Parks, the woman whose refusal to give up her seat sparked
the Montgomery bus boycott, changed the expectations of her black “audience” about
the possible outcomes of violating racial laws and taboos. Her heroism consisted of
taking a risk and showing others that they could perform the same act. The very fact
that she was an unassuming and powerless person made the message even stronger.
Also, her acts produced changes within otherpeople, people who had, previously, lived
in a world of different fears with a different sense of what was possible. But Rosa Parks,
though she became a historical figure, did not acquire authority in the sense that Weber
had in mind.

Rational Submission: Pure Charisma as a Special Case of Change

in Risk Perception as a Result of Action

The case Weber had in mind may be seen as a subset of the production of inner
transformations in other people through actions that affect risk perceptions. The subset
consists of cases in which expectations are changed but the actions are not only not
imitable but depend on the specific involvement of the leader and the obedience of
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 247

followers. In cases where the change-producing actions of the leader are not imitable
by followers, the change in assessments of risks and possibilities is a change in the
audience’s sense of what possibilities can be realized or risks overcome through the
agency of the leader exercsing authority. If the hero’s message is “I can do these
extraordinary things, and if you obey me you may share in the benefits that I gain,”
then there is a connection between obedience and extraordinariness. If the achievement
of particular desirable outcomes previously considered unachievable or beyond
previously adhered to limits of risk is seen by the potential follower to be shown to
be achievable, but achievable contingent on obedience, and contingent on obedience
to this particular source of command, the “rational” response is to become a follower.
The leader, in short, changes the parameters of what is rational for the follower by
changing the parameters of risk.
This can be restated in a less abstract way. A person might change beliefs about what
is possible for various reasons. Heroic action in itself provides reasons to change.3 The
hero, by performing a feat hitherto regarded as impossibly difficult or risky, changes
the assessments of his audience of the possibilities and risks. But, in some cases, the
lesson does not generalize beyond the hero, because only this source has shown, by
making a kind of down payment in heroic action, an ability to bring about the outcome.4
The hero in this case opens up a new world of possibilities, but there is a catch: it is
a world of possibilities that can only be realized through the hero. If the possibilities
of interest to the member of the audience can only be realized through submission to
the hero, the conditions for charismatic heroic authority have been met. What remains
is for the member of the audience to become a follower-to make a decision to do
what is needed to share in the benefits of this new world of possibilities. The actions
of the hero have, by this stage, produced the metanoia, the internal change, which Weber
placed at the core of his own account of charisma (1978, p. 1117). The change is in
expectations of risk. The decision to submit is a consequence of this change. The bond
between leader and follower is a bond between the agent of change and the person
who has changed.
Submission, the acceptance of authority, is by definition not “rational’‘-at least in
the sense of a contract made out of self-interest, without any metanoia or internal
change. The “irrational” act of submission-that is, obedience and faith beyond the
kind of self-interest defined by previously accepted parameters of risk (i.e., those
accepted before encountering the heroic act)-is “rational,” however, when the person
to whom one chooses to submit has changed the parameters of risk. This is done in
the manner discussed above-through actions that demonstrate the error of past beliefs
about risk. But in this case, the lesson is specific to the leader-the leader is perceived
to be able to act in a way that it was previously believed that no one could act without
taking intolerable risks. In the case in which the risks with a given leader diminish,
the rational choice is submission. The choice to submit to the higher power embodied
in the charismatic figure is rational because the choice between the everyday world of
the follower and the world of risk (and, therefore, of opportunity) opened up by the
actions or words of the leader, and available only through submission, is a better choice.
Obviously, if the risk-expectations that previously defined the ordinary life of the
potential follower have been shattered by the events or the actions of the potential leader,
the choice becomes irresistible.
248 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 3/4 1993

The choice of submission may be reconstructed in this retrospective fashion as

rational-as the selection of a means to an end under changed conditions. However,
it should be obvious that the moment of change and decision has a quite different “lived,”
phenomenological, character. The kinds of choice offered by charismatic leaders or
opened up by their deeds are simply not reducible to calculation. The options are
limited-to gain the world and lose one’s soul, in the Biblical formulation-and typically
involve unknowns and imponderables that cannot be overcome. The charismatic leader,
to be very simple about it, stands before the potential follower with a vision of a new
world of possiblity and with deeds that are a down payment on this world and that
validate the possibility. The deeds disorient the potential follower by undermining
something cognitively fundamental-perceptions of risk. The choice itself is radical,
extreme, and stark. The leader displays evidence of extraordianry powers and invites
the potential follower to overcome fear and leap into a new world. Having a new world
of risk and possibility opened up to oneself through the heroic acts of others is not
itself a fully rationalizable experience. The change, the shock to the person’s
expectations, may have strong “emotional” effects. Therefore, it should be no surprise
that the lived decision is “emotional” rather than “rational.”

Personal “Religious” Charisma as a Derivative Case

The culturalist interpretation of charisma relies in part on the “religious” character

of such moments of decision and their similarity to the phenomena of religious enthu-
siasm. Weber did not draw the analogy himself in the case of the charismatic lawgiver,
although these personages, too, are supposed to act in time of crisis. What might be
said about these similarities? One thing is obvious: the language that is commonly used
in describing the phenomenon of group frenzy and pressure, such as “contagion,” has
little explanatory power. However, these characterizations may be reinterpreted in the
form of rational reconstructions.6 Actual cases of crisis, of course, are cases in which
previous perceptions of risk and possibility are undermined and it becomes more rational
to consider new information and new risks. Group activity itself is often a surrogate
for information about risk. If others in a group are doing something, one may infer
that by doing the same one will be no worse of than others, or that they have information
justifying their actions that one does not possess, and so forth. These inferences may
be wrong-but they are commonplace and intelligible, unlike “contagion.”
This suggests that the phenomenon taken by the culturalist interpretation to be
primary, religious charismatic recognition, may itself be reinterpreted along these lines.
Prophecy, too, involves altering audiences’ perceptions of risks, typically spiritual or
other-worldly risks, and great prophets radically transform the expectations of their
followers. The characteristic form of prophecy is the warning. Since the prophet, as
Sohm was quoted above, only “witnesses, ” “following” involves a particular kind of
internal change, one in which these warnings are given weight. The acceptance of new
estimates of spiritual or temporal risk may, of course, entail massive change in
behavior-such as obedience to some formula for salvation or spiritual good which
serves to avoid the risks of which the prophet warns.
The difficulty in making sense of prophecy is in the notion of extraordinariness.
Ordinarily, traditions enable followers to identify messengers of God. Indeed, it is
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 249

difficult to imagine prophetic religious charisma apart from a background of religious

expectations. Even a case of prophecy associated with the actual performance of
miracles7 involves culture-what is or is not a “miracle” for a given audience depends
on their expectations about the natural world. In the interpretation of miraculous
events-that is, events that violate these expectations-the prior religious tradition is
likely to be especially crucial.
Jesus, of course, is a case in which recognition was provided by prior messianic
expectations, in addition to his attested miracles. In this and similar cases, we can see
a feature of the prophet that has a great deal in common with other figures, notably
Nietzsche’s (1982) creators of new moralities and the “heroic” early capitalists described
in Weber’s Protestant Ethic (1958, pp. 67-72). Each of these cases contains spiritual
risks, more or less well-defined by the background moral and religious tradition, that
these figures successfully overcome. Religions have well-marked categories of spiritual
failure, such as sinner, with well-marked traits. The person who can, in Nietzsche’s
words, “make morals” (cf. 1982, Aph. 11, p. 9) and not succumb to spiritual failure
as conventionally defined is an anomaly whose life disproves the assessments of spiritual
risk that are conventional at the time.
The Women’s Movement provides an excellent contemporary example of the
exemplary power of the anomalous life and the charisma attributed to those who first
live it. The leadership claims of the early feminists flowed precisely from their willingness
to take risks and demonstrate the possibility of living out choices that others considered
impossible or fraught with danger.* The formula “take risks, succeed, be seen as an
instrument or model to whom the ‘irrational’ act of submission is rational” is equally
appropriate, then, in the case of spiritual risks.g The choice, as in the case of the hero(ine),
is for a new world of risks and opportunities, but one with the condition of acceptance
of the authority of the “prophet” who establishes the possibility of this new world-
through overcoming spiritual danger.

The Personal Qualities of the Charismatic leader: Audacity and Determination

Although the features of personality that make for success are largely dependent on
circumstances, audacity and determination in the pursuit of a vision are common to
charismatic leaders. Robert Michels’ observation is pungent:

It is useless, anti-historical and anti-scientific to hope that dictators, having happily initiated their
political work, will abdicate at the height of their power, since abdication is an act of
weakness....The charismatic leader does not abdicate, not even when the water reaches to his
throat. Precisely in his readiness to die lies one element of his force and his triumph (quoted in
Beetham, 1977, p. 176).

The effect of audacity and determination is to change the relationship to followers from
one in which market calculations can be strictly rationalized or routinized to one in
which risk assessments evolve as a result of the successes and failures of the charismatic
leader. The extent to which a follower’s prior estimates of the risks inherent in any
given situation are altered by the actions of a leader, even if these are not successful
in precisely the terms expected, is crucial. The calculations of risk a person implicitly
makes after a leader has acted are going to differ from that person’s initial estimates
250 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 3/4 1993

if they are more successful than expected, even if the results of the actions are ambiguous.
Anything unexpected leads to a new frame of expectations in which the parameters
of risk are altered.
It can be seen from this why the satisfaction of mundane economic wants is the enemy
of charisma. Faced with a choice, the leader may choose to assure continuity of the
cycle of success through the continuity of benefits rather than lose his or her following
through tests which may be failed. In so doing, the leader trades some or all of his/
her charisma for a more mundane economic bond. The inherent conflict between
charisma and the mundane that so impressed Weber as a historical fact is, thus, no
more than the choice between accepting or rejecting new risks and charismatic tests-
tests which the charismatic leader may quite rationally refuse to accept.
The cycle of the strengthening or maintenance of charisma depends on the successful
performance of the charismatic leader, whose willingness to thrust him or herself into
the breach provides grounds for the followers’ acceptance of new risks, and whose
successes continue to validate their choice to submit. The “personality” of the
charismatic leader is crucial to continuing the cycle and to preventing the bond between
leader and follower from turning into a simple matter of self-interest. The successes
of a leader teach lessons about risk-notably, the lesson that prior estimates of the
risks inherent in a situation were mistaken. But when this lesson has been absorbed-
in other words, when followers have adjusted their perceptions of risk-the sense of
the leader’s “extraordinariness” and indispensability will also diminish. To preserve the
relationship as a charismatic one, the boundaries of risk need to continue to be pushed,
and the charismatic individual needs to continue to be seen as indispensable. It is for
this reason that “every charisma is on the road from a turbulently emotional life that
knows no economic rationality to a slow death by suffocation under the weight of
material interests” in which “every hour of its existence brings it nearer to this end”
(1978, p. 1120). The turbulent emotional moment that knows no rationality is the one
in which the radical choice between an old world of risk and a new one is taken. When
the new one is chosen and acted within, it becomes routine and predicatable, or
“everyday.” The relationship with the charismatic leader, rooted in the situation of
radical choice, gradually becomes utilitarian.

BUSINESS CHARISMA
The kind of charismatic cycle that is found in the marketplace or complex organizations
obviously diverges from pure charisma in several respects. In basic ways, however, the
model fits. The business charismatic “leader” is part prophet, part hero. He or she has
a “vision” which alters the audience’s expectations about risk. The deeds of the leader
turn parts of the audience into followers who accept that only through obedience can
the new vision be realized. The leader may change the perception of risks in violating
corporate culture or traditional business practice by throwing himself or herself into
the breach. What makes following such a leader into an act of charismatic devotion
rather than rational calculation is this: the follower assumes new financial or career
risks on behalf of the individual in which one believes (or who has a vision in which
one believes) which are beyond the conventionally economically rational or the usual
calculations of careerism.” In business, of course, a leader who continues a cycle will
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 251

ultimately have to pass various conventional, externally defined tests of effectiveness

in order to continue. These are given in the expectations of success and well-being that
followers begin with, and that the leader promises to realize. But in the case of the
unusual kinds of choices offered by the charismatic business leader, there may be no
easy way to compare these choices to other choices and, therefore, much more scope
for excuse-making in the face of failure or the extension of the time limits on the hopes
of the followers.”
Business charisma may appear to be a petty and impure form of charisma, without
theoretical interest. Certainly, it does not loom large in Weber’s own writings.
Nevertheless, it illustrates some important and often neglected features of charisma,
and shows that elements analogous to “religious” forms of charisma may play little
or no role in acharismatic career. The neglected feature is the audience-relative character
of the entire charismatic process. A great deal of confusion in the literature on charisma
is produced by focusing on the person of the charismatic leader and neglecting the
audience-treating charisma as though it were a kind of general personal trait rather
than a relationship with a particular group with particular expectations and ideas. This
is especially true in the case of business, where there may be considrable variation in
the perceptions of a given person by different groups that stand in different relations
or potential relations to the charismatic leader, and where it is often difficult to
understand who the leader’s “audience”actually is. Many of the persons whom we might
naively regard as mere miscreants and bullies or, for that matter, dullards, may be
charismatic heroes to particular audiences which sustain their power by enabling them
to continue the cycle. Ali Baba required the support of his 40 thieves: the “public,”
to speak anachronistically, was his victim. In the case of business charisma, the hero
is as likely as not to be also an enemy of the public at large.
Figures such as Mike Milken or Frank Lorenzo, who were, from the point of view
of the public in the case of Milken and the employees of his airlines in the case of
Lorenzo, considered to be virtual devils, are cases in point. Both were extremely effective
and even charismatic leaders for different audiences which were relevant to their
particular quests. In each case, the “leader” was successful with audiences of financial
managers and financiers who accepted his “vision,” committed money to it, and
continued to accept it as, so to speak, followers, through a long series of successful
“tests.” The audacity of each of these men was remarkable and their very survival
embodied the fact that their novel ideas about the risks of the strategies they followed
were “true.” Had they not also impressed the relevant audiences, they would have had
no success.
Lorenzo is in some respects the paradigmatic recent case of a charismatic business
leader (Bernstein, 1990), and the modern figure who best fits Weber’s own discussion
of charisma in the world of finance. With Milken’s help, he impressed the financiers
who provided money for takeovers. By behaving with startling audacity at the edge
of legality or beyond-violating past practice, lying, and employing hitherto unused
legal devices, such as bankruptcy, to achieve his goals-he continued his cycle of
successes with the support of his ever-growing legion of financial followers. But there
were other audiences to impress, such as company employees and managers, and he
impressed them. Like Machiavelli’s (1975, pp. 53-61) favorite example, Cesare Borgia,
Milken impressed them greatly-earning their hatred and fear, which is precisely what
252 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 314 1993

he needed from them to solidify his control over management. He demanded personal
loyalty rather than teamwork from his top managers (Bernstein, 1990, p. 18). His middle
managers accepted his vision of ridding Eastern of union domination. He obtained the
active and creative support of middle managers by, as one business journalist described
it, “years [of] psyching up Eastern’s supervisors and midlevel managers for combat with
the machinists” (Bernstein, 1990, p. 113). Mere money and the routine of corporate
bureaucratic practice, self-interest, and tradition could not have provided Lorenzo with
enough power to make the changes his vision required. He needed adherence beyond
routine (cf. Barnes, 1988) and, indeed, beyond the law: among the practices engaged
in by his middle managers was the wholesale criminal violation of safety regulations
that were seen as benelitting the machinists.
The “vision” under which these acts were subjectively justified was Lorenzo’s. Also,
it was Lorenzo’s actions that proved that managers could get away with conduct that
had previously been regarded as intolerably risky or impossible. A closely related
conflict, between organizational routines that get in the way of success, whether these
routines are matters of organizational culture or of formal or informal rules, and the
kind of commitment to a vision that might make for organizational success, is crucial
to the organizational transformations produced by “inspirational leaders.” The case of
Lorenzo shows the dark side of this conflict. New organizational visions often do not
succeed, and the effect of commitment to these visions is not infrequently destructive
to the well-being of the leader and his followers. In the case of Lorenzo, the result was
the biggest airline failure in history. But this is an end typical for the charismatic leader.
Lorenzo’s career fits Michels’ description of the charismatic dictator quoted above.
Milken said of Lorenzo that “Frank had a strong vision for the airline, and that’s hard
to give up”(quoted in Bernstein, 1990, p. 188). The lawyer for the creditors in the Eastern
bankruptcy case, which was dragged out by Lorenzo’s attempt to delay the end through
bad-faith “negotiating,” echoed Michels as well: Lorenzo, as the lawyer put it, “will
negotiate until the guillotine hits something solid” (quoted in Bernstein, 1990, p. 227).

Risk and the Cycle of Success:A New Model of Charisma

The message of this article may be summarized briefly: Weber could not explain why
the “extraordinariness” attributed to charismatic leaders by particular audiences was the
cause of their power to compel obedience or imitation. But there is an explanation. Risk
is an inherent feature of action; estimates of risk are quasi-rational at best. The only way
to determine risks is to act. The person who acts, succeeds, and thus transforms our
understanding of the risks in a situation will, by the act, create an “internal change” in
the audience-in the audience’s preconceptions about the risks in a situation. The change
can produce imitation, fdlowership, or simply a change in members of the audience’s
estimates of risk. But risk is a fundamental category of thought, and changes in estimates
of risk can lead directly to changes in a person’s entire view of the world and what is
possible. Changes in risk evaluations change preferences-a person’s shopping list, so to
speak-because they change the “prices” associated with each risk. Because life’s goals
or preferences are themselves enmeshed in assumptions about risk that the leader through
successful action can transform, the leader can even, under some circumstances, set life-
goals for followers-become not only “the way” but also “the light.”
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 253

The circumstances may be understood in this way. The leader is the source of a new
conception of the risks and possibilities of the world, a conception “proven” by the
actions of the leader. If the risk-taking individual comes to be seen as the indispensable
instrument to desired goals, which may be desired goals first seen to be possible or
practically achievable through acts of the leader, and if submission is necessary to
achieve the goal-if, to put it differently, a preferable world of risks and opportunities
is accessible only through the “irrational” act of submission, then it becomes rational
to submit.
This model may not cover all the cases Weber had in mind, but it comes close, if
one extends the notion of risk to include spiritual risk. It does not, apparently, fit very
well with the street use of the concept of charisma to mean animal magnetism, charm,
flair, and so on. These ideas are audience-relative in their application, but they do share
a common feature which allows us to assimilate them to this “risk” theory of charisma.
The properties in question are the stigmata of life’s “winners.”
Audacity and determination, Machiavelli’s key notions, are also crucial to being a
winner. For Machiavelli, they were crucial because of the nature of success and the
role offortuna. It is, he said,

better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive
it is necessary to beat and coerce her. Experience shows that she is more often subdued by men
who do this than by those who act coldly. Always, being a women, she favors young men, because
they are less circumspect and more ardent, and because they command her with greater audacity
(1975, p. 133).

Risks, to put Machiavelli’s thought in modern language, must be aggressively taken.

Success will come with luck, but luck is favored when errors in the assessments of risk
made by the culture or by the cold, “rational” managers of risk can be exploited by
the potential leader who proves his/ her prowess by doing what is perceived as
impossible.
Flair, charm, and the like have an element of audacity. The person with flair can
“get away with” things that the charmless person cannot. Perhaps more importantly,
simply being perceived as a winner changes the odds of success. From the point of
view of an audience of potential “followers,” someone perceived as a winner is by
definition believed to be more likely to achieve goals and, therefore, it is more rational
to follow a winner than a loser. Put differently, the risk of failure is perceived to be
higher for a “loser” than a “winner.”
In the case of pure charisma, according to the model proposed here, the deeds of
the leader must actually change perceptions of risk and warrant a picture of a new
world of risks and opportunities in which new aims are enmeshed. But in the more
prosaic case, the change may simply amount to establishing the perception that a given
person is a winner, and that, therefore, the person is less likely to fail. The cycZe of
success, which is crucial to understanding the career of the charismatic leader, can
account for the amplification of this small element of charisma. The initial sense that
someone is a winner, which may perhaps derive simply from cultural expectations of
success-the idea of the “golden boy”-can be transformed by the cycle of testing into
a powerful sense that this person’s aims will be achieved. If these aims have a place
254 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 4 No. 3/4 1993

for the followers who can benefit from their faith in the person, the basic condition
for continuing the charismatic cycle is met. The support of followers enables the
charismatic leader, or for that matter the culturally designated golden boy, to achieve
greater successes. Successes validate faith, and justify more faith.
But the individual who goes beyond the meeting of conventional tests of
extraordinariness, tests derived from conventional notions of the risks inherent in a
situation, is a threat to the order out of which he or she developed. Weber saw this
kind of individual as crucial to social change; for the same reason, charisma has been
seen as an antidote to organizational rigidities, especially “cultural” rigidities. But the
mechanism of change is also a mechanism of destruction and transformation-of basic
ideas of what is risky and what is not. The transforming leaders may be right and,
indeed, they must be sufficiently correct to take initial risks and succeed sufficiently
to continue the cycle of success. But the cycle often ends badly. The same mechanism
which amplifies success, the mechanism which attracts followers who give the leader
the power to achieve even greater successes, also amplifies the consequences of errors.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This article was completed during a fellowship at SCASSS, the Swedish Collegium
for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, in the spring of 1992. For the support
of this institution and for the opportunity to be a member of the remarkable community
of scholars it has created, the author is very grateful.

NOTES
1. It must be said that Weber seldom spoke in a way that fits with this conception. Usually
his comments must be read in a Durkheimian manner to bear this meaning. But sometimes Weber
himself made the link. “War,” he wrote, “does something to the warrior which, in its concrete
meaning, is unique: it makes him experience a consecrated meaning of death which is
characteristic only of death in war.. This location of death within a series of meaningful and
consecrated events lies at the base of all endeavors to support the autonomous dignity of the
polity resting on force” (1947, p. 335). This suggests the idea of sacralized death as the core of
political community.
2. This point is sufficiently muddy that it deserves some emphasis, especially in the light of
the stress placed in the notion of the charisma of central institutions by Edward Shils (cf. especially
1975, pp. 256-275). Sohm sought to deny the genuinely charismatic character of the (highly visible)
Catholic church by denying the link between the invisible church donated by God and any visible
church. The claim of charismatic endowment is obviously a part of the theology of the Catholic
church, from which the claim that the law of the church is genuine law obviously follows.
3. In this discussion, I have dealt largely with the positive side of changes in risk perceptions,
cases where risks are shown to be smaller than previously believed and new possibilities are opened
up. But changes in the other direction through the actions of a leader are possible as well, and
perhaps have the most important role in politics. The use of stupefying public cruelty to produce
fear and submission is a large theme in Machiavelli’s 7&e Prince (1975, pp. 58, 62).
4. The alert reader may notice a slide in this argument. The term “expectations” is not a
central Weberian term. Goals and ideals, rather than preferences and expectations, concerned
Weber. The relationships between these are critical to what follows, however. It will suffice to
Charisma and Obedience: A Risk Cognition Approach 255

say that expectations have a large role in the formation of preferences-what Elster discussed
under the heading “sour grapes” (1983). Goals and beliefs about their achievability imply
expectations about the world. The expectations are critical to charisma, as I show.
5. Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky have argued that perceptions of risk are central
to social solidarity (1982). It is consistent with this to see the individual who, through his or
her actions, undermines shared perceptions of risk as a threat to solidarity and social order-
just as Weber saw the charismatic leader.
6. The idea that influence through the medium of collective frenzy is quasi-rational is
suggested by Weber’s comments on both Gustave LeBon’s crowd psychology and Gabriel Tarde’s
notion of imitation. But he placed the kinds of influence they discuss on the borderline of
meaningful behavior. The borderline is indefinite, he said, but there may be a “meaningful”
element, such as “the extent to which [a demagogue’s] mass clientele is affected by a meaningful
reaction to the fact of its large numbers” (1978, p. 23).
7. The case of the shaman, for example, is one in which extraordinariness is highly ritualized:
the shaman’s ecstatic state may require personal qualities that are rare, but the recognition of
shamanic powers, the production of the extraordinary state, and the relation to the audience
are highly ritualized.
8. It must be said, of course, that recent biographical information about the lives of some
feminist icons, such as Simone de Beauvoir, suggests that the gap between image and actuality
with respect to their success in avoiding the evils of personal relationships they decried-
particularly with respect to their relations with men-was in some cases large.
9. In presenting this material, I have often been asked whether this account of leadership
is not excessively “masculinist,” and whether there might be a form of leadership that is different
and distinctly feminine-one that is participatory, nonauthoritarian, and mutually supportive.
It seems plausible that there might be such a form, but it is perhaps better to think of it under
the heading of the type of community that is supposed to exist between leader and follower.
In the case of women in the Women’s Movement, at least, the pattern by which leadership is
recognized and moral authority is accepted does not seem to depart very far from the “risk”
model I have outlined here. This suggests that gendered differences in leadership result from
differences in the rituals and forms of community, rather than from the existence of a gendered
alternative to charisma.
10. Perhaps this kind of leadership is empirically difficult to distinguish from salesmanship,
impression management, and the like. The conceptual difference is clear: the criterion is whether
a person chooses to accept a vision that forces the individual to go beyond the bounds of
organizational routines, or customary deference to superiors, or rationally calculated self-interest.
Obviously, much depends on one’s account of salesmanship. Ihering argued that salesmanship
was a matter of helping the buyer discover new interests within him or herself, that is, a matter
of rational self-interest in which the interest is novel (1968, p. 29). To ask the individual to accept
significantly different risks is a different matter, though by changing one’s beliefs about risks,
an individual usually changes his/ her preferences or “interests” as well.
11. The fact that the leader promises success in a conventional sense means that assessing
the effects of a charismatic CEO on, say, the profitability of a firm, is not feasible: charisma
treated as a “variable” is confounded by success, rather than independent of it.

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