Every leadership style has a different area

of focus. For instance, some types of leadership

– such as democratic leadership – focus on the
development of people. Others, such as
bureaucratic leadership, focus on existing
processes and hierarchies.  Today, we’re going
to focus on a leadership style that puts the
spotlight on the leaders themselves:
Charismatic Leadership.
Charismatic Leadership is
defined by a leader who uses
his or her communication
skills, persuasiveness, and
charm to influence others. 
10 Charismatic Leadership Characteristics
The following are some of the most prominent
characteristics of charismatic leadership.
1. Communication
2. Maturity
3. Humility
4. Compassion
5. Substance
6. Confidence
7. Positive body language
8. Listening skills
9. Self-monitoring
10. Self-improvement
 Five Charismatic Types

1. Socialized Charismatics:
A socialized charismatic is a leader who uses power only
for the benefit of others, rather than using it for private gains.
2. Personalized Charismatics:
Personalized charismatics are leaders who use the powers
to a certain extent for personal gains, to serve their own
interests.
3. Office-holder Charismatics:
For this type of leader, charismatic leadership is more
about the office occupied by him/her rather than his/her
personal characteristics.
4. Personal Charismatics:
A leader with this quality often gains very high esteem through
the extent to which others have faith in them as people.

5. Divine Charismatics:
A historically important type of charismatic leader is that of the
divine charismatic.
Importance
Whyof is
Charismatic Leadership
Charismatic Leadership Important?

“Being a leader gives you charisma. If you look and study the leaders who have
succeeded, that’s where charisma comes from, from the leading.” – Seth Godin

Charismatic leadership is a special leadership style

commonly often associated with 
transformational leadership. All transformational leaders
need a bit of charisma but they need not need the
charismatic leadership style. If someone wants to be a
great leader, he needs to work towards gaining the trust
of the followers. Charismatic Leadership inspires
enthusiasm in their teams and is energetic in motivating
others to move forward. This excitement and
commitment from teams is very important and brings
enormous benefit for the leader and the organization.
•Charismatic leadership will be able to get the best out of each person, be able to
motivate them to achieve more and overall be glowing examples of all the positive
traits required to run a business.
•Anyone with charisma would be someone with refined and polished communication
and a deep understanding of interpersonal relationships – both these sets of skills can
easily be learned and so it is possible for anyone to ‘grow.
•Charismatic leadership would ensure that the persons are positive, level-headed and
polite which in turn earns them devotion, reverence and a commitment that make
great things possible for the company and each person in it.
•Charismatic leadership is people who are optimistic – they have the ability to use failure
as a learning opportunity and remain in control even when things and people around
them seem to be falling apart.
•The sign of truly charismatic leadership is that they can convey and get their point
across with fewer words. They inspire people through their messages and people listen
with rapt attention each time – and in fact look forward to hearing what they will say
next.  
•Charismatic leadership are enablers – they are genuinely interested in the feedback and
views of others and it is extremely easy for them to make those around them feel
comfortable. They will be honest which in turn enables others to be completely
straightforward and forthright with their answers.
 HOW TO BECOME A CHARISMATIC LEADERS

Four-step model for Charismatic Leadership according to Jay Conger:

Step 1: Regularly assessing your vision and the environment

for achieving it
Step 2: Improving your ability to communicate this vision
Step 3: Creating a trustworthy and committed environment
Step 4: Achieving the objectives
 CHARISMATIC LEADERS

These Charismatic Leaders carried great

responsibility and showcased a long-term
commitment to their values and vision, in which
they fully believed in.
Mother Theresa
Mother Theresa, who was born in Macedonia, became a Roman
Catholic nun and started working with the poor. She was dedicated to
a single cause and she had a vision to help the lives of those that don’t
have much. She inspired others to follow her example and she
dedicated her life to empowering the less fortunate.
She once said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a
stone across the waters to create many ripples.” This highlights one of
the important parts of charismatic leadership: having others following
you. Without the followers buying into your vision, you won’t succeed
as a leader.

Charles Manson
His ability to manipulate and influence people came from a highly
popular book: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale
Carnegie.
Manson used the learned techniques of promising people things,
boosting their confidence just slightly and creating a vision of the better
future, where he was the only saviour. Unfortunately for the world, his
vision was dark and involved taking the lives of innocent people. He took
proven leadership qualities and turned them into a sinister manipulation.
Jack Welch
After graduating from college, Welch found himself working as a chemical
engineer at GE in 1960. In 1981, he became the company’s youngest CEO. His
approach to his position as a CEO was about creating personal and meaningful
relationships. He met with the employees and the customers, talking with them to
create a positive atmosphere.He didn’t hesitate to cut costs, even if it meant laying
off employees, because his ultimate vision was about creating a valuable and
respectful business. He wanted to create an organization that would beat its rivals
and in order to do this, he had to weed out mediocrity from his company.
Jack Welch once said, “The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we
make people believe that what they think and do is important – and then get out of
their way while they do it.”

Steve Jobs
Jobs clearly highlighted strong conviction and vision. He wanted particularly
designed products, often forcing the designing team to great lengths to achieve it.
Furthermore, Jobs didn’t just apply a single communication tactic with his
subordinates. He changed his rhetoric and figurative language according to the
audience. Just as a charismatic leader would in order to find the right motive for
his or her followers to participate in the vision, he was able to sense what his
crowd wanted and needed from him. A study into Jobs’ use of rhetoric, Loizos
Heracleous and Laura Klaering from the Warwick Business School found leaders
could take advantage of Jobs’ skills and “employ them to increase followers’ belief
in their charisma as well as their effectiveness as a persuasive speaker”.
 CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP THEORY

Charismatic leadership is a trait-based leadership theory where the leaders act

as visionary driven by their convictions and motivate their followers to work towards
common vision using their charm and persuasiveness. These charismatic leaders act as
role models and exhibit extraordinary characteristics that inspire devotion and
motivation in followers to persuade change. Leaders are able to cultivate a profound
sense of trust with the group of followers.

The Theory of Charismatic Leadership

Charismatic leadership came to the forefront of public attention during the 2008 US
elections when Barack Obama was elected as the first African American president. He is
believed to be charismatic, among many other leadership attributes he demonstrates.
The trait approach began with an emphasis on identifying the qualities of great persons,
shifted to include the impact of situations on leadership, and, currently, has shifted back
to reemphasize the critical role of traits in effective leadership. Max Weber defined the
term “charisma” as, “charisma is applied to a certain quality of an individual personality
by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with
supernatural, superhuman, exceptional powers or qualities”.
 CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP THEORY

Max Weber’s Charismatic Leadership

Robert J. House’s Charismatic Leadership

 Max Weber’s Charismatic Leadership

Max Weber moved away from the classical thinking that

authority is achieved through the three routes:

1.Self-interest – You obey for material or economic gain.

2.Fear – You follow the rules because you don’t want the
punishment.

3.Habit – You obey simply out of the socialization of authority

Instead, Weber thought people follow a leader or a state
because they evaluate the authority and perceive it good, right
or just form of power. Therefore, the leader’s legitimacy is
subjective to each subordinate.
Weber distinguished three models of legitimate leadership,
summed up in the below :
Charismatic Leadership relies on three components in Weber’s
theory.

Psychological dimension
Which refers to the inner qualities of the leader.

 Social aspect
Charismatic leadership might not stem purely out of one’s
inner being, but have a social source. This could be the cultural
influence of society, family, work or even education.

 Relational dimension between the leader and the

subordinate
-charisma is the “affectual relationship between leader and
followers developing as the historical product of the interaction
between person and situation”.
 Robert J. House’s charismatic leadership

Robert House moved the charismatic leadership theory

more towards a psychological explanation, rather than a
sociological or political science theory of power.
House’s main argument was that charismatic leadership is
rooted in personal and behavioral characteristics and the
leaders with these qualities can inspire subordinates through
appropriate articulation of the organizational vision.
The main takeaway from House’s theory is that charismatic
leadership should not be defined solely in terms of the effects it
has on followers. Instead, House looked more towards the
behaviors and the situational factors that influence the
effectiveness of charismatic leaders.
 Core Elements of Charismatic Leadership

• The above touched on the context and approach to charismatic leadership. It’s now time to consider the core
elements of the leadership model and how they drive the above ideas forward.

Organizational and situational assumptions

• The assumptions rely on the idea that charismatic leadership relies on the behavioral, situational and
organizational factors.

• First, charismatic leadership requires the leader to showcase behaviors, which create an impression of
competence and success. In short, the leadership requires a strong goal articulation.
• The speech and idea provided subordinates a vision of the future, the leader would want them to
accomplish together.
• For successful goal articulation to appear it requires the use of motive arousal. This means the goal
and vision put forward by the leader must create an emotional appeal and spark off the right type of
motivational response.

• The motive arousal aspect of charismatic leadership requires an understanding and an analysis of the
task and the subordinates’ need for achievement, affiliation and power.
Task requirements The correct motive arousal
 Assumption of calculated risks The need for achievement
 Achievement oriented initiative
 Assumption of personal responsibility
 Persistence toward challenging goals

 Being persuasive The need for power

 Asserting influence
 Exercising control over others
 Being competitive or combative

 Affiliative behavior The need for affiliation

 Cohesiveness
 Team work
 Peer support
Behavioral Assumptions
House outlined the four qualities of a charismatic leader.
• Dominant
• Strong desire to influence others.
• Self-confident.
• Strong sense of one’s own moral values

Charismatic Leaders are not just interested or relying on showcasing

the above qualities themselves, but rather they behave in a way
that supports role-modeling behavior. Essentially this means charismatic
leadership wants subordinates to adopt the behaviour of the leader.

The leader should focus on engaging in behaviors, which create the

impression of competence and success.
“Motivation is everything. You can do the
work of two people, but you can’t be two
people. Instead you have to inspire the next
guy down the line and get him to inspire his
people.” – Lee Iacocca