Introduction: Problems and Prospects in Understanding Charismatic Leadership
Jay A. Conger
Rabindra N. Kanungo
“I am not a candidate, do not plan to become a candidate, and see no circumstances that would change my mind.” These words were written by Lee Iacocca in a letter to the organizers of the Draft Lee Iacocca for President committee in July 1986. In trying to convince Iacocca to run for president of the United States, these organizers admitted that they were not acting on Iacocca's behalf but felt that they were seeking the best leadership for the country. The committee was not alone. Polls conducted and published in the summer of 1986 by the Washington Post and Time magazine pointed to Iacocca's surprisingly high level of public popularity.
Iacocca had accomplished what few, if any, North American business leaders had ever achieved: He had become a national hero. With showmanship and sharp business acumen, he had orchestrated a remarkable turnaround of the Chrysler Corporation. Impressed by his accomplishments, many Americans were hoping he would do the same for their nation.
Iacocca's success is particularly remarkable when one considers his situation. He assumed the presidency at Chrysler in September 1979 on the day the company reported its greatest loss for any quarter in its history. Then within five months came the Iranian crisis, the energy crisis, and the most serious recession in fifty years. Chrysler continued losing money—up to $1.7 billion—and slipped dangerously close to bankruptcy at the end of 1982. But by the end of 1983, Iacocca's leadership had transformed record losses into a $925 million profit—the largest in the company's history. Through remarkable powers of persuasion, Iacocca had convinced the American people to buy his cars and the United States Congress to loan Chrysler $1.2 billion. Millions of Americans supported him, purchasing his cars and his book and even urging him to run for president.
The press attributed Iacocca's phenomenal success not only to his strong business sense but also to his “charisma.” As a charismatic leader, Iacocca epitomized the power of such leaders and their profound impact on organizations and on society at large. Yet, ironically, Iacocca and charismatic business leaders like him have been largely neglected as a subject of systematic and scientific study. Although from time to time the influence of a leader's charisma has been recognized in religion and politics, even there it has retained an enigmatic association. And scholars have treated the phenomenon either as simply a manifestation of personal charm unworthy of serious attention or as an elusive event too impressionistic to be captured. The notion that charismatic leaders even exist in business organizations is a relatively new idea promoted by a handful of scholars.
Our aim is to begin to rectify this serious shortcoming by initiating an exploration of this profoundly important yet poorly understood form of leadership in management settings. Our hope is that, with this volume, social scientists and management practitioners will begin to pay serious attention to this corporate phenomenon and initiate a process of transforming what has been a mystical conception into a more scientific understanding of charisma.
Why Study Charisma?
Our opening example of Lee Iacocca and his accomplishments illustrates the potential importance of charismatic leadership for organizational effectiveness. What appears to set charismatic leaders apart is their strategic vision and their ability to motivate employees to achieve ambitious goals. They also are often associated with radical transformations of large bureaucratic organizations or the creation of successful entrepreneurial ventures. As such, the outcomes they achieve and the radical impact of their leadership on organizations and industries make them important subjects for study.
In this time of turmoil for North American industry, it is not surprising that the topic of charismatic leadership should gain popularity: Certain skills that the charismatic leader appears to possess may be essential for managing in turbulent environments. For example, one of the great dilemmas facing American corporations today is what Robert Lamb (1987) calls “tunnel vision.” Many corporations are experiencing strategic failure due to a lack of vision. Part of the blame must be placed on organization leaders. As Lamb argues: “Many of the problems of U.S. companies can be traced… to executive constraints that foster a myopia among managers faced with a rapidly changing, competitive world. The limitations of the chief executive's training or outlook, as well as the traditions of the company or industry, can impose blinders upon the range of strategies that a particular company will consider” (p. 10). Charismatic leaders appear particularly gifted with strategic vision. They are not bound by a limited perspective or tradition. Instead, they actively seek out unforeseen opportunities in their markets and use strategies that succeed because of their unconventionality. Analyzing their talents in this area may have important implications for effective corporate strategies.
Charismatic leaders also have been associated with entrepreneurial activities. Many of the more visible entrepreneurs of the 1970s and 1980s are described as charismatic—for example, Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Donald Burr of People's Express, Steven Jobs of Apple Computer, Ross Perot of Electronic Data Systems, and Fred Smith of Federal Express. To an extent, the entrepreneurial success of these business leaders may depend upon their charismatic qualities. The study of charismatic leadership can provide us with important clues about why certain entrepreneurs succeed or fail. And the implications for entrepreneurial success are critically important for society at large. As John Naisbitt (1982) concludes: “Recent studies have convinced government and business observers that small businesses, not big corporations, are responsible for most of the new jobs created and most of the nation's economic growth and that they are more productive and innovative as well” (p. 161).
From a motivational standpoint, there is often a profound difference in the emotional attachment and energy exhibited by followers of charismatic and noncharismatic leaders. At the annual Mary Kay sales conference in Dallas, sales representatives can be heard exclaiming, “We love Mary Kay!” or “Mary Kay has made a tremendous difference in my life.” And while it is easy to dismiss such talk and adoration as the banter of restless housewives, no cynic can deny the multimillion-dollar organization Mary Kay Ash has built upon the enthusiasm and devotion of her sales force.
It would appear that charismatic leaders are unique in this ability to build emotional attachment and enthusiasm among their followers for themselves and their missions. Watching these leaders and their organizations work reminds us of a political campaign—in which workers strive tirelessly for the mission's success. If the essence of leadership is the ability to motivate subordinates, then the study of charismatic leadership can help us unravel the secrets of motivating employees and directing them toward the achievement of organizational goals.
In addition to the positive outcomes associated with charismatic leadership, there is also a dark side that needs to be understood. In recent history, charismatic religious leaders Jim Jones in Guyana (Johnson, 1979) and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Oregon (Fitzgerald, 1986) fostered an extraordinary degree of psychological submission among their followers. Through their powers of persuasion and actions encouraging dependence, they developed a largely compliant followership. In the end, this dependency led to death for Jones's followers and the collapse of a multimillion-dollar communal enterprise for the followers of Rajneesh. As these examples illustrate, there is little doubt that charismatic leadership—in any setting—can foster potentially harmful levels of dependence. The study of charismatic leadership can lead us to identify conditions under which such harmful effects are manifested. Awareness of the conditions of excessive follower dependence can also help us take appropriate corrective actions.
Just as important, some charismatic leaders use their powers of persuasion in manipulative and self-seeking ways. John DeLorean's treatment of investors in his automobile venture is an example: Ultimately, investors lost $120 million in the poorly managed venture. What DeLorean did so effectively was focus investors' attention away from important investment information and onto his personal charisma: “No other entrepreneur in business history used publicity as well in amassing seed capital, and he found that investors were as unlikely to look behind his hollow hype as reporters…. DeLorean underwent only the most cursory check into his background before he was loaned hundreds of millions of dollars” (Levin, 1983, p. 323). These examples attest to the need to study charisma more scientifically in order to understand the negative dimensions of charismatic leadership as well as the positive.
Our day-to-day observation of charismatic and entrepreneurial leaders in business settings and their profound influence on organizations is not the only rationale for a scientific study of charisma. Certain developments within the discipline of organizational behavior also provide impetus for pushing beyond the frontiers of research on charismatic leadership.
In the management literature, the examination of leadership within organizations has been a prominent issue for almost half a century. Taking the lead from sociologists and social psychologists, different forms of leadership have been studied. For example, interest in the study of formal and informal organizations led to research focusing on formal or appointed leaders (Raven and French, 1958) and informal or emergent leaders (Bales, 1950). Interest in the nature of communication and authority between leader and subordinates led to the study of democratic versus autocratic (Lewin, Lippitt, and White, 1939) and participative versus directive styles of leadership (Vroom and Yetton, 1973). Interest in the task and social roles played by supervisors in work groups led to the famous Ohio State University leadership studies on initiating structure versus consideration (task versus people orientations) (Halpin and Winer, 1957). Following these lines of interest, much of the current leadership research focuses on the leadership dimensions of centralizing versus decentralizing decision making and on task and people orientations of leaders (Yukl, 1981).
Recently, however, the theoretical significance and practical usefulness of this body of research have been questioned by several management theorists. Both Mintzberg (1973, 1982) and Zaleznik (1977) argue that the existing leadership research has failed to make an important distinction between leadership and managership and that most “leadership” studies, instead of dealing with true and visionary leadership roles, have dealt with only day-to-day supervisory or managerial roles. If this distinction between leaders and managers (or administrators) as advocated by these scholars is to be taken seriously, it is imperative that the focus of future leadership research change from the current preoccupation with the supervisory styles of shop floor managers or mid-level managers to the study of more profound leadership styles, such as charismatic leadership.
Charisma: A Poorly Understood Phenomenon
The distinction between charismatic and noncharismatic leaders is often detected by organization members in their day-to-day observation of business leaders. For example, it is not uncommon to hear employees casually and spontaneously describe a certain manager as a charismatic leader. Yet, as mentioned before, organizational theorists have largely ignored the existence or importance of charisma. This can be attributed in part to the fact that charismatic business leaders are not often in the limelight and thus are little known outside their organizations. Widespread unfamiliarity with business leaders and preoccupation of the media with political and religious figures may have created the popular assumption that charisma is a rare manifestation among business leaders. Such an assumption may also be responsible for the lack of interest in identifying and systematically studying charisma in business settings.
A large part of the problem can be traced to the complex and elusive nature of charisma. Historically, the term has been loosely defined and, at times, diluted. It has been attributed a mystical aura—as some special and indescribable personal quality. (For example, the media often apply the term to anything with a hint of charm or glamour.) Even among researchers, confusion surrounds the concept. Some describe it as a set of behaviors. Others consider it a cluster of traits, and still others consider it a divine gift or extraordinary ability of an unspecified nature. Multiple and vague interpretations of the phenomenon have caused problems in defining and delineating its boundaries—what it is and what it is not.
Related to the problem of defining the term charisma is the problem of developing a conceptual framework in which the phenomenon is related to its antecedent conditions and to its outcomes. There is a need for identifying various causal variables—personal or dispositional and environmental or contextual—that influence the development and emergence of charisma in business organizations. Likewise, there is a need for determining the effects of charisma on organizational outcomes and subordinate behavior. Ambiguities in defining charisma and the lack of a conceptual scheme have led to measurement difficulties in trying to capture the phenomenon. In addition, the phenomenon is complex and involves an interaction between important contextual factors, which adds to measurement problems. The behavioral sciences have shied away from such phenomena primarily because of problems of definition, measurement, control, and replication. As a result, existing research on the topic is limited and largely speculative.
Researchers have also encountered methodological difficulties in gaining access to charismatic leaders as objects of study. Often these individuals are time constrained and thus reluctant to be subjected to analytical probing. In lieu of direct access to leaders, researchers have had to rely on secondary sources of data, such as biographies and speeches. However, these sources have their own problems of interpretation and subjectivity: Rather than truly reflecting the intent or behavior of the leader, biographies may convey the biographer's intentions and attributions. Speeches may be the work of speech writers and thus may not present a true picture of the leader's motives that underlie the text.
The nature of charisma and methodological limitations have made the study of charismatic leadership in business difficult. However, the existence of charismatic leadership as an experiential phenomenon in organizations makes scientific investigation imperative; thus, these theoretical and methodological problems must be viewed as challenges for future research rather than as barriers. For the researcher, prospects for the future are threefold. First, it is important that theories of charismatic leadership in organizations begin to address the issues of what charisma is, how it develops, what precipitates its manifestation in organizational contexts, what its effects are, and how it relates to other leadership forms. Second, considerable research efforts must be directed toward operationalizing the concept of charisma and its causes and effects. This should encourage rigorous and systematic empirical studies of charismatic leadership within organizations. Innovative research techniques and designs must be applied in order to explicate this elusive phenomenon in comprehensible terms. Third, research should be done to develop training programs for charismatic leadership and to assess their effectiveness in achieving organizational objectives and in improving the motivational potential of organization members. The beginnings of these prospects are reflected in the various chapters in this volume.
Overview
In the Introduction, Jay A. Conger and Rabindra N. Kanungo discuss the problems and prospects of studying charismatic leadership in business organizations. Chapters in Part One treat the nature and dynamics of charismatic leadership. In Chapter One, Conger presents a literature review that provides a historical perspective, tracing conceptualizations of charismatic leadership from the pioneering work of German sociologist Max Weber to the present-day theories of organizational scholars. The chapter provides a thorough review of Weber's views on the subject, as well as a broad and integrative view of the existing literature. In Chapter Two, Bernard M. Bass provides an extensive review of conceptual and empirical work on the nature and dynamics of charisma. He examines the evolving conceptualizations of charismatic leadership, starting with Weber, and finishes with his own operationalization of the concept. His review identifies the critical leadership, followership, and contextual determinants of charismatic influence. In Chapter Three, Conger and Kanungo propose a behavioral framework for understanding the nature of charismatic leadership. They analyze different stages of the leadership process and identify within each stage a number of behavioral components that are critical for the manifestation of charisma. In Chapter Four, Robert J. House, James Woycke, and Eugene M. Fodor distinguish charismatic leaders from noncharismatic and transactional leaders in terms of a specific set of leader attributes and follower outcomes. They provide empirical evidence for their conceptualization of charismatic leadership in a study of United States presidents.
Part Two introduces the element of strategic vision, which is considered a critical component of charismatic leadership. Marshall Sashkin, in Chapter Five, analyzes the personality orientations and cognitive skills of visionary leaders. In addition, he explores through several frameworks the dimensions of strategic vision and the means for its effective communication. In Chapter Six, Frances R. Westley and Henry Mintzberg offer the reader strategic visions of two charismatic leaders in action and over time. Readers are able to witness the powerful mutual interactions between the leaders and the situations in which they find themselves. The authors conclude with configurations of strategic style characterizing the two leaders studied.
In Part Three, we shift our focus from attempting to understand the sources and character of charismatic influence to an examination of the limits of charisma. Chapters Seven (by Jane M. Howell) and Eight (by Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries) explore the potential positive power of charisma, its possible negative outcomes, and the strong dependencies that can result from this form of leadership. In Chapter Nine, Nancy C. Roberts and Raymond T. Bradley introduce the notion that forces outside of the leader may significantly influence the manifestation of charisma. They follow a charismatic leader from a situation in which she was perceived as charismatic to another in which she appeared to have lost her charismatic appeal. They offer a number of hypotheses as to why her charisma failed to transfer and suggest that context may play a critical role in the appearance of charisma.
Part Four looks at the developmental forces behind charismatic leadership and considers the possibility of training managers to be charismatic leaders. In Chapter Ten, Bruce J. Avolio and Tracy C. Gibbons examine the development of charismatic leaders from two angles: the personal development of the leader and the leader's role in developing subordinates. They remind readers of the need to examine a leader within a broad historical view of that individual's life. In Chapter Eleven, Conger and Kanungo argue that charismatic leadership may be trainable. Highlighting specific leadership skills for training, they outline a general approach to developing charismatic leaders.
Finally, in our Conclusion, we first look back over the volume to identify the areas of convergence and divergence among the contributors. We then look forward to where future research should and will be directed.
Conclusion
This book is a celebration of an emerging field. As such, it reflects the diversity of thought and perspective that characterizes a field whose identity has yet to be solidified. As the reader will discover, there are as many emerging areas of agreement as there are differences of opinion, and there are as many unanswered questions as answered. With this in mind, it is our hope that you, the reader, will join us with a spirit of inquiry that is both adventurous and open to challenge.
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