The Magic of Leadership
Charisma and its Redress
Orientation
• Charismatic Leadership and the uniqueness of the
special leader
• Examine maps of the New Leadership Pioneers
• Transformational and transactional leadership
• Dilemma of the ego driven transformational leader
• Empowerment and the alignment between
organizational and individual goals
• Shift of focus to upper-level leadership
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The Dilemma of Charisma
Think about the following questions
• What does being charismatic mean to you?
• Have you ever met a person whom you would describe as
charismatic?
• What qualities made this person so special?
• Would you be happy with her/him as a leader of your
organization? Why?
• Do you believe you possess some of the qualities of a
charismatic person?
• Are there ways you can acquire charismatic qualities?
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Robert House and Path-Goal Theory
• Claim that way leader behaves with respect to goals and followers
influences the leadership impact
• Leadership effectiveness is shaped by situational circumstances
• In line with contemporary theories at the time, focus on leader’s
consideration of followers’ needs and the task structure
• Emphasis is placed on structuring the psychological maps of the
followers, using motivational approach developed through valence
theory
• Situations of ambiguity draw more on directional leadership and
repetitive work contexts require more consideration and
encouragement
• Transactional nature of early work led House to reformulate theory
to be more aligned with new leadership ideas
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Bernard Bass & Full Range Leadership Model
• Core assumptions of self-interest and personal development
• Transactional leadership
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transactional leaders respond to followers’ immediate selfinterests
leader identifies with what followers want & helps them
achieve level of performance that results in rewards that
satisfy them
• Transformational leadership
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leaders influence workforces to go beyond simple selfinterests
leader has ability to inspire and motivate followers to
achieve results greater than originally planned and for
internal rewards
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Bass’s Research on
Transactional & Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership
• Idealized influence - charisma
• Inspirational motivation
• Intellectual stimulation
• Individualized consideration
Transactional leadership
• Contingent rewards & Constructive transactions
• Management by exception
• Laissez-faire leadership
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Charisma & Transformational Leadership
• Bass’s model examined using Multifactor leadership
Questionnaire (MLQ)
• Two similar and differentiable leadership styles?
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Idealisation of leader
Inspirational content of leader’s words or vision
Together a measure of charismatic leadership style
• Provides an expanded picture of leadership that includes the
exchange of rewards & leader’s attention to growth of followers
• Places a strong emphasis on followers’ needs, values, and
morals - motivated to transcend self-interests for good of team
• Best leaders are both transformational and transactional
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Jay Conger and Empowerment
• Appreciation of dilemmas associated with empowerment
• Theoretical rationale based on social learning theory
• Individuals feel empowered through experience of
 Evidence that they are actually being successful
 Recognition of progress, by words of encouragement
 General emotional support
 Powerful role models
• Creative jolts to expectations
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Jolt followers out of sense of negativity & behavioural impotence
through act of leadership
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Conger - Dark Side of Leadership
• Conger warns of dangers associated with high-profile
leadership practices
• Looks at leaders first hailed as exemplary & later as
misguided or morally suspect
• Leader’s distort vision to meet egocentric ambitions
• Leader develops sense of invulnerability & belief in
‘rightness’ of their vision
• Failure of charismatic leader due to:
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Commitment to vision – shift to single-minded obsessiveness
Authentic communication – with vision as extension of leader’s
personality needs communication is les authentic
Style of charismatic leader – exclusion and stereo-typing
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James McGregor Burns on Empowerment
• Burns is pioneer of transformational leadership
• Transforming nature of a leadership act understood through
unexpected and individualistic action of individual
• Leadership roles exist in web of relationships which offer
insights into how values impact on leadership
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The ethical dimension
Social values
Socially desired goals
• Initiating acts trigger value-laden reactions by individuals acting
out three roles
• Dilemmas of empowerment
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who empowers who?
To whose purpose?
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Jim Collins on the Fifth Level Leader
Beyond Charisma
• Collins examined features of exceptional companies
• From 1400 companies eleven chosen as showing sustained
excellence. The strongest differentiating factor of these
companies termed ‘level five leadership’
• Level 1 – Individual‘s talent, knowledge, & skills are key contribution
• Level 2 – Leadership as collaborative team efforts
• Level 3 – Competent manager, effectively organizes towards
predetermined goals
• Level 4 – Effective leader, promoting commitment to compelling vision
& high performance standards
• Level 5 – Executive builds great companies, exercising of personal
humility combined with assertiveness (willfullness)
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Summary
• Fundamental map - charismatic leadership & relationship with
new leadership thinking
• Transformational leadership contrasted with economic
exchange models of transactional leadership
• Exposes mechanisms through which leaders manage change
• Bass presents each leaders as having elements across a range
of leadership styles. Transformational leaders incorporate
some transformational behaviours
• Transformation maps imply leadership development is possible
at all organizational levels
• Acceptance of charismatic leader ignores the dilemma of the
self-seeking and destructive leader who is ‘taken on trust’.
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