Chapter 4 Summary: Transformational and Charismatic Leadership
This chapter explains the characteristics of transformational leadership and the
perspectives of charisma. Transformational leadership encompasses the traditional
transactional leadership perspective with an emphasis on the follower’s higher-level
needs. The characteristics of transformational leadership includes: creativity, interactive,
visionary, empowering, and passionate. These characteristics are easily identified in
many successful historic and modern-day leaders. The authors illustrate that, “Since
transformational leadership can convert followers into leaders in their own right, these
five primary characteristics are often filtered throughout transformed groups and
organizations. Follower’s or group member seem to work more effectively and efficiently
when they are led by a transformational leader.
Charisma is another quality found is most successful leaders. The chapter
illustrates three significant approaches to defining charismatic leaders. The first approach
is the sociological approach. With this approach, the authors explain that “A charismatic
must periodically demonstrate his or her exceptional personal gifts in order to maintain
power over followers.” The second approach is the behavioral/attribution approach. The
behavioral approach describes charisma as a set of behaviors such as high selfconfidence, competence, and strong power needs. The attribution approach states that
certain leader behaviors motivate followers to regard individuals as charismatic. The third
approach, the communication approach, identifies three core functions for charismatic
leaders: charismatics as relationship builders, charismatics as visionaries, and
charismatics as influence agents. These three approaches are crucial when defining
leadership charisma.