Management, Leadership and
Charisma
Peter Andras and George Erdos
Behavioural Ecology Group
Seminar
Thursday, October 25th, 2001
Leaders
Some researchers who have studied leadership in
organised settings tend to state that people endowed
with authority are leaders. Therefore, supervisors
and managers within organisations can be called
leaders. Many theories of leadership are concerned
with managerial influence and the terms “leadership”
and “management” are sometimes used
interchangeably. However, some scholars can see
differences between management and leadership.
Leadership and management
Kotter (1990, What do leaders really do? Harvard
Business Review, 68, 103-111.) felt that leadership
and management are two distinctive a
complementary systems, each having its own
function and its own characteristic activities, but both
are necessary for the management of complex
organisations. According to Kotter, management is
about planning, controlling, and putting appropriate
structures and systems in place, whereas leadership
has more to do with anticipating change, coping with
change, and adopting a visionary stance.
Leaders and managers
Zaleznik (1986, Managers and leaders: Are they
different? Harvard Business Review, May/June, 54) also
perceives a difference between management and
leadership. Managers are seen as fairly passive peoplecentred operators intent on keeping the show on the road,
whereas leaders seem to be more solitary, proactive,
intuitive, emphatic, and are attracted to situations of high
risk where the rewards for success are great.
Leadership
In light of the above management and leadership could be
defined as:
Leadership is a force that creates a capacity among a group
of people to do something that is different or better. This
could be reflected in a more creative outcome, or a higher
level of performance. In essence leadership is an agency of
change and could entail inspiring others to do more than they
would otherwise have done, or were doing.
Management
By contrast, management is a force more preoccupied
with planning, co-ordinating, supervising, and
controlling routine activity, which of course can be done
in an inspired way. Managerial leadership could be
viewed as an integral part of the managerial role, and
its significance grows in importance as one moves up
the organisational hierarchy.
Leadership theories
The study of leadership is not new. As Bass writes:
“The study of leadership rivals in age the emergence
of civilization, which shaped its leaders as much as it
was shaped by them. From its infancy, the study of
history has been the study of leaders – what they did
and why they did it. (1990, Bass and Stogdill’s
Handbook of Leadership. 3rd Ed. p.3)
The trait approach
Early research into leadership can be characterized as a
search for ‘the great man’. Personal characteristics of
leaders were emphasized and the implicit idea was that
leaders are born rather than made. All leaders were
supposed to have certain stable characteristics that made
them into leaders. The focus was on identifying and
measuring traits that distinguished leaders from non-leaders
or effective from ineffective leaders. There was the hope that
a profile of an ‘ideal’ leader could be derived from the above
that could serve as the basis for selection of future leaders.
Personal characteristics
Physical features
height, physique, appearance and age
Ability
intelligence, knowledge, and fluency of speech
Personality
dominance,
emotional control and expressiveness,
and introversion-extraversion
Leadership style
Disillusionment followed the lack of empirical evidence for the
existence of a ‘leadership trait profile’. This in turn led to a
new emphasis on studying leadership style meaning what
leaders actually do.
In this approach, effectiveness of leaders is dependent on the
exerted leadership style. Whereas the trait approach focused
on stable personal characteristics, which were usually thought
to be largely innate, the style approach implied that leadership
is a behavioural pattern, which can be learned.
Leadership style - theories
Bipolar: (Ohio State)
Consideration vs initiating structure
Tripartite: (Michigan)
Task oriented behaviour
Relationship oriented behaviour
Participative Leadership
Leadership style - theories
Tripartite: (Lewin)
Quadruple: (Likert)
Autocratic
Exploitive authoritative
Democratic
Benevolent authoritative
Laissez-fair
Consultative
Participative
Contingency approaches
The main proposition in contingency approaches is that
the effectiveness of a given leadership style is
contingent on the situation, implying that certain leader
behaviours will be effective in some situations but not in
others.
Fiedler’s model based on his ‘Least preferred coworker’ (LPC) measure.
Transformational leadership
In transformational leadership the emphasis is on people of
vision, who are creative, innovative, and capable of getting
others to share their dreams while playing down selfinterest and who are able to co-operate with others in
reshaping the strategies and tactics of the organisation. To
these qualities could be added the pursuit of high
standards, taking calculated risks, challenging and
changing the existing company structure, with even the
potential for the display (when considered appropriate) of
directive tendencies.
Transactional leadership
Transactional and transformational leadership should not be
viewed as opposing approaches to getting things done.
Transformational leadership is built on top of transactional
leadership; it produces levels of effort and performance on the
part of subordinates that go beyond that associated with a
transactional approach and is something more than charisma.
The transformational leader will attempt to cultivate in
subordinates the ability and determination to challenge not
only established views but to question the leader’s opinions as
well.
Charisma
Beginnings: Greeks, religious context, Weber.
Charismatic skills influence leadership style and effectiveness.
Important for transformational leadership.
Hard to define and measure.
Charisma – Formalization I.
4 I-s (transformational leadership; Bass, 1993) :
• Idealized influence;
• Inspirational motivation;
• Intellectually stimulating;
• Individual consideration.
Charisma – Formalization II.
5 behavioural aspects (Conger & Kanungo, 1998):
• Vision and articulation;
• Sensitivity to the environment;
• Sensitivity to member needs;
• Personal risk taking;
• Performing unconventional behaviour.
Charisma – Formalization III.
Skills:
Attitudes:
• vision;
• strong sense of responsibility;
• persuasive speaking;
• strong self-confidence;
• dominant body language; • strong ethical beliefs;
• good listener;
• ready to provide support;
• trustworthy and esteemed; • willingness for sacrifice;
• good organizer and
commander.
• ready to challenge the rules
+ Experiences
Environmental conditions
Charismatic leader is effective in appropriate environment.
Such conditions:
• high risk;
• high unpredictability;
• rapid changes;
• little institutionalisation.
Early humans and charismatic
leaders
Appropriate conditions for effective charismatic leaders.
Good charismatic leader: advantage for the group and advantage
for the leader.
If there are innate charismatic skills they are likely to provide
evolutionary advantage.
The dark side of the charisma
Over expression of charismatic skills: stigma.
Lack of other leadership skills: possible catastrophe for the
followers.
Conclusions
1. Charismatic skills are important for effective leadership.
2. Other management and leadership skills are important too,
and their lack can be catastrophic for the leader and the
followers.
3. If there are innate charismatic skills they are likely to give
evolutionary advantage to their holders.
4. In the case of the existence of innate leadership skills,
management training should focus on cultivation of these
skills together with other skills in those who have them, and
compensation of the lack of such skills in those who do not
have them.