Leadership Research Summary:
• Charisma is a fire that ignites followers’ energy, commitment, and performance. Charisma resides not in a leader, nor in a follower, but in the relationship between a leader who has charismatic qualities and a follower who is open to charisma, within a charisma-conducive environment. When a leader shares charismatic relationships with all of his or her subordinates, charisma is homogeneous—a raging fire.
• When a leader shares charismatic relationships with one or a limited number of his or her subordinates, charisma is not homogeneous but variable—pockets of fire. The study explored the determinants and consequences of the extent of homogeneity of charisma within a group of followers, discuss the practical implications of the researcher’s theoretical propositions, and pose new questions for future studies.
Leadership Research Findings:
• The study’s explorations of the homogeneity of charisma suggest, first, that true, group-level
charisma is a rare event in organizational settings and likely to remain so. Charisma
rages, we have suggested, when leader, follower, and environmental characteristics foster both charisma and homogeneity.
• Such a confluence of events is surely infrequent. Homogeneous, group-level charisma is the exception, not the norm. Further, given the variety of factors that appear essential for the formation of charismatic relationships, charismatic leadership training programs appear unlikely to ignite true, group-level charisma among trainees and their subordinates.
• To train a leader to display charismatic leadership qualities is surely difficult. To then place the
leader in a charisma-conducive environment and match the leader to like-minded subordinates through a process of subordinate attraction, selection, and attrition seems a large and daunting task. The likely outcome of charisma training is improved subordinate relations, not a raging fire of charisma.
• In a similar vein, high, homogeneous, group-level charisma, when it does occur, is
unlikely to transfer from one setting to another. The leader who forms homogeneous
charismatic relations with his or her subordinates in one setting may, despite personal
charismatic qualities, find it difficult to form such relations in a new setting in which subordinate and contextual characteristics foster neither charisma nor homogeneity. Promote or transfer a leader with charismatic relationships with his or her subordinates to a new setting, and the leader’s relationships with the new subordinates are likely to be good, but not universally charismatic.
• Although homogeneous charisma is rare, a leader may still share charismatic relationships with
some of his or her subordinates. The power and consequences of charismatic
relationships-pockets of fire-are not to be downplayed. Participation in a charismatic
relationship may inspire a subordinate to new goals, new values, and new levels of
performance. The leader, in turn, may experience a heady sense of influence, power,
and vitality. The leader’s challenge, however, is to manage such pockets of fire effectively so as not to evoke resentment among the subordinates who do not share in the charismatic relationship(s). This is most easy, we have suggested, when subordinates’ tasks are independent and when their work requires limited interaction.
• Leaders wishing to create charismatic relationships with their subordinates should not only demonstrate charisma-inspiring behaviors toward subordinates (e.g., communication of high
expectations and confidence in followers, articulation of a visionary message) but they should also take advantage of the attraction-selection-attrition cycle. That is, leaders wishing to form charismatic relationships with their subordinates should facilitate the attraction and selection of subordinates who are not only skilled and talented but who also share the leader’s vision and hold charisma compatible values. Further, leaders should facilitate, with caution and tact, the attrition of subordinates who do not fit this profile.
• In attracting and selecting such subordinates (and encouraging other subordinates who do not fit the profile to leave the group), a leader gradually builds a group of subordinates who are open to charisma. Further, such a homogeneous group of subordinates increases the likelihood that a leader will indeed behave toward all the subordinates in a consistent and charisma-inducing fashion.
• Finally, when subordinates have been selected and retained for their openness to charisma and their compatibility with the leader’s vision, they are likely to be highly supportive of the leader and to serve as “charismacinders,” fostering the creation and maintenance of charismatic relationships between their fellow subordinates and the leader.
• In examining the levels of charismatic leadership theory, we have reaffirmed the extent to which this theory is truly a meso theory, a theory that cuts across organizational
levels (House, Rousseau, & Thomas-Hunt, 1995). The study have emphasized that charisma
resides in the relationship of a follower and a leader and is the product of the leader,
the follower, and the situation. The study used this conceptualization as a stepping stone
to new insights regarding the determinants and consequences of the homogeneity or
variability of charisma among a leader’s subordinates. Consideration of the homogeneity of charisma refines and clarifies the charisma construct and suggests new topics for charismatic leadership research.