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Centrality and Charisma: Comparing How Leader Networks and Attributions

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Journal of Applied Psychology © 2011 American Psychological Association
2011, Vol. 96, No. 6, 1209 –1222 0021-9010/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0024890

Centrality and Charisma: Comparing How Leader Networks and

Attributions Affect Team Performance

Prasad Balkundi Martin Kilduff

University at Buffalo Cambridge University

David A. Harrison
University of Texas at Austin

When leaders interact in teams with their subordinates, they build social capital that can have positive
effects on team performance. Does this social capital affect team performance because subordinates come
to see the leader as charismatic? We answered this question by examining 2 models. First, we tested the
charisma-to-centrality model according to which the leader’s charisma facilitates the occupation of a
central position in the informal advice network. From this central position, the leader positively
influences team performance. Second, we examined the centrality-to-charisma model according to which
charisma is attributed to those leaders who are socially active in terms of giving and receiving advice.
Attributed charisma facilitates increased team performance. We tested these 2 models in 2 different
studies. In the first study, based on time-separated, multisource data emanating from members of 56 work
teams, we found support for the centrality-to-charisma model. Formal leaders who were central within
team advice networks were seen as charismatic by subordinates, and this charisma was associated with
high team performance. To clarify how leader network centrality affected the emergence of charismatic
leadership, we designed Study 2 in which, for 79 student teams, we measured leader networking activity
and leader charisma at 2 different points in time and related these variables to team performance
measured at a third point in time. On the basis of this temporally separated data set, we again found
support for the centrality-to-charisma model.

Keywords: social networks, leader, centrality, charisma, team performance

The benefits that accrue to an individual as a result of occupying
a central position in a work-related network include faster promo-
tions (Podolny & Baron, 1997) and greater compensation (Burt,
2007). But is one of the benefits of centrality a more favorable
assessment of personality? In the social network literature, person-
ality often tends to be seen in this way—as the outcome of social
This article was published Online First September 5, 2011.
Prasad Balkundi, School of Management, University at Buffalo; Martin
Kilduff, Judge Business School, Cambridge University, Cambridge, Eng-
land; David A Harrison, McCombs School of Business, University of
Texas at Austin.
This research was supported by the Smeal College of Business at
Pennsylvania State University, Texas Tech University, and Dhruva College
of Management, Hyderabad, India. We thank Swapna Balkundi, Brian
Becker, Fred Dansereau, Ajay Mehra, Narayan Rao, and Frankie Weinberg
for helpful comments on previous drafts. Special thanks to Anand Nim-
balkar for the information technology support. Prior versions of this article
were presented at the Intra-Organizational Networks conference at Emory
University, Atlanta, GA (October 2005); at the 2005 National Academy of
Management Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii (August 2005); and at the
Universities of Cyprus (Nicosia, Cyprus), Manchester (Manchester, Eng-
land), and Singapore.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Prasad
Balkundi, School of Management, Department of Organization and Human
Resources, University at Buffalo, 274 Jacobs Management Center, Buffalo,
NY 14260. E-mail: balkundi@buffalo.edu
network patterns rather than the cause of such patterns. From this
perspective, an individual’s personality consists of “the accumu-
lated emotional residue of managing concrete relationships with
specific individuals” (Burt, 1992, p. 263). This “social personality”
approach (Warner & Lunt, 1941, p. 26) has a long heritage, with
roots in the work of Simmel (1971) and Goffman (1959) concern-
ing the ways in which an individual’s participation in society
differentiates that individual from others.
When one looks at relevant psychological theory and research,
the one area in which this social personality approach is, to some
extent, mirrored is with respect to charismatic leadership. Thus,
there are claims that “the personalities of leaders” are “imagined or
constructed by followers” (Meindl, 1995, p. 331) and discussion of
how followers help “the leader to construct a charismatic image”
(Gardner & Avolio, 1998, p. 32). In the present article, we look at
this social construction process in the context of work teams.
Research concerning work teams makes the assumption that “the
leader interacts directly with team members in the processes of
team development and performance management” (Kozlowski &
Bell, 2003, p. 358). To the extent that leaders are somewhat
unaware of their own attributes (cf. Bem, 1972), we suggest that
frequent interaction with subordinates can help develop socially
relevant aspects of personality such as charisma. Furthermore, we
suggest that this process of social interaction can provide subor-
dinates with opportunities to attribute to leaders qualities such as
charisma.

1209
1210 BALKUNDI, KILDUFF, AND HARRISON
We bring together two traditions that have often been kept
separate—research on interpersonal interaction in small groups
(e.g., Shaw, 1964) and research on team effectiveness (e.g., Koz-
lowski & Ilgen, 2006). In bringing these two traditions together,
we address how charismatic leadership relates to the leader’s
informal interactions with team members, and we address the
leader’s role in promoting team effectiveness. A primary contri-
bution of the current article is to investigate whether leaders who
are central in terms of giving and receiving advice to many team
members emerge as charismatic in the eyes of subordinates. A
second contribution is to investigate the consequences of the social
construction of charisma. We investigate how occupation of a
central position and attributions concerning charisma together pro-
vide the leader with a mechanism to affect team performance. We
focus on the following questions: Does the charisma of the leader
affect team performance through facilitating the leader’s occupa-
tion of a central position in the informal team advice network? Or
does the network centrality of the leader affect team performance
by facilitating the attribution of charisma to the leader by team
members?
Work teams are prevalent in modern organizations (Gerard,
1995), and meta-analyses have shown that charismatic leaders help
such teams perform well (DeGroot, Kiker, & Cross, 2000; Judge &
Piccolo, 2004; Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996). How-
ever, little is known about how social relationships of leaders relate
to charisma. Even the little that is known is potentially contradic-
tory. Recent research has shown that a leader’s charisma affects
network structure (cf. Bono & Anderson, 2005), whereas other
research has shown that social networks facilitate charismatic
attributions to the leader from the subordinates (Pastor, Meindl, &
Mayo, 2002). We present two studies that help explain how leader
charisma and leader centrality combine to affect team perfor-
mance. The first study looked at 56 work teams across four
different organizations. The follow-up study of 79 student teams
addressed issues of temporal sequence raised in the first study.
How Leaders Affect Team Performance: Two Models
Research shows that, for team leaders, both charisma and
within-the-team network centrality independently predict team per-
formance (Balkundi & Harrison, 2006; Lowe et al., 1996). These
compelling meta-analytic findings illustrate the effects of leader
charisma and leader centrality in isolation. Yet there is little
Figure 1. Competing models of leader centrality and leader charisma effects on team performance. A:
Charisma-to-centrality model. B: Centrality-to-charisma model.
evidence in organizational science about the combined effects of
leader charisma and centrality. By jointly considering leader cha-
risma and leader network centrality, our analyses provide a new
understanding of the structural and personal means through which
leaders promote better team performance. We go beyond the
compelling prior evidence that a charismatic leader or a centrally
placed leader will have positive effects on team performance. We
propose two models (summarized in Figure 1) that bring together
charismatic and network explanations of leader influences.
Charismatic leaders are typically depicted as extraordinary in-
dividuals capable of inspiring subordinates toward both strong
commitment to team tasks and high satisfaction with membership
on the team (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). Through the addi-
tional effort sparked by such subordinate commitment and satis-
faction, charismatic leaders improve team performance (House,
Spangler, & Woycke, 1991). Charismatic leaders articulate lofty
goals and exhibit determination in accomplishing these goals.
They thereby encourage their subordinates toward stronger moti-
vation via a greater outlay of time and energy (Conger & Kanungo,
1987). Hence, the higher the charisma of the leader, the more
productive the team (Barling, Weber, & Kelloway, 1996; Bass,
Avolio, Jung, & Berson, 2003; Howell & Frost, 1989). From this
perspective, a leader’s charisma directly affects team performance
(Waldman, Ramirez, House, & Puranam, 2001). In the words of a
recent study, “the leader inspires and activates subordinates to
perform and achieve goals beyond normal expectations” (Keller,
2006, p. 202).
The nature of charisma has been much discussed. Originally,
charismatic leaders were thought to be in possession of extraordi-
nary attributes that attracted followers (Weber, 1947). From this
perspective, charismatic leaders possess transcendental powers
(Trice & Beyer, 1986). A conception of charisma as an inherent
quality of the individual continues in work that emphasizes the
ways in which charismatic leaders influence followers through
their personality. For example, a meta-analysis of 14 samples of
leaders from over 200 organizations showed that extraversion and
agreeableness positively predicted charismatic leadership (Judge
& Bono, 2000).
A differing conception emphasizes the ways in which followers
attribute charisma to leaders through social construction processes
(e.g., Howell & Shamir, 2005). From this point of view, charisma
is not primarily a personality characteristic but an attribution
 SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LEADER CHARISMA
negotiated between followers and leaders (House et al., 1991).
Instead of being restricted to truly exceptional individuals of
historic importance, charisma can be understood as an attribute of
leaders “at all levels of organizations” (Avolio & Yammarino,
1990, p. 195).
If charisma is primarily a personality trait, then a model in
which leaders use the magnetism of their charisma to move into
central positions in social networks makes sense. If, however,
charisma is mainly attributed to leaders by followers through
social relationships, then it makes more sense to model charismatic
leadership as a process in which leaders build social network
relationships with followers on the basis of which charismatic
attributions are developed. We differentiate between these two
conceptions of charisma by formulating two competing theoretical
models.
Charisma-to-Centrality Model
Charisma in this model operates primarily as a conventional
personality variable. Charismatic individuals possess abilities—
such as high levels of self-confidence and a strong sense of
righteousness (House, 1977)—that attract followers (Weber,
1947). Charismatic individuals communicate their vision and ex-
pectations to and through these followers. To the extent that
charismatic individuals attract informal ties from followers, they
build central positions for themselves within team advice net-
works. A central position in the informal network can complement
formal power and provide a platform for enhancing team perfor-
mance (cf. Carmeli, Ben-Hador, Waldman, & Rupp, 2009). Cha-
risma can enable the leader to be in the right place in terms of
combining a position of formal authority with a position of infor-
mal influence (Brass, 1984).
The charisma-to-centrality model suggests, therefore, that the
leader’s charisma facilitates movement toward and occupation of a
central, advantageous position in the informal network. From this
advantageous position, the leader is able to positively influence
team performance. The pattern of relationships between the leader
and team members explains variation in team performance
(Balkundi & Kilduff, 2005). The leader’s influence derives not just
from the authority that comes with the formal position (cf. Dobrev
& Barnett, 2005) but also, potentially, from the interpersonal
regard that derives from occupation of a central position in the
informal advice network concerning work-related issues (Brass,
1985; Sparrowe & Liden, 2005). A formal leader who is central in
the informal advice network has several direct ties with subordi-
nates and can use these ties to transmit goals, anticipate problems,
solicit employee advice, and manage resource flows (Balkundi &
Harrison, 2006). When a subordinate buys into a network relation-
ship with a charismatic leader, this enables the leader to motivate
the individual to go beyond self-interest to focus on team outcomes
(cf. Keller, 2006, p. 203).
Under the charisma-to-centrality model, the leader’s charisma
indirectly affects team performance by facilitating the leader’s
navigation to an advantageous berth within the informal network
structure of the team (cf. Bono & Anderson, 2005). Because
noncharismatic leaders tend to remain on the periphery of their
team networks, they lack influential relationships with subordi-
nates and are less likely to positively influence member motivation
and accomplishment, and therefore, team performance suffers.
1211
Centrality-to-Charisma Model
Following Max Weber, charismatic leaders are often depicted as
endowed with “supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically
exceptional qualities” (Weber, 1947, pp. 358 –359). To the extent
that such qualities remove charismatic leaders from the realm of
ordinary humanity, it is hard to see how such leaders can function
in the intensive collaboration characteristic of small teams. The
centrality-to-charisma model proposes an alternative view in
which charisma itself is socially discovered and constructed
through interaction with subordinates. This perspective builds on
network attribution research that has shown how people central in
networks tend to be seen by others as influential (Brass, 1984). If,
in contrast to the Weberian view, charismatic leadership is rela-
tively difficult to detect (cf. Hermalin, 1998), the process of
leadership activity itself—the process by which the formal leader
engages with subordinates in providing advice and soliciting in-
put—may contribute to charismatic attributions.
Thus, the centrality-to-charisma model posits that leader activity
in work-related advice interactions with team members provides
the leader with opportunities to establish charisma that is advan-
tageous for promoting team effectiveness. Leaders who occupy
central positions in informal advice networks have opportunities
through social interaction to build trust, inspire confidence, gain
respect, and promote rapport with the group. Central leaders can
transmit to subordinates evidence of energy and charisma. Fur-
thermore, the process of consulting with and giving advice to
subordinates provides opportunities for subordinates to discover
and construct leader charisma (Bass, 1985).
We emphasize the extent to which leaders provide advice and
also the extent to which leaders solicit advice. The extent to which
people communicate with others in work groups correlates with
the extent to which these central people are seen as influential
(Brass, 1984). Note that we are not assuming that people in a team
are able to assess accurately how central the leader is (cf. Casciaro,
1998). Rather, we are suggesting that the more opportunities
afforded to individual team members to interact with the team
leader, the more individuals are able to assess the qualities of the
leader.
Within work groups, people evaluate charisma based on direct
contact rather than on media presentations or public speeches
(House et al., 1991). Leaders who are active in soliciting advice
provide opportunities to subordinates to voice their issues. Such
subordinate-focused behavior (i.e., individualized consideration—
Antonakis & House, 2002) is an important aspect of leadership.
Openness to employee voice has been shown to predict member
satisfaction (Detert & Burris, 2007) and subordinates’ commitment
to team goals and tasks (Vroom & Yetton, 1973). According to one
meta-analysis, leaders who provide subordinates with individual-
ized consideration tend to be seen by subordinates as charismatic
(r ! .85; Lowe et al., 1996). Through soliciting advice, leaders win
the trust and respect of employees (MacLeod & Brady, 2007).
In summary, individuals central in advice networks, in terms of
both giving and receiving advice, are likely to be intensively
involved in their work (Zagenczyk & Murrell, 2009), are likely to
influence others concerning their perceptions of the team (Zagenc-
zyk, Scott, Gibney, Murrell, & Thatcher, 2010), and are likely to
be seen by others as charismatic (Krackhardt, 1990). To the extent
that centrally located team leaders are seen as charismatic, their
1212 BALKUNDI, KILDUFF, AND HARRISON
pronouncements are likely to be viewed as visionary, their encour-
agement is likely to incite extra effort, and their teams are likely to
perform well.
Study 1
Method
Sample. We collected social network, charisma, and team
performance data at three sites in South India and one site in the
United States. The sample size at each site ranged from 66 to 233
people, with a mean of 170. The three Indian research sites
included Regional Hospital, a large general hospital that employed
233 people working in 25 teams concerned with patient care or
administration. These teams provided diagnostics and medical
treatment to sick patients, whereas the work of the administrative
teams involved supporting the patient care teams and maintaining
the hospital. Pharmaceutical Labs employed 212 people working
in 21 teams in South India to develop or produce pharmaceutical
drugs. Research and development teams focused on the basic
science of creating new or improved pharmaceuticals. The manu-
facturing teams translated the findings of the research and devel-
opment teams into large-scale production of the drugs. The
government-run Research Institute employed 168 people working
in eight teams to develop national policy guidelines concerning
nutrition and health. For example, one team comprised patholo-
gists whose job it was to conduct research and develop health
policies so as to reduce the occurrence of cancer. The U.S. research
site—Applied Engineering Projects— consisted of a class of 66
advanced engineering students at a large state university working
in 15 student teams on applied projects for a large aerospace
company. Throughout the semester the student teams made pre-
sentations to the class and to the instructor. All the teams in India
and the United States were led by formally designated leaders.
For each team, the members worked together through at least
two performance cycles before team performance was assessed
(Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001). In the case of the applied
engineering teams, the instructors rated the teams based on their
team projects and presentations made to external stakeholders. The
supervisors at the hospital met the team leaders every Monday to
keep abreast of performance developments and address any prob-
lems that surfaced. In the remaining two sites, the supervisors
interacted with the teams on a daily basis. Teams were character-
ized by interdependence that was reciprocal rather than pooled or
sequential (Thompson, 1967).
The total sample across all sites consisted of 472 people in 69
teams. The average response rate across teams was 82% (cf.
Sparrowe, Liden, Wayne, & Kraimer, 2001). We excluded 11
teams from this total because the teams were dyads, consisting of
only one member other than the leader. Furthermore, to avoid
statistical dependence in our sample, we also excluded one each of
two pairs of teams that shared the same leader. In these cases, we
retained the team to which the leader devoted the most time. Our
final sample consisted of 413 people in 56 teams, with a mean
team size of seven, with each team being rated in terms of its
performance by one supervisor. The individuals who were ex-
cluded from the analysis were not statistically different from those
retained in terms of age, gender, and education. Overall, there were
20 teams from Regional Hospital (each team rated by one of four
supervisors), 14 teams from Pharmaceutical Labs (each team rated
by one of four supervisors), seven teams from Research Institute
(rated by one supervisor), and 15 teams from Applied Engineering
Projects (rated by one supervisor).
Procedure. We surveyed team members at all four sites to
collect social network ties and demographic characteristics. Fur-
thermore, we asked subordinates questions about their leader’s
charisma, and we later asked the upper level manager of each
leader to rate the performance of the (leader’s) team. That is, we
obtained data from three sources: team members, leaders, and
higher level supervisors of the leaders. In the case of Applied
Engineering Projects, the course instructor was the higher level
supervisor of the student teams and their leaders and therefore
provided team performance evaluations. At all four sites, we
distributed the same supervisor (upper level manager) and team
member questionnaires. Participants at each site were promised
and given an overview of findings.
At all four sites, we sent a letter to potential participants (in-
cluding team members, team leaders, and supervisors of the lead-
ers) describing the study, encouraging participation, and assuring
complete confidentiality (Dillman, 2000). The letter also empha-
sized the organizational and scientific importance of the study,
without divulging specific variables or hypotheses. One week
later, we sent each potential participant a package that included a
cover letter, the questionnaire itself, and two consent forms. After
another week, we followed up nonrespondents with reminder
postcards. Then, after an additional week, we sent letters remind-
ing individuals of the study and enclosed replacement surveys.
In a second wave of data collection, we contacted only the upper
level supervisors of team leaders and requested that they evaluate
team performance. The time lag of roughly two months separating
the two waves of data collection allowed the teams to complete
their current tasks. For example, the student engineering teams
filled out the social network survey in the middle of their semester-
long projects, and the instructor rated team performance after the
teams submitted their project reports and made presentations to the
aerospace company (the sponsor of the project). The combination
of time-separated data and different respondents (team members
vs. team supervisors) was designed to minimize problems with
common method variance.
Networks. Because we were interested in team-level network
measures, we determined membership in each team using converg-
ing evidence from different sources of information to permit
cross-validation: interviews with human resources personnel, ar-
chival records (including organizational charts), and team member
responses. To map the team advice network, at the beginning of
the questionnaire each respondent was asked to scan an alphabet-
ical list of all team members and place checks next to the names of
those “people from whom you seek advice about work-related
matters.”
Leader centrality. Leaders can energize team members both
by providing subordinates with advice and by seeking advice from
them. To capture advice seeking and giving by the team leader, we
calculated degree centrality (Borgatti & Everett, 2006): the total
number of ties that each leader had in the team. Degree centrality
is the most theoretically appropriate centrality measure of the local
activity of the leader in the team. As a standard network textbook
explained, “Degree centrality stresses the local viewpoint and
measures transaction activity” (Degenne & Forsé, 1999, p. 134).
 SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LEADER CHARISMA
The data we collected consisted of directed ties: whether Person i
reported going to Person j for advice. Because we wanted to
capture the total activity of each leader in both soliciting and
receiving advice, we symmetrized the data using the union rule—a
tie was retained in the matrix if either Person i reported going to
Person j for advice or if Person j reported going to Person i for
advice. In either of these cases, interaction occurs between the two
people. This interaction, irrespective of who initiates it, can lead to
the exchange of information and provide leaders with influence
opportunities (Krackhardt, 1990). We standardized centrality mea-
sures by team size to produce normalized degree centrality scores
that varied between 0% and 100% (Wasserman & Faust, 1994).
Leader charisma. This was measured with seven items from
the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire developed by Bass and
his colleagues (Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1990; see Waldman et
al., 2001, for an example of the use of this scale). All team
members were asked to rate their leader on items relating to
communicating high performance expectations, generating re-
spect, and so on. Each item was anchored on a 5-point scale
ranging from not at all to frequently, if not always. We aggregated
leader charisma scores to the team level given that the mean rwg
for team member reports of leader charisma was .85, with 87% of
teams having rwg values above .70 (James, Demaree, & Wolf,
1984). Further tests justified this aggregation (ICC1 ! .30, p "
.01, ICC2 ! .72; Bliese, 2000). This suggests that team members
had a common view of their leader’s charisma. Coefficient alpha
for the leader charisma scale was .92, suggesting high internal
consistency. Other studies have reported similar levels of esti-
mated reliability for these seven items (Waldman et al., 2001).
Team task performance. Each team was rated by an upper
level manager (supervisor of team leaders) on a scale of 1 (very
poor) to 7 (outstanding) for 11 items developed by Campion,
Papper, and Medsker (1996). Sample items included “The quality
of work done by this team was ____.” In their study of 42 teams,
Campion et al. found these items to have sound psychometric
properties, including high variance across teams and good internal
consistency. In the present study, the items were reliable (# ! .93).
Network size. The network position of a person is partly
dependent on the size of the surrounding network. A member of a
large team can potentially forge more ties than a member of a
small team. To ensure standardized comparisons of leader central-
ity across teams of different sizes, we used normalized measures of
degree centrality in our analyses (Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman,
2002). In addition, because team size itself has been predictive of
team performance in prior studies (Guzzo & Dickson, 1996), we
included this variable as a control.
Leader gender. Research has indicated systematic effects of
the gender of the leader on leadership style (Eagly & Carli, 2003;
Eagly & Johnson, 1990). Therefore, we incorporated a dummy
variable for leader gender as a control. Males were coded as 1 and
females as 2.
Site. To control for the effects of the four different research
sites, we included three dummy variables in the regression analy-
sis. We also examined differences across substantive variables
(leader centrality, leader charisma, team task performance, team
size, and leader effectiveness) across sites. Confidence intervals
(CIs) overlapped for all variables with the exception of team task
performance, where lower ratings were recorded for the Research
Institute site. This difference was confirmed by a hierarchical
1213
linear model that examined team performance rating (Level 1)
differences across the different supervisors (Level 2). There was a
significant difference between the raters (p " .05), and it was due
to the one specific rater from the Research Institute. When we
excluded this rater, there were no differences in performance
ratings among the remaining raters (p $ .30).
Perceptions of leader effectiveness. One of the key assump-
tions of both models proposed above is that charisma is an ante-
cedent of performance. Cumulative evidence supports this formu-
lation (e.g., Judge & Piccolo, 2004). However, there is the
possibility that subordinates attribute charisma to a leader because
the leader is a proven high performer (Agle, Nagarajan, Sonnen-
feld, & Srinivasan, 2006; Keller, 1992; Meindl, 1995). To help
control for this possibility, we assessed the subordinates’ percep-
tions of the prior effectiveness of team leaders using two 5-point
scale items modeled on two items recently (Foti, Knee, & Backert,
2008) added to the General Leadership Impression Scale (Lord,
Foti, & DeVader, 1984). Specifically, we asked subordinates in
each team to identify (a) how much the leader was instrumental to
the overall effectiveness of the group and (b) how much the leader
contributed to the performance of the group’s task. Scale endpoints
were labeled None and Extreme Amount. Coefficient alpha for this
two-item measure was .87.
Results and Discussion
The descriptive statistics in Table 1 show that nine out of the 56
leaders (16%) were female. On average, a leader was connected
via advice ties to 75% of the subordinates, as indicated in the mean
normalized degree centrality (M ! 75.03, SD ! 27.09). Subordi-
nates saw leaders as high performers who contributed to the
effectiveness of their teams, as indicated by the mean score of 4.19
for perceptions of prior leader performance on a scale of 1 to 5.
However, there was still substantial variance in those perceptions
(SD ! 0.66), and responses covered the full range of the scale.
The zero-order correlations in Table 1 show that both leader
charisma (r ! .45, p " .01) and leader network centrality (r ! .35,
p " .01) predicted team task performance. The correlations with
performance shown in Table 1 are quite comparable to other
studies, including meta-analytic estimates of effects for charisma
(% ! .49; DeGroot et al., 2000) and leader centrality (% ! .29;
Balkundi & Harrison, 2006). These psychometric and sociometric
independent variables (leader charisma and leader centrality) also
correlated with each other (r ! .47, p " .01). The significant
correlations further highlight the importance of the questions ad-
dressed in the models, which we examined through hierarchical
multiple regression analysis.
Charisma-to-centrality model. This model suggests that
charismatic leaders occupy central positions in the advice net-
works of their teams and, through the occupation of these advan-
tageous positions, facilitate how well teams accomplish their tasks.
From this perspective, the positive effect of leader charisma on
team performance (& ! .46, p " .01, as shown in Model 3, Table
2) should have been mediated by leader centrality. Was this
mediation model supported? The answer is no. Although charis-
matic leaders tended to occupy central network positions (Model 4,
Table 3: & ! .42, p " .01) and teams with more central leaders
tended to achieve higher performance (Model 2, Table 2: & ! .29,
p " .05), there is no indication in our results that the effect of
1214 BALKUNDI, KILDUFF, AND HARRISON

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Among Control, Independent, and Dependent Variables for Study 1

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Control variables
1. Institute 0.12 0.33 —
2. Engineering teams 0.27 0.48 (.23 —
3. Hospital 0.36 0.45 (.28 (.45!!! —
4. Pharmaceuticals 0.23 0.43 (.21 (.33!! (.41!! —
5. Team size 7.30 4.25 (.37!!! (.42!!! .29!! (.18 —
6. Leader gender 1.16 0.37 (.02 (.06 .08 (.12 (.07 —
7. Leader perceived effectiveness 4.19 0.66 .06 (.05 .23! (.25! .12 (.10 —
Independent and dependent variables
8. Leader centrality 75.03 27.09 (.29!! .31!! .05 (.18 (.30!! (.07 .12 —
9. Leader charisma 3.67 0.75 .09 (.10 .06 (.12 .00 (.08 .26!! .47!!! —
10. Team performance 41.29 7.06 (.35!!! .15 .07 .00 (.19 .13 (.04 .35!!! .45!!! —

Note. n ! 56.
!
p " .10. !! p " .05. !!!
p " .01.

leader charisma on team performance was due to leaders occupy-
ing central positions in team advice networks. As Model 4, Table
2, shows, after the inclusion of the mediator (leader centrality),
leader charisma remained a significant predictor of team perfor-
mance (& ! .43, p " .01), and centrality had no detectable effect
(& ! .09, ns). The Sobel (1982) test for mediation was nonsignif-
icant, t(47) ! 0.68, ns.
Centrality-to-charisma model. This model suggests that
charisma is attributed to those leaders who are socially active in
terms of giving and receiving advice and that this leader charisma
facilitates team performance. From this perspective, the positive
effect of leader centrality on team performance (& ! .29, p " .05,
as shown in Model 2, Table 2) should have been mediated by
leader charisma. Was this mediation model supported? The answer
is yes. Central leaders tended to be seen as charismatic (Model 2,
Table 3: & ! .48, p " .01), teams with charismatic leaders tended
to have high performance (Model 3, Table 2: & ! .46, p " .01)
and, as Model 4, Table 2, shows, when the hypothesized media-
tor—leader charisma—was introduced into the regression (& !
.43, p " .01), there was no significant effect of leader centrality on
team performance (& ! .09, ns). The Sobel (1982) test for medi-
ation was significant, t(47) ! 2.13, p " .05. Overall, the centrality-
to-charisma model explained 23% of the variance in team perfor-
mance. We conducted several other analyses to rule out alternative
explanations (see the Appendix for details).
Summary
The results show that teams led by charismatic leaders tend to be
high performing and that the extent to which leaders are seen as
charismatic depends on the extent to which leaders are central in
team advice networks. These results support the centrality-to-
charisma model over the charisma-to-centrality model. Yet cha-
risma and network centrality were measured at the same time, so
we still did not know whether leaders who are central in team
advice networks tend subsequently to receive attributions of cha-
risma from subordinates. Prior research could support the inter-
pretation that it is the charisma of the leader that directly affects
both leader centrality (e.g., Bono & Anderson, 2005) and team
performance (e.g., Keller, 2006). To more carefully assess the
temporal ordering posited in the mediation models, we designed a
second, longitudinal study to test the relationships among the
variables on a more homogeneous sample of teams with a more
temporally sensitive research design.

Table 2
Summary of Regression Analyses Predicting Team Performance for Study 1

Model 1: controls Model 2: controls ' leader Model 3: controls Model 4: Model 3 ' leader
Variable only centrality ' charisma centrality

Institute (.31! (.29! (.27! (.27!

Engineering teams .06 (.03 (.01 (.03
Hospital (.01 (.05 (.01 (.02
Team size (.05 .01 (.07 (.05
Leader gender .12 .15 .15 .09
Leader perceived
effectiveness .01 (.03 (.11 (.12
Leader centrality .29!! .09
Leader charisma .46!!! .43!!!
F 1.37! 1.84! 3.49!!! 3.06!!!
Adjusted R2 .04 .10 .24 .23

Note. n ! 56; entries are standardized regression coefficients.

!
p " .10. !! p " .05. !!! p " .01.
 SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LEADER CHARISMA 1215

Table 3 “from whom you seek advice about project-related matters.” We

Summary of Regression Analysis Predicting Leader Charisma constructed 79 advice matrices, one for each team, to capture these
and Leader Centrality for Study 1 data on social ties. Cell xij in the advice matrices represented
whether i went to j for advice (cell value ! 1) or not (cell value !
Leader charisma Leader centrality 0). Each matrix was then used to calculate the number of ties a
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
leader had with subordinates. As in Study 1, when either a subor-
dinate sought advice from the leader or vice versa, it was counted
Institute (.08 (.04 (.10 (.06 as tie. To standardize for differences in team size, we used the
Engineering teams .13 (.01 .30! .24 normalized degree centrality measure that varies between 0% and
Hospital .04 (.06 .20 .18
100% (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). We followed the same proce-
Team size .04 .14 (.22 (.23
Leader gender (.07 (.02 (.11 (.08 dure for both waves of network data.
Leader perceived effectiveness .26! .20 .11 .01 Leader charisma. Twice (T1 and T2) during the semester,
Leader centrality .48!!! team members were asked to rate team leader behaviors on the
Leader charisma .42!!! Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire items used in Study 1 (Bass,
F 0.99 2.70!! 2.24! 4.12!!!
Adjusted R2 .01 .18 .12 .28 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1990). The scale was internally consistent
(# ! .93). The mean rwg across all teams was .96 at both T1 and
Note. n ! 56; entries are standardized regression coefficients. T2, with all teams having rwg values above .75 (James et al., 1984),
!
p " .10. !! p " .05. !!! p " .01. thereby providing support for aggregation. Other analyses also
supported the aggregation to the team level (T1 ICC1 ! .14, p "
Study 2 .01, ICC2 ! .39; T2 ICC1 ! .25, p " .01, ICC2 ! .58; Bliese,
2000).
Team task performance. Course instructors rated teams
Method
using the same 11-item scale used in Study 1 (Campion et al.,
Sample. To test the two competing models of the relationship 1996; # ! .94).
between charisma and network centrality in the context of team Rater effect. Because five different instructors rated the
performance, we collected multisource, three-wave survey data teams, we created four different dummy codes for rater.
from 356 persons in 79 four- or five-person teams. Median team Leader gender. Men were coded as 1 and women as 2.
size was four members. Teams worked on an organizational sim-
ulation project as part of a senior-level strategy course at a public Results and Discussion
southwestern U.S. university over a 16-week semester. The orga-
nizational simulation was capstone to the class and required Table 4 shows means, standard deviations, and zero-order cor-
knowledge of different functional inputs to the operation of a firm. relations from Study 2. In support of the centrality-to-charisma
In addition to the simulation, the teams submitted multiple case model, leaders central in team advice networks at T1 tended to be
studies that were independent of the content, but not the general seen as charismatic by members of their team at T2 (r ! .19, p "
principles, of the simulation. The majority of participants were .10) and were judged to lead more productive teams at T3 (r ! .37,
male (72.5%), and the average age of the respondents was 23 p " .01). In contrast, the correlational evidence did not support the
years. Each team was assigned a leader by the class instructor, and charisma-to-centrality model as strongly. Leaders rated as charis-
this leader served as the liaison between the team and the instruc- matic by subordinates at T1 were not found to move into central
tor. network positions at T2 (r ! .13, ns) nor were their teams judged
Procedure. The initial wave of data collection occurred dur- to be high performing at T3 (r ! .06, ns).
ing the first week of the simulation-based activities in the class These correlational trends were mirrored in the regression re-
(T1), approximately one month after the semester began. We sults shown in Table 5. In support of the centrality-to-charisma
measured the advice network ties within the team, as well as leader perspective, Model 2 in Table 5 shows that leaders who were
charisma. The second wave (T2) of data collection occurred 2 central at T1 were later seen as charismatic at T2 (& ! .23, p "
months later, when we measured the same two constructs again. .05). Moreover, the teams of T1-central leaders tended to perform
By then, team members had several weeks of working alongside well at T3 (& ! .33, p " .01). Sobel’s (1982) test confirmed the
one another and were working on the last stage of the simulation. partial mediation of charisma measured at T2 on the relationship
The third wave of data collection occurred at the end of the between leader centrality at T1 and team performance at T3,
semester (T3), when instructors were asked to rate the performance t(68) ! 2.71, p " .01. However, the charisma-to-centrality per-
of each project team. For the first two waves of data collection, of spective was not supported. As Table 5, Model 4, shows, leader
the 350 students in the course, 306 responded. Thus, the overall charisma at T1 did not significantly predict leader centrality at T2
response rate was 87% across the two waves. When these data (& ! .18, ns), nor was the charisma of leaders at T1 found to
were aggregated to the team level, we had missing data for eight contribute to the performance of teams at T3 (& ! .06, ns; Model
teams. These teams, which were subsequently dropped from the 5 in Table 5).
study, were not different from the remaining teams in terms of Table 4 shows that the two measures of leader centrality (at T1
background characteristics such as gender, age, and SAT scores of and T2) were highly correlated (r ! .49, p " .01) as were the two
team members. measures of leader charisma (r ! .63, p " .01). These across-time
Leader centrality. At both T1 and T2, we asked the respon- correlations suggest only modest change and raise the question,
dents to look through a list of team members and identify members Does either variable at T1 predict change in the other variable from
1216 BALKUNDI, KILDUFF, AND HARRISON

Table 4
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Among Control, Independent, and Dependent Variables for Study 2

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1. Rater 1 0.19 0.39 —

2. Rater 2 0.20 0.40 (.24!! —
3. Rater 3 0.19 0.39 (.23!! (.24!! —
4. Rater 4 0.20 0.40 (.24!! (.25!! (.24!! —
5. Rater 5 0.21 0.41 (.25!! (.26!! (.25!! (.26!! —
6. Leader gender 1.36 0.48 .18 (.12 .07 .02 (.14 —
7. Leader centrality (T1) 85.82 23.65 .25!! (.18!! .06 (.16 (.04 .06 —
8. Leader charisma (T1) 3.72 0.60 (.05 (.07 .08 .20!! (.15 .15 .18 —
9. Leader centrality (T2) 81.05 26.89 .22!! (.18! .05 (.15 .05 (.06 .49!!! .13 —
10. Leader charisma (T2) 3.79 0.67 (.13 (.19 (.06 .17 .21! (.03 .19! .63!!! .23!! —
11. Team performance (T3) 3.51 0.63 (.05 .14 .14 (.41!!! .17 .08 .37!!! .06 .37!!! .22!! —

Note. n ! 79. T1 ! first wave of data collection; T2 ! second wave of data collection; T3 ! third wave of data collection.
!
p " .10. !! p " .05. !!! p " .01.

T1 to T2? The answer is no. If we rerun the analysis in Table 5,
Model 2, controlling for charisma at T1 in predicting charisma at
T2, then leader centrality is no longer significant (& ! .09, ns). If
we rerun the analysis in Table 5, Model 4, controlling for centrality
at T1 in predicting centrality at T2, then charisma remains non-
significant (& ! .09, ns).
Is there then evidence of mediation? We used a bootstrap
mediation testing procedure (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) appropriate
for the small sample size of Study 2. Furthermore, given the small
size, we wanted to increase the statistical power and sensitivity to
detect effects and thereby avoid incorrectly accepting the null.
Thus, we used p " .10 (two-tailed) to test these paths, including
whether either path—from centrality to charisma or from charisma
to centrality—was significant (cf. Lim & Ployhart, 2004). We
found evidence to support the idea that team members made up
their minds at T1 concerning the leader and that these attributions
then carried over to T2: Leader charisma at T1 mediated the effect
of leader centrality at T1 on charisma at T2, t(68) ! 1.73, p " .10,
but charisma at T1 did not predict centrality at T2 via prior
centrality, t(68) ! 0.56, ns. These mediation tests suggest that T1
charisma is a go-between from T1 network centrality to subse-
quent (T2) charisma. However, when examining the other path-
way, there is no evidence for T1 centrality coming between T1
charisma and T2 centrality.
The primary focus of this article is on the team performance
implications of leader centrality and leader charisma. Thus, we
also used bootstrap mediation to check which paths to team per-
formance were significant. The results confirmed the regression
tests reported above. The charisma-to-centrality perspective was
not supported. The pathway from leader charisma (T1) to leader
centrality (T2) to team performance (T3) was not significant
because neither the total effect of charisma (T1) on team perfor-
mance, t(68) ! 1.39, ns, nor the direct effect of charisma (T1) on
team performance, t(68) ! (0.99, ns, was significant.
The centrality-to-charisma model was supported, as shown
by our examination of the pathway from centrality (T1) to
charisma (T2) to performance (T3). The total effect of centrality
(T1) on performance was positive and significant, t(68) ! 3.40,
p " .01, as was the direct effect of centrality (T1) on perfor-
mance, t(68) ! 2.08, p " .05. The indirect effect was signifi-

Table 5
Summary of Regression Analyses in Study 2 Predicting Charisma (T2), Leader Centrality (T2), and Team Performance (T3)

Charisma (T2) Leader centrality (T2) Team performance (T3)

Model 4: Model 3 Model 5: controls ' leader Model 6: Model 5

Model 1: only Model 2: Model 1 ' Model 3: only ' leader charisma centrality (T1) ' leader ' leader charisma
Variable controls leader centrality (T1) controls (T1) charisma (T1) (T2)

Rater 1 (.26! (.30!! .17 .16 (.26!! (.16

Rater 2 (.31!! (.27! (.18 (.19 .03 .14
Rater 3 (.19 (.20 .02 (.01 (.05 .06
Rater 4 (.02 (.02 (.14 (.20 (.43!!! (.37!!!
Leader gender .00 (.01 (.11 (.14 .11 (.14
Leader centrality (T1) .23!! .36!!! .33!!!
Leader charisma (T1) .18 .06 (.16
Leader charisma (T2) .33!!
F 2.03 2.12! 1.54 1.74 4.76!!! 5.17!!!
Adjusted R2 .05 .08 .03 .06 .26 .31

Note. n ! 79; entries are standardized regression coefficients. T1 ! first wave of data collection; T2 ! second wave of data collection; T3 ! third wave
of data collection.
!
p " .10. !! p " .05. !!! p " .01.
 SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LEADER CHARISMA 1217

cant as indicated by the CIs created by a bias-corrected boot- enthusiastically communicate about team goals. The very charisma
strap procedure: 90% CI unstandardized coefficient [0.0002, of individual leaders (something that might appear to be uniquely
0.0045] (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Overall, the evidence points representative of their authentic selves) appears to be derived in
to leader charisma (T2) as mediating the relationship between part from the level of leader network activity.
leader centrality (T1) and team performance.
Contribution to Leadership Research
Summary This article complements recent research concerning how sub-
ordinates gain influence in organizations (Sparrowe & Liden,
The results suggest two conclusions. First, the bulk of the
2005). Our research has looked at the other side of the picture,
evidence is consistent with the idea that leader networking pre-
from the perspective of the leader concerned principally with
cedes and perhaps drives judgments of leader charisma. Second,
improving team performance, whereas prior research emphasized
enhanced charisma is likely to prove useful to leaders in their
the importance of subordinates gaining the sponsorship of super-
efforts to improve team performance. Study 2 provides further
visors. Our research emphasizes that charismatic power derives
evidence that leaders who establish themselves at the center of
from network interactions (cf. Krackhardt, 1990). We add a further
team advice networks tend to be seen as charismatic by team
link in addressing the issue of team performance as an outcome of
members and that this charisma facilitates how well the team
leader network activity and leader charisma.
achieves task goals.
Why did we not find support for the charisma-to-centrality
The evidence from the bootstrap mediation tests suggests that
model (cf. Burkhardt & Brass, 1990)? One possibility is suggested
leader centrality may affect charisma (T2) via prior charisma (T1)
by the finding that charismatic leaders are regarded by followers
and that this is a fully mediated relationship. These results suggest
with awe (Shamir, Arthur, & House, 1994; Shils, 1965). In the
that charismatic attributions may be based on the initial network
presence of leaders high in charisma (and therefore high in power),
ties of the leader and that these initial attributions may remain
followers tend to feel emotionally inhibited and deferential (Kelt-
stable over time.
ner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003). To the extent that leader
We should recognize the limitations of Study 2. Given the small
charisma inhibits followers from approaching or responding ex-
size of the teams, relatively modest amounts of variance were
pressively to leaders, charisma is unlikely to prove useful in
explained with respect to the charisma and centrality of leaders.
establishing leader centrality.
The conclusion that leader networking predicts leader charisma,
Recent research has suggested that it is the local network that
which, in turn, facilitates team performance, must remain tentative
matters for individual outcomes in organizations rather than the
pending studies that experimentally manipulate the variables and
larger interpersonal sphere represented by the whole organization
establish causality. Although our results diminish the likelihood of
of contacts (Burt, 2007). Our research has focused on this local
dual pathways of effects of leader centrality and charisma on team
network of interaction within the boundary of a work team where
performance, we have not explored other possible models. For
network dynamics are likely to be proximate and intense. Despite
example, it is possible that central (but noncharismatic) or charis-
the starring role of teams in the developing history of social
matic (but noncentral) leaders might run effective teams (cf. Brass
network research (e.g., the experimental studies of small groups—
& Burkhardt, 1993).
Mullen, Johnson, & Salas, 1991; see Balkundi & Harrison, 2006,
for a review), the study of the social networks of leaders in teams
General Discussion has been surprisingly scant in applied psychology, as recognized
by the editors of a recent special issue on social networks and
The cumulative results from the two studies provide overall
organizations (Brass, Galaskiewicz, Greve, & Tsai, 2004, p. 800).
support for the centrality-to-charisma model. Team leaders who
In our focus on how team leaders negotiate the pathways to
are central in advice networks (in terms of a bustle of advice
successful team performance, we add to the nascent organizational
interactions with many members) tend to be seen as charismatic by
literature concerned with the networks of team leaders (cf. Mehra,
subordinates. This charisma inspires and facilitates team perfor-
Dixon, Brass, & Robertson, 2006).
mance. Our research provides suggestive evidence that a
The nature of charisma has long been debated. Most researchers
leadership-relevant aspect of personality— charisma—may derive
argue that charisma has an inherent personality facet and may be
from occupation of a structural position in the network, compatible
trait based (Bacha, 2010; Waldman & Javidan, 2009). Others argue
with a social personality approach to leadership emergence.
that charisma is attribution based and is in the eye of the beholders
From a social network perspective, a central position in a team
(e.g., Pastor et al., 2002). One resolution to this debate is the
network offers the incumbent both motive and opportunity to
possibility that individuals differ with respect to their level of
become a player. In this sense, “a person’s social environment
inherent charismatic potential but that this potential requires social
elicits a specific personality” (Burt, 1992, p. 262). This view is not
situations in which it can be discovered and developed (cf. Howell
as radical as it may sound from the perspective of personality
& Frost, 1989; Pastor, Mayo, & Shamir, 2007). Further research
psychology, which also recognizes that personality traits require
can explore the extent to which charismatic attributions can be
appropriate situations to be exhibited and channeled (Winter, John,
fostered through network interactions.
Stewart, Klohnen, & Duncan, 1998). In the current research, we
have been looking at an individual trait that requires considerable
Future Directions
social construction in the minds of others. For this personality trait
to be recognized by subordinates, interaction opportunities have to If charisma is an attribution cued by the extent to which leaders
be available for the formal leader to demonstrate confidence and are active in advice networks, this raises the question of whether or
1218 BALKUNDI, KILDUFF, AND HARRISON
not such charisma is active for the leader only within the team. For
example, when the team leader leaves the room after addressing
the team and enters a different social context, is the charisma of the
leader left behind? That is, if the leader checks charisma at the
door of the team room and there is no spillover effect of charisma
on other aspects of the leader’s work life, charisma would be
ephemeral, emerging and vanishing as the leader crosses the
team’s threshold. Charisma would be a local phenomenon trig-
gered by the specific social interactions present or absent in
specific groups.
An alternative possibility is that the attribution of charisma in
one social context changes the individual’s self-concept and be-
havior such that the individual attracts charismatic attributions in
other social settings. Leaders who have been seen as charismatic in
their own team may begin to assert their importance and distinc-
tiveness as they interact with people from around the firm. Thus,
in an interesting reversal of the self-fulfilling prophecy effect
(Merton, 1968), followers could create the conditions under which
leaders’ self-efficacy is promoted. In the spirit of Meindl’s (1990)
approach to leadership, it would be the subordinates who created
and maintained leadership efficacy in terms of the romance of
leadership. Further research exploring the possible extent of spill-
over effects of attributed charisma (cf. Avolio, 2007) is needed.
Also, the question arises as to the cross-situational stability of
individuals’ centralities. Evidence suggests that leadership emer-
gence in leaderless groups is related to such personality factors as
social dominance (e.g., Anderson & Kilduff, 2009). Other research
indicates that the extent to which individuals receive friendship
nominations from others is, in part, genetically determined
(Fowler, Dawes, & Christakis, 2009), but there is no work estab-
lishing such stability for advice ties. Considering the individual’s
network centrality as a stable trait opens up numerous research
possibilities that have been hitherto neglected.
Our results highlight the importance of centrality within teams,
but what about network connections to people outside of teams?
Prior work suggested that frequency of communication with non–
team members relates negatively to team performance (Ancona &
Caldwell, 1992) and that diversity of external ties is unrelated to
team effectiveness (Oh, Chung, & Labianca, 2004). However,
team leader centrality in the external friendship network of group
leaders has been shown to affect team performance (Mehra et al.,
2006). Given this inconclusive pattern of results, we looked again
at Study 1 for which we did have data concerning external ties of
team leaders. We found no significant effects on team performance
or leader charisma of team leaders’ external ties measured as (a)
leaders’ ties to their supervisors and as (b) leaders’ betweenness
centrality assessed organization wide. This is clearly an area for
future research.
Practical Implications
A leader who is central in a team advice network relative to one
who is isolated is likely to find multiple opportunities to dispense
and gather advice, communicate work-related matters with team
members, and, thereby, construct a charismatic social personality
that is a valuable resource in motivating and directing team per-
formance. Thus, the current research helps peel away the mystique
surrounding charismatic leadership to reveal the workaday process
by which some leaders emerge as charismatic in the eyes of their
team members (Pastor et al., 2002). By being centrally active in the
network of advice ties, a leader has opportunities to communicate
directly to team members a clear vision for how they can work
toward team goals. The route to effective leadership involving
charisma may be less daunting than has been thought (cf. Conger,
1999). A leader who lacks the “vision thing” in public speeches
may still garner attributions of charisma as the leader of a small
group, although this localized charisma may not emerge in the
public arena (cf. Galvin, Balkundi, & Waldman, 2010). Visionary
rhetoric may be necessary to communicate charisma to large
numbers of distant people, but the informal network of advice and
interaction may accomplish the same effect within small teams.
Limitations
Our research was limited to the specific context of small-to-
medium sized teams in which interactions with leaders were in-
tense. Although we found that leader centrality predicted charisma,
leader centrality within entire organizations might relate nega-
tively to attributions of charisma (cf. Brass, 1984). The relation-
ship between centrality and attributions of charisma may well
depend on how network boundaries are specified (cf. Kilduff &
Brass, 2010). Furthermore, the teams in our studies comprised
knowledge workers and students engaged in tasks with high re-
ciprocal interdependence. Standard leadership theory would antic-
ipate that in dealing with subordinates who possess substantial
domain-specific expertise, leaders should be participative rather
than autocratic (Vroom & Jago, 2007). The leaders in the teams we
studied garnered attributions of charisma through participative
management—soliciting advice from and providing advice to team
members. This management style may not be appropriate for teams
in other kinds of situations. Further research should examine
whether these centrality-to-charisma effects can be generalized to
other contexts and other kinds of teams such as those involving
manufacturing or physical performance (Sparrowe & Liden,
2005).
Although we have added to the picture of how individual-
difference variables and social network positions together contrib-
ute to understanding performance outcomes in organizations (cf.
Mehra, Kilduff, & Brass, 2001), we recognize that there are many
other individual-difference and personality variables that could be
examined. Our choice of charisma was guided by its importance in
the leadership literature and its potential to relate positively to the
network positions of leaders (cf. Bono & Anderson, 2005). Future
research can look more deeply at the question of how other
socially attributed aspects of personality can be developed through
social network dynamics.
An alternative explanation for the relationship between leader
charisma and team performance might be that team performance
drives charisma rather than the other way around—performance
could be the independent variable. Subordinates might take the
performance reputation of leaders into account in estimating their
charisma, as suggested by the romance of leadership approach
(Meindl, Ehrlich, & Dukerich, 1985). Indeed, in Study 1, we found
that subordinates’ ratings of leaders’ prior performance signifi-
cantly predicted subordinates’ estimates of leaders’ charisma. We
therefore made sure that the dependent variable in Study 1—team
task performance—was measured well after subordinates rated
leaders’ charisma (cf. Marks et al., 2001), and we ensured that
 SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LEADER CHARISMA
performance ratings were provided by upper level managers rather
than by subordinates. We also controlled for prior perceived per-
formance in our regressions predicting subsequent performance. In
Study 2, we did not face the problem of attribution based on prior
performance because the teams were newly created in the context
of research.
In this article, we have presented two studies using identically
measured variables, thus facilitating a comparison of internal and
external validity. Study 1 might be seen as offering higher external
validity in that it combined data from two countries and across
different firms. Yet the simultaneity of network and charisma
measures undermined claims concerning the temporal ordering of
the constructs. In contrast, Study 2 might be seen as possessing
higher internal validity given that measurements across the time
periods facilitated a test of the temporal sequence by which central
leaders emerged as charismatic. However, given that Study 2 was
based on a student sample, critics might question its external
validity. In general, then, the two studies offer complementary
strengths and weaknesses.
Although we used time-ordered research designs with multiple
sources of data, uncommon in contemporary studies in organiza-
tions (Scandura & Williams, 2000), the internal validity of future
research can be further strengthened. Prior work has shown that
individuals placed in central network positions tend to be seen as
leaders (Freeman, 1979; Mullen et al., 1991). An experimental
design that manipulated network structure in this way and then
measured charisma would increase confidence in the veracity of
the centrality-to-charisma model. The analyses in the present ar-
ticle can be considered conservative tests given that the estimated
effect of charisma on outcomes is almost cut in half when re-
searchers employ either longitudinal research designs or different
data sources (Judge & Piccolo 2004). The research designs in both
Study 1 and Study 2 incorporate both of these restrictive research
design facets.
In our examination of leadership in teams, we have provided
suggestive evidence that leaders who occupy central roles are
likely to be seen as charismatic by team members. If our research
has an overall message, it is that team leaders active in providing
and eliciting advice may achieve for themselves a type of charis-
matic social capital that promotes team performance.
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Appendix
Additional Tests
Study 1
Other Approaches to Centrality
The measure of leader centrality that we used in the tests
mentioned in the main text counted team members to whom advice
was given plus team members from whom advice was received.
However, individuals who gave and received advice from the
leader were counted only once. Both receiving advice and giving
advice provide opportunities for leader influence and subordinate
sensemaking. In the current sample, leaders gave advice to a
significantly higher percentage of subordinates than they received
advice from (mean indegree ! 63.83%, mean outdegree !
37.55%), t(55) ! 4.19, p " .01. The indegree centrality of leaders
did not in itself predict team performance when we repeated the
regression analysis reported in Table 2 (& ! .13, ns), but indegree
did predict leader charisma when we repeated the regression
analysis reported in Table 3 (& ! .37, p " .01). The effects of
advice seeking (leader outdegree) on leader charisma (& ! .26,
p " .01) and team performance (& ! .23, p " .15) were similar to
those reported in the tables, but the effects were weaker. If, as our
centrality-to-charisma model suggests, charismatic attributions are
forged in processes of work-related advice exchange, then the
incorporation of both advice giving and advice receiving measures
of leader centrality provide more robust estimates of opportunities
for interaction than either indegree or outdegree alone.
There are other network measures that capture different aspects
of centrality that are often considered relevant in organizational
research (e.g., Brass, 1984) but that appear to have only limited
relevance to the measurement of centrality in relatively small work
teams. Betweenness centrality is the extent to which a person
serves as a broker by occupying an intermediary position on the
shortest paths connecting disconnected others (Freeman, 1979).
We reanalyzed the data, replacing degree with betweenness.
Leader betweenness centrality predicted neither charisma nor team
performance in either model. We repeated this exercise using
eigenvector centrality, a measure that takes into account the cen-
trality of members to whom the leader is connected. Leader eigen-
vector centrality did predict both leader charisma and team per-
formance. This raised the question as to whether it offered
explanatory power beyond that provided by degree. On repeating
the analysis in Table 2 with both the degree and eigenvector
measures of centrality included in the regression, only the degree
measure was found to be a significant predictor of leader charisma
(& ! .43, p " .05).
Other Network Structures
We also examined the effects of other possible control variables
derived from network structures, including team network density
(i.e., the number of ties within the team network divided by the
maximum number of ties that were possible; Zohar & Tenne-
View publication stats
Gazit, 2008), and team network centralization (i.e., the extent to
which each team network was concentrated around one or a few
central actors). We also examined the leader’s own (betweenness)
centrality in the entire organization (cf. Reagans, Zuckerman, &
McEvily, 2004) given that we had these data. As with the other
controls, these variables did not have statistically significant or
unique relationships with team performance, and their inclusion
did not change the direction or the substantive effects of our main
antecedents of team performance. To simplify presentation, there-
fore, and retain the most power for model comparisons (i.e., allow
for unmediated effects of both charisma and leader centrality), we
excluded these nonsignificant network variables from reported
analyses.
Other Control Variables
Previous research has suggested that team outcomes can be
affected by member diversity in age, gender, and task interdepen-
dence (Campion, Medsker, & Higgs, 1993; Harrison, Price, &
Bell, 1998). In our sample, none of these control variables pre-
dicted team performance or leader charisma.
Moderation?
Both our models propose a series of direct effects. However,
another possibility is that leader centrality and charisma moderated
one another in their prediction of team performance. That is,
charisma might facilitate performance only when the leader has
developed dyadic advice ties to a large number of subordinates (or
vice versa). We did not find evidence to support this contingent
combination (cf. failure of a similar interactive model in Mehra et
al., 2001). More specifically, the interaction term was nonsignifi-
cant for Degree Centrality ) Charisma (& ! .21, ns). We repeated
this analysis with a curvilinear model (Cortina, 2003), and the
results remained nonsignificant (& ! .29, ns).
Study 2
Using a subset of the reported results, we replicated and con-
firmed the findings of Study 1 using T2 leader centrality and leader
charisma measures. Leader centrality (T2) did predict charisma
(T2; &! .26, p " .05) and subsequent team performance (&! .37,
p " .01). Charisma predicted team performance even after con-
trolling for leader centrality (&! .23, p " .05). A Sobel (1982) test
found that the indirect effect of leader network centrality on
performance through leader charisma was significant, t(68) !
2.93, p " .05.
Received February 15, 2010
Revision received April 18, 2011
Accepted April 20, 2011 !