Leadership management

Nguyen Nhut Ho
MBAIU20005
Chapter 12 Charismatic and Transformational Leadership

Chapter 12 Charismatic and Transformational Leadership

Researchers defined meaning of “Charisma” in Greek word is “divinely inspired gift”,

it is about the ability to perform miracles or predict future events. The relationship
between leaders and followers helps us to understand how leaders influence followers to
make self-sacrifices and put the needs of the mission or organization goals. There are
several theorists studied about charismatic leadership, Conger & Kanungo in 1987 and
1998, House in 1977, Shamir, House & Arthur in 1993.
Conger and Kanungo in 1987 gave theory of charismatic leadership based on the
assumption that charisma is an attributional phenomenon. There are 5 types of behaviors
of leaders, novel and appealing vision, emotional appeals to values, unconventional
behavior, self-sacrifies and confidence and optimism.
o Novel and appealing vision: leaders would advocate a vision that is highly
discrepant from the status quo, but not so radical that followers will view the
leader as incometent.
o Emotional appeals to values: The leaders will inspire followers with emotional
appeals to their values and ideals.
o Unconventional behavior: leaders act in unconventional ways to achieve the
vision.
o Self-sacrifies: leaders make self-sacrifies for the benefits of followers and they
take personal risks or incur high costs to achieve the vision the espouse.
o Confidence and optimism: leaders appear confident about their proposals are
more likely to be viewed as charismatic than leaders who appear doubtful and
confused.
There are two type of influence processes, primary process is personal identification that
has follower’s desire to please and imitate the leader. Secone type is internalization in
term of new values and beliefs by followers.
In 1977, House proposed a theory called Self-Concept to explain C.L in term of a set of
testable propositions involving observable processes rather folk and mystique. Behaviors
of leaders are separated into 9 traits and behaviors: articulating an appealing vision, using
strong, expressive form of communication when articulating the vision, taking personal
risks and making self-sacrifies to attain the vision, communicating high expectations,
expressing optimism and confidence in followers, modeling behaviors consistent with the
vision, managing follower impressions of the leader, building identification with the
group or organization and empowering followers.
There are a lot of types of influence processes that relate to Self-concept, personal
identification, social identification, internalization, self and collective efficacy, last one is
emotional contagion.
In 1988, Kets de Vries proposed several theories in term of psychodynamic processes to
explain the unusual and seemingly irrational influence of some charismatic leaders who
are idolized as a superhuman hero. In addition, personal identification is an influence
process, it also has 3 specific types are regression, transference and projection.
In 1995, Shamir develop theories that relate to charisma theory, theories depend on
amount of direct interaction between leader and followers that affect attribution of
charisma. The finding are attributions of greatness for distant leaders are affected more by
performance cues and shared stereotypes; attributions of greatness for close leaders are
affected more by leader, behavioral and interpersonal skills.
There are some positive and negative charismatics that mentioned in the textbook:
o Positive charismatics: Socialized power, orientation, Emphasize
Internalization, Instill devotion to ideology, Leads by example Self-sacrifice,
Rewards used to reinforce “good” behaviors
o Negative charismatics: Personalized power orientation, Emphasize Personal
Identification, Intentionally seeks devotion to self rather ideals, Dominate &
subjugate followers, Manipulates followers using rewards/punishments
In 1978, Burns contrasted transforming leadership with transactional leadership and
havea result is: transforming leadership appeals to the moral values of followers in an
attempt to raise their consciousness about ethical issues and to mobilize their energy and
resources to reform institutions while transactional leadership encouraged followers by
appealing to their self‐interest and exchanging benefits for them.
Behaviors of transformational leaders are idealized influence, Individualized
consideration, Inspirational motivation, Intellectual stimulation
Behaviors of transactional leaders are, Contingent reward, Active management by
exception, Passive management by exception
Influence process of transactional leadership is instrumental compliance and for
transformational leadership is internalization personal identification
There are several research methods to assess the theories, they are Survey research,
laboratory & field experiments, descriptive & comparative studies and intensive case
studies.
To compare charismatic and transformational leadership, charismatic gravitates
around the leader and the person while transformational leadership center around a
common vision and focus on improving and evolving all team members to reach another
level. Charismatic is built on listening to what the charismatic leader tells to followers,
but transformational leadership is built on transparency and empowerment.
There are some guidelines for inspirational leadership, articulate a clear and appealing
vision, explain how the vision can be attained, act confident and optimistic, express
confidence in followers, use dramatic & symbolic actions to emphasize key values and
lead by example to followers.