Leadership and Charisma: An Analysis of Effective Management

This essay delves into the significance of charisma in effective leadership, defining it within a professional context as an innate or acquired ability to inspire employees. It highlights the historical prevalence of charisma among great leaders and outlines key characteristics of charismatic leaders, such as emotional simplicity, self-confidence, creativity, and charm. The paper argues for the importance of charisma in today's competitive business environment for retaining talent and acquiring customers. It also explores the debate on whether charisma is an innate or learned trait, referencing research that suggests charisma can be developed. The essay further discusses specific attributes like concrete language, emotional expression, and attractiveness that contribute to charismatic leadership, emphasizing the need for leaders to be genuine and authentic. The essay concludes by underscoring the vital role of charisma in running a successful business.

The Importance of Charisma in effective leadership
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In this current paper, an argument-based discussion is represented on the topic namely, “The
importance of charisma in the effective leadership.” Charisma can be defined in both spiritual
and professional aspects. The current paper defines charisma in terms of professional aspect, and
in context to the same, we describe charisma as an innate or acquired ability conferred on a
person holding an unusual potential of a compelling charm or attractive approach inspiring
employees, in a positive way (LePine et al., 2016). History has witnessed that many great leaders
had one thing in common i.e. charisma.
Charisma is often seen as an essential component of a successful leader who is globally
respected in terms of their extraordinary ability such as charismatic leadership involving a sense
of style, flair, and confidence to attract people. Too many people hold the belief about leadership
is that it is merely attaining a higher office or position and instead of focusing on character, they
focus on rank. In order to be a successful or effective leader in an organization, following are the
characteristics of charismatic leaders, such as emotional simplicity, self-confident, creative, risk-
taking, and charm (Boehm et al., 2015). These charismatic leadership qualities are addressed as
the vital components towards running a successful business and entrepreneurship. The power of
charisma in effective leadership is felt in business especially when it becomes tougher to guide
the people who work in the company if the leadership does not perform to its benchmark level.
Also in today’s competitive business environment, retaining talented and highly skilled
employees and acquiring customers are getting tougher. In such case, the effective leadership
comes into a power play, where they get to interact with subordinates through a smoother flow of
communication. Apart from the soft skills, charismatic leadership bearing smart, suave and tech-
savvy qualities and keeping themselves abreast with all the latest news and current affairs are

other attributes which make them great orators and conversationalists too. Thus, it can be felt
that the importance of charisma in effective leadership is essential for running a business.
The current paper also argues that whether charisma is an attribute of the innate trait or can be
taught (Zhihong et al., 2013). The recent issue published in The Atlantic says that charisma isn’t
about magic, as they are influenced by any other factors, such as the height of a person, where
taller men are seen more as charismatic in comparison to other subordinates. Mental IQ or
personality, quick-witted response, sense of humor are other attributes as well which define the
charisma effect (Nahavandi, 2016).
Science has proven strategies to prove that charisma can be improved rather than referring it to
an inbuilt quality. Dean Keith Simonton, a famous professor of psychology, quoted in his book
named “Why Presidents succeed” that the most influential and effective communicators use
concrete language rather than an abstract. The author argues that most charismatic presidents
while making their call to citizens of the country, reached out to make an emotional connection
with people talking not to their brains but to their gut (Potosky, 2014). A psychologist named
Ronald E. Riggio said that charismatic individuals are found to express their feelings both
spontaneously and genuinely, and this allows to effect the moods and emotions of others in a
positive way. A true leader has the ability to touch millions of hearts by talking about their
potential rather than indulging themselves in making an impressive statement about their
achievements because such sort of activity reflects on what is already known to be true rather
than being virtual. Psychologist says that attractiveness and smiling are other two attributes that
strengthens the relationship between charismatic leaders and their followers. (Belak and
Filipovic, 2016). Above all, the characteristics of a leader need to be genuine and authentic.

References
LePine, M.A., Zhang, Y., Crawford, E.R. and Rich, B.L., 2016. Turning their pain to gain:
Charismatic leader influence on follower stress appraisal and job performance. Academy of
Management Journal, 59(3), pp.1036-1059.
Boehm, S.A., Dwertmann, D.J., Bruch, H. and Shamir, B., 2015. The missing link? Investigating
organizational identity strength and transformational leadership climate as mechanisms that
connect CEO charisma with firm performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), pp.156-171.
Zhihong, Z.E.N.G., Wei, C.H.E.N. and Xiaoying, Z.E.N.G., 2013. Leadership in public sector: A
discussion from theoretical and practical aspects. Canadian Social Science, 9(4), p.73.
Nahavandi, A., 2016. The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson.
Potosky, D., 2014. Developing Charisma: An Experiential Exercise In Leadership.
Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 27.
Belak, V. and Filipovic, D., 2016, April. Characteristics of Charismatic Leaders and
Development Opportunities. In International OFEL Conference on Governance, Management
and Entrepreneurship (p. 607). Centar za istrazivanje i razvoj upravljanja doo.