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... op unquestioning acceptance of and commitment to the leader. The followers trust fully in the correctness of the leaders beliefs and are willing to obey the leader. The next constituent involves specific leadership traits and behaviors that give rise to charismatic leadership. The traits that distinguish charismatic leaders from non-charismatic leaders are self-confidence, need to influence, dominance, and strong conviction in the moral night ness of their beliefs. When those traits are combined with behaviors that effectively articulate a vision, inspire followers, appeal to ideological goals of followers, create and maintain a positive image of the leader, and instill confidence in followers, the leader becomes imbued with charisma in the eyes of followers.
The last constituent is the degree to which followers attribute special and extraordinary gifts to the leader. Followers attribute a higher level of special gift to a charismatic leader if he or she can excite and transform previously dormant followers into active followers by heightening their motivation to pursue the goals set by the leader and instilling a sense of purpose in them. In Houses theory, vision is clearly subsumed within charisma as it assumes the ability to articulate a vision as a requisite for charismatic leadership. Conger and Kanu ngo (1987) argue that charismatic leadership is an attribution phenomenon, i. e. , whether a leader is considered charismatic or not is the result of attributions made by followers of the leaders behaviors. The authors believe that charismatic leadership, like any other form of leadership, should be considered as an observable behavioral process that can be modeled in theory.
Thus, the key issue is to identify behaviors that most likely lead to attributions of charisma to a leader. The extent to which a leader is seen as charismatic depends on the type and intensity of behavior demonstrated by him or her and also the relevance of the behavior to the situation. Conger (1989) further refined the behavioral theory of charismatic leadership to include these themes: (1) the sensing of an opportunity and formulation of a vision, (2) articulation of the vision, (3) building trust in the vision, and (4) achieving the vision. Vision is central to Conger and Kanu ngos charismatic leadership theory. The emphasis on vision as an essential ingredient of charisma is much stronger than in the previous two theories where the charismatic leader needs to have the ability to articulate a vision among many other qualities. Shamir et al. (1993) argued that charismatic leaders strongly engage followers self concepts in the interest of the mission that has been articulated by the leader.
A persons self-concept is composed of personal values and social identities. According to the authors, all the values and social identities are organized hierarchically, such that the more central a value is to a persons seW-concept, the more that value will influence the persons choice of behaviors in a particular situation. Similarly, the more important a social identity is, the more likely the person will seek out opportunities to perform his or her role according to the requirements of that identity (YukI, 1998). By effectively linking followers self-concepts to the mission, charismatic leaders are able to increase the intrinsic valence of followers efforts and goals. The authors proposed that the behaviors of charismatic leaders can be neatly clustered into three related, yet separate, categories: (1) emphasizing ideology behaviors that emphasize collective values and ideologies, and that link the mission, goals and expected behaviors to followers values and ideologies; (2) emphasizing collective identity behaviors that emphasize collective identity of the organization, or the movement and that link the mission and goals and expected behaviors to this identity; (3) displaying exemplary behaviors - leader displaying personal commitment to the values, identities and goals for which he or she stands for and promotes. Shamir et al. (1993) subsume vision within charisma when they propose that charismatic leaders typically demonstrate the ability to articulate an ideological vision that is linked to the followers self-concepts.
Meindl's (1990) charismatic leadership theory is largely a follower-centered process and is based on the social contagion phenomenon. The author argues that few followers actually come into direct contact with the charismatic leader. Even if there is any direct contact, for many followers, such contact is superficial and cursory. As such the way through which the charismatic movement spreads among followers are the interactions among followers. As the term contagion suggests, the attribution of the leaders charisma is spread from follower to follower. Thus, Meindl argues that traits and behaviors of leaders do not play that important a role in the emergence of charismatic leadership because of the small number of followers who actually come into direct contact with the leader.
Rather it is the perceptions of followers on the degree of heroic and larger-than-life images of charismatic leaders that give life to the charisma of leaders. According to Meindl, the inter-follower social contagion process is more relevant in explaining the emergence of charismatic leadership than what the leader actually does or says. Hence, the followers attributions of charisma are more strongly influenced by their interactions with their peers and other followers, than their individual experience with the leader. it is not clear whether Meindl subsumes vision within charisma, like the above theorists. The last of the six charismatic theories, Basis theory (1985) is based on Bush (1978) theory of transformational leadership. In his theory, Bass like Bums, distinguishes transformational leadership from transactional leadership but Bass views the two forms of leadership not as opposite ends of a continuum but as separate dimensions.
According to Bass, a leader can demonstrate both types of leadership at the same time because transactional leadership is assumed to be part and parcel of transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is seen as augmenting transactional leadership. Basis transformational leadership has four components: (1) idealized influence or charisma, (2) inspirational motivation, (3) individualized consideration, and (4) intellectual stimulation. These components are also conveniently known as the four Is of transformational leadership. The original transformational leadership theory had only three components and did not include inspiration.
This dimension was added when Bass and his colleagues re-formulated the theory (Bass & Avolio, 1994). Together, these four Is of transformational leadership interact to influence followers to change or cope with change by means of setting a vision, aligning followers to the vision through effective communication and lastly by motivating and inspiring followers to move toward the vision (Bass & Avolio, 1994). Bass sees charisma or idealized influence as central to the transformational leadership process and argues that a charismatic leader provides vision and sense of mission, instills pride, gains respect and trust of followers (Bass, 1990: 22). Bass defined inspirational motivation broadly as a leaders ability to motivate followers by appealing to their desires for vision and meaning (Carey, 1992). Vision, thus, seems to be central to both idealized influence and inspirational motivation dimensions of Basis transformational leadership. Visionary Theories In contrast to theories that emphasize charisma, there are also leadership theories that emphasize vision.
According to Sashkin (1988), visionary leaders need to satisfy three critical conditions: (1) personality prerequisites and cognitive skills, (2) understanding of key content dimensions of vision, and (3) ability to articulate the vision. According to the author, a visionary leader should first of all have certain personality qualities that would make him or her a leader, for instance, high need for power, high need for achievement and high self-confidence. He or she should also possess a certain level of intellect to be able to visualize the future and come up with visions for his or her organization. However, not any leader with ideals can be considered a visionary leader. The ability to craft a vision would distinguish a visionary leader from a daydreamer. The visionary leader should understand the properties of a vision that makes it stand out from a pool of ordinary ideas.
In addition, a visionary leader mus...
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