The Determination of Positive and Negative Charismatic Leadership, Essay Example

Charismatic leadership involves directing a team on the basis of one’s personality. Charismatic leaders are natural leaders because people tend to follow those that have a personality they admire. Ultimately these individuals are skilled communicators who use their personal characteristics to draw their audiences in. Many great and terrible people have been considered to be charismatic leaders throughout history. For example, Adolf Hitler is an individual who utilized his success in charismatic leadership to achieve his political means as the leader of Germany. While his ideas were not moral, he was able to appeal to the wants and needs of his audience in a manner that supported his own personal goals. Because Germany liked him, they also liked his ideas. Another example of an individual who was successful in charismatic leadership was Martin Luther King Jr (Riggio, 2012). He used his appealing personality to drive vast crowds to support the civil rights movement, and he demonstrated his ability to communicate clearly in his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Impression management is the main tool that charismatic leaders use to convince their audiences to follow them. This process typically involves framing, scripting, staging, and performing, which results in a type of theatrical performance that occurs when charismatic leaders speak to large crowds. In order to achieve a high level of followers, charismatic leaders take advantage of their ability to speak with others and often deliver scripted performances to ensure that this practice is perfected. Ultimately, impression management can be associated with image building. Adolf Hitler and Martin Luther King Jr. addressed their audiences in a manner that would allow them to view their characters and goals in a certain light. As a consequence, Hitler became the image of the Nazi movement and King Jr. became the image of the civil rights movement. Essentially, charismatic leaders know how to brand themselves in a manner that supports their values. Because these individuals know how to gain a following of people, they are able to make themselves appear great and respectable, which enables greater amounts of people to follow them over time.

Charismatic leadership is considered to be a double-edged sword that required careful monitoring to avert abuse. Throughout history, it is observable that charismatic leaders have been able to gain a certain level of control over the individuals they lead (Musser, 1987). Ultimately, this power could be used to benefit society or to detract for it. Thus, it is likely that leaders that have immoral goals will be able to abuse this power as a consequence of the support that they have gained for their movement. When people started following Hitler’s Nazi movement, they were made to believe that these goals would help restore Germany to its former glory, prior to the negative effects that World War I had on the country. Because these goals seemed both achievable and ideal, the country was willing to overlook Hitler’s plan to murder mass numbers of people. Since Hitler was a good leader, he was able to convince the people that this was necessary to achieve the end goals of his plan. Ultimately, it is clear that Hitler took advantage of the German people who were so enthralled with his leadership that they chose to avoid making their own decisions with regards to the restoration of Germany. Other charismatic leaders of history and the modern era, such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Kim Jong-un have been able to incorporate this precedent of abuse as well.

References

Musser, S.J. (1987). The determination of positive and negative charismatic leadership, Grantham: PA: Messiah College.

Riggio RE. (2012). What Is Charisma and Charismatic Leadership? Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201210/what-is-charisma-and-charismatic-leadership