Sensing opportunity and formulating a vision: Leaders seem to sense their constituent needs as well as see the deficiencies of existing situations and untapped opportunities. This helps form an idealized vision of the future. These visions help create innovative products and services, large contributions to society, they help transform organizations and contribute to a workforce.
Articulating the Vision: These leaders have are visionaries and have the ability to convey their visions to a broad group of people.
Building Trust in the Vision: Subordinates desire and support the goals of the leader and this is likely to be accomplished by more than coercion; rather the leader builds trust in the leader and the viability of the goals; this is likely to be done through personal risk taking, unconventional expertise, and self-sacrifice.
Achieving the Vision: These leaders use their life experiences to help their employees. Their reliance on unconventional tactics and their use of empowerment practices demonstrate how the vision can be achieved and how motivation can be sustained
Herb Kelleher A Charismatic Leader
In order to further understand this concept we can draw from practical examples looking at leaders that have used charisma to attain their goals and hence see the practical implications of this sort of leadership.
There is a book entitled "Lessons from the Top: The 50 Most Successful
Business Leaders in America--and What You Can Learn From Them" by
Thomas J. Neff and James M.Citrin.
In it, the authors describe effective leadership styles and then discuss 50 different leaders and what in particular has made them good business leaders. One of the leaders spoken of in the book is one of the founders of Southwest Airlines, and former CEO, Herb Kelleher.
HAS THIS LEADER HAD AN IMPACT ON THE ORGANIZATION HE LEADS?
Herb Kelleher, along with Texas businessman Rollin King, is one of the original founders of the highly successful, "no frills" Southwest Airlines. Currently Southwest Airlines is one of the major players in the airlines industry setting the benchmark for customer satisfaction.
Kelleher, known for his charismatic, personable, non-traditional, and successful leadership style wrote an article entitled “A Culture of Commitment” outlining his successful leadership style. This article so perfectly describes his leadership philosophies and style that an important list of highlights, along with appropriate quotations may be helpful in explaining the theories talked about in this essay.
“A financial analyst once asked me if I was afraid of losing control of our organization. I told him I've never had control and I never wanted it. If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don't need control. They know what needs to be done, and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchs and control mechanisms you need.
The best leaders serve their employees.
Define who you are and what you want rather than predict what you will do
Change your practices, not your principles.
Share the company’s business with the company.
Don’t let people get preoccupied with titles and offices.
Go to meetings to learn and see if you can help, not to issue orders.
Systems are in place to help you carry out your mission; they are
Not the masters.
Nothing comes ahead of your people.
If you take an ongoing, genuine interest in the well-being of your people, outside as well as inside the workplace, you eventually create trust.
Help your employees see the big picture.
The important thing is to take the bricklayer and make him understand that he's building a home, not just laying bricks. So we take the building a home approach: This is what you're doing not only for yourself but for society: We constantly hold up examples of customer experiences and of employee efforts to make a difference.
“Build bridges between people, especially in times of crisis.”
Herb Kelleher
HAS THIS LEADER CHANGED THE ORGANIZATION FROM A FAILURE TO A SUCCESS?
Herb Kelleher transformed a small, regional Texas airline into a hugely successful, leading, national airline.
"In a rollicking session, Kelleher displayed the passion, irreverence, and can-do attitude that have characterized the rise of Southwest from long shot to long-term success in a business that's notorious for its financial turmoil. The airline has grown from serving three cities and with three Boeing 737s in 1971 to 35,000 employees and 375 Boeing 737s that cater to 63 million customers at 59 airports in 30 states as of the end of 2002."
"The Southwest story is now a business legend: how the airline began in 1966 with 195 employees and three planes that flew from Dallas's Love Field to Houston and San Antonio; how Kelleher and cofounder Rollin King drew up the business plan on a cocktail napkin; how its profit-sharing plan has made many longtime employees millionaires; how the company has grown to 29,000 employees with a fleet of 332 Boeing 737 planes (290 more are on order) and become a national carrier competing with United, American, and Delta."
HAVE THEY WISELY AND ETHICALLY USED CHARISMA THAT CAN ACTUALLY LIFT AN ENTIRE ORGANIZATION'S PERFORMANCE?
This next quote comes from the Executive Summary of an article from the Journal of Leadership Studies ("Flying High with Herb Kelleher: A Profile in Charismatic Leadership." Journal article by Charles W. Blackwell, Jane Whitney Gibson; Journal of Leadership Studies, 1999). It includes information about how the entire organization has internalized the charismatic qualities of its leader in order to become one of the most successful airlines in the U.S.
"Herb Kelleher, co-founder, CEO, President and Chairman of Southwest Airlines is cited in this article as an ideal example of charismatic leadership at its best. A discussion of charismatic leadership focuses on traits and behaviors of charismatic leaders. This model is then used to examine Kelleher's traits and behaviors at Southwest Airlines, named in 1998 as the best place to work in America by Fortune Magazine. Kelleher's vision and style are seen as the driving forces of this maverick airline which has consistently posted a profit for 26 consecutive years and does things differently than any other company in the industry. The key to Southwest's success is largely thought to be the warmth and determination of its employees who mirror those same qualities in their leader. Kelleher's thoughts on leadership and concludes that there is reason to question whether the strong, personality-driven Southwest culture can survive after Kelleher retires from the helm."
This excerpt from a 2001 Forbes article illustrates how Kelleher's charismatic attitude has helped to elevate the performance of the entire company.
"Southwest would be nothing without Herb Kelleher. Energetic and plain-talking, he has made this no-frills airline the most profitable in the skies. And it's thanks to his commitment to customer service and efficiency that Southwest has been able to sustain annual earnings growth of nearly 30% for the last five years. What's more, Southwest's share price has doubled in the past year (that of Continental, the runner-up on the A-List, grew 9% over the same period).
'I tell my employees that we're in the service business, and it's incidental that we fly airplanes,' says Kelleher. 'We treat our passengers well.' Sounds obvious, but in this era of widespread passenger discontent and chronic delays, it appears that Kelleher has hit on something.
"Herb believes that just as the attitude of the entrepreneur effects the early success of the venture, the same attitude needs to be present in the firms' employees to continue the entrepreneurial energy that creates competitive advantage in the operation of the business even after it has become a large successful company. In doing this the Southwest Air has shown itself to be one of the rare companies that succeeded on translating the entrepreneurial spirit of its initial small company success into an effective form of on-going corporate entrepreneurship that still invigorates it today. Southwest Air has consequently applied this emphasis in hiring people with the right entrepreneurial attitude. Herb sums up his view on this subject with the simple maxim: 'You hire attitude, everything else can be trained.'"
IS THERE A DOWNSIDE TO CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP?
As referenced several times earlier, there certainly can be a downside to charismatic leadership when it is used unethically. Some of the world’s most charismatic leaders have proven to also be some of the most disastrous and dangerous people to have walked the earth. People attracted to the leader and charismatic vision may be acting on the basis of strong personal needs that blind them to the possible downsides of the vision. Followers thus become vulnerable to manipulation and coercion by the leader
Under charismatic leadership, group members may view success in relation to their leaders. A major problem with charismatic leadership is that group success tends to hinge on the leader. The charismatic leader is the glue that holds a group together. So what happens if the leader should have to step down or transfer? Normally, the group dynamic will fizzle and individual members will lose enthusiasm.
Overall, charismatic leadership is definitely a fine quality for anyone to posses however it like any other form of leadership too has numerous discontents. Charismatic individuals despite having all their good traits might not always be as qualified as less charismatic people and hence might not be able to do as good a job; despite this they often tend to get preference. Charisma leads to the feeling of superiority either deserved or undeserved which could cause conflicts between co-workers all working in the same position. This combined with the ethical issues that might arise through this form of leadership could cause numerous discontents within an organization which could be disastrous.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Weber, Maximillan. Theory of Social and Economic Organization.
Chapter: "The Nature of Charismatic Authority and its Routinization"
translated by A. R. Anderson and Talcot Parsons, 1947. Originally
published in 1922 in German under the title Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft chapter III, 10
Hengel, Martin & Riche, John, The Charismatic Leader and His
Followers, (1996), T&T Clark Publishers, ISBN 0-567-29165-0
Musser, S.J. (1987). The determination of positive and negative
charismatic leadership, Grantham: PA: Messiah College
Conger, J. A., and R. N. Kanungo (Eds), Charismatic Leadership in
Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998
The ethics of charismatic leadership by Jane M. Howell and Bruce J.
Avolio, Academy of Management Executives, 1992, Vol. 6 No.2
Neff, Thomas J. and Citrin, James M. Lessons from the Top: The 50
Most Successful Business Leaders in America--and What You Can Learn
From Them?, New York, NY: Doubleday, 1999
Cohan, Peter S. Value Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 2003.
(This books mentions Southwest Airlines as an example of ethical
hiring and the impact such value-based employment has on the
corporation in general.)
Gittell, Jody. The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of
Relationships to Achieve High Performance. McGraw-Hill Trade. December
19, 2002. (Southwest Airlines' success is said to be rooted in
relationships based upon shared knowledge, goals, and respect among
all employees.)
Harris Ph.D., Jim. Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your
Company. New York: AMACON, 1996. (Herb Kelleher is mentioned as an
example of a charismatic leader that promotes employee loyalty and
company success.)
Brooker, Katrina. "Can Anyone Replace Herb?" FORTUNE. April 17, 2000.
(Available at )
Kelleher, Herb. "A Culture of Commitment." Leader to Leader. No.4,
Spring 1997. (Available at
)
There are many more books and newspaper and magazine articles listed
on the Southwest Airlines website: