Originally published in RSA Journal under the title “Charm offensive: What is the allure of the charismatic leader?” August 2019
‘Charisma’ has alluring intimations, but a vague and continuously drifting significance. In its etymology, the word comes from the ancient Greek noun charis (χάρις), meaning grace or beauty. The earliest modern usage of the term is associated with Christian theology, in which charism was thought of as a special spiritual gift or power that was divinely conferred from God on a select few individuals. In Middle English, a person with karisme was someone gifted with special talents such as healing, prophecy or tongues.
The term entered the lexicon of applied politics only in the early 20th century, in the work of German sociologist Max Weber. He used it to distinguish between ‘charismatic’ and the other two types of legitimate power: ‘traditional’, where people obey because of seniority, long-established law, or custom; and ‘rational-legal’ or ‘bureaucratic’ authority (best typified by the impersonal modern state administration).
But what do we mean by charismatic leadership today? If you take any of the lexical definitions, or even try to produce a definition of your own, you soon realise that what lies at the core of all efforts to clarify the term is an element of extraordinariness.
Above all else, then, charismatic leadership signifies a type of extraordinary leadership. But in thinking about what exactly is extraordinary about charisma-led power relationships, we should first consider what we mean by ordinary leadership.
To borrow a metaphor used by the English philosopher and political theorist Michael Oakeshott, an ordinary democratic leader is like a trimmer in the nautical sense: he or she constantly trims the sails of the vessel of state against changes in the wind and weather, and “disposes his weight so as to keep the ship upon an even keel” in choppy seas.
Ordinary leadership entails the impersonality of rule, along with an emphasis on operational rationality, procedural moderation and continuity. It typically involves a hierarchical organisation of interdependent offices regulated by common rules, norms and procedures in a spirit of formalistic institutionalism; continuity is one of its most important characteristics.
The impersonal nature of the relationship between leader and followers, and the emphasis on continuity through moderate, rather than radical, political change, are both prerequisites of ordinary leadership.
Extraordinary leaders, in contrast, do not simply trim the sails but turn the rudder hard, setting the path.
I suggest two core characteristics of political charisma: the personal character of leadership and the radical nature of its outcomes.
As with chemical syntheses, the fusion of these two elements produces ‘charismatic leadership’; a distinct type of legitimate leadership that is personal and aims at the radical transformation of an established institutional order. From this definition, and drawing on studies of empirical cases that I have undertaken, it is possible to draw straightforward propositions about the nature, workings and outcomes of charismatic leadership that are pertinent to modern democratic politics.
Ten aspects of charismatic leadership
Charismatic leadership is highly personal. It always refers to a single individual leader, never to a collective body of leaders. Charisma cannot be shared, transferred, delegated or inherited. It is based on the unmediated, and often intimate, bond forged between leaders and their followers. These followers are animated by complete devotion to the person of the leader and the expectation that this individual will perform exceptional, even heroic, acts.
Charismatic authority is achieved. It needs to be attained and cannot be conferred or won. And once attained, it must be demonstrated and successfully performed until it is recognised as charismatic leadership. Even then, it needs to be continuously proven by the leader. If the individual fails their followers and they cease to believe in the worth of their leader, charisma disappears.
Political charisma is radical and goes against traditions or customs and seeks to introduce a wholly new political order. Charismatic leaders are true radical forces seeking to destroy traditional patterns and disturb legal-rational and procedural ones. But charismatic leadership does not have only a destructive bent; it also has a second intent, the re-institution of authority, which involves nothing less than the creation of new legitimacy in order to constitute afresh the political system.
Owing to the combination of its personal and radical nature, charismatic leadership has a pronounced plebiscitary quality. It not only requires perpetual reaffirmation by the community of followers, but also the implicit acknowledgement that the leader is above institutions and that these can be changed as he or she thinks fit. This is why charismatic leadership also displays a streak of authoritarianism; when not promptly institutionalised, this can and has given rise to despotic, and even tyrannical, political regimes.
It is also largely irrational because the charismatic relationship is built upon strong emotions that encourage risk-taking rather than more sensible, risk-averse logic. Charismatic leaders typically promise brave new worlds, but rarely say how such an objective may be achieved. On the other hand, the followers of the charismatic leader display emotions that have a distinctly ethical character. Populaces or sections of society with any kind of grievance or accumulated resentment may thus turn their backs on long-established institutional authorities, and even on technical experts, and instead decide to follow the unjustifiable promise of ‘salvation’ offered by a charismatic leader.
Modern charismatic leaders, like ancient mystics and prophets, assume a distinctly missionary stance towards society and politics in general (as opposed to ordinary leaders, who have a normatively more neutral stance and a more procedural leadership style). They seek to build moral communities of followers who are intent on achieving collective political victories against enemies whom they view as unprincipled or immoral, so redeeming the community from impending catastrophe.
As a consequence of being inimical to tradition and risk-seeking, charisma is a socially divisive force. It is typically opposed by established power groups, vested interests and time-honoured allegiances, which are set (whether through deliberate action of their own, or forced into this position by default) against the community of the charismatic leader’s followers who are calling for radical social and political change, as well as the reorganisation of economic interests. Moreover, the existence of charismatic leadership in a political system may encourage and eventually lead to — through charismatic rivalry — major political system crisis.
Charismatic leadership may be both an effect of large-scale crises and a powerful crisis generatorin itself. Weber wrote that charisma results from collective “anxiety and enthusiasm” in times of “unusual, especially political or economic, situations”. However, history shows that leaders with extraordinary charismatic qualities may emerge and thereafter trigger crisis cycles that undermine traditional institutional structures. Donald Trump serves as the perfect example of this.
Charismatic leadership, although it may endure through time in different guises, is non-permanent. Given that charisma must be achieved and demonstrated, it also may diminish, fizzle out or entirely disappear. In some cases, charismatic authority comes to an end when impersonal institutions are built to provide authority. In other cases, the leader is simply unable to prove their charisma any longer and is abandoned by their followers. In still other cases, they attempt to bequeath their charisma to a designated heir, which, unless it happens in despotic and monarchical states, has little chance of success.
And finally, charismatic leadership is rare. This is because the combination of sustained personal authority and a credible radical programme is far from easy to achieve. This is even more difficult in the context of modern liberal democracy, which is designed to work on the basis of stable impersonal institutions in a procedural way aimed at producing consensus. In modern democracy, leadership is dependent on the technical expertise of collective bodies for decision-making, rather than on impetuous individual predilection.
Legitimately charismatic
From this last characteristic, three more points emerge that are important if we are to make a conscious effort to use ‘charismatic leadership’ to help us to understand contemporary democratic politics.
The first point is that, since charisma is a legitimate form of authority, it should not be confused with the power exercised by non-democratic rulers.
The personal authority of Hitler (post-1933), Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the like was imposed by violence and open coercion rather than persuasion. Nor does the ‘charismatic’ authority of autocrats have a temporary character; instead, it is permanent for at least as long as they remain alive, so long as their rule is unchallenged. At the end, the most extraordinary things about such leaders are the hecatombs of their victims and the lasting horror of their political acts.
The second point that we should keep in mind is that, even within the context of modern liberal democracy, not just any form of political charisma is desirable. Although occasionally charismatic leaders may emerge to tackle great crises (think of Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill during the Great Depression and the Second World War respectively) or lead their countries in radically new positive directions, many other elected charismatics have led their countries in negative directions, and even created crises of their own.
Perhaps the most prominent such examples are the various populist leaders who in recent decades have proliferated in several parts of the democratic world (think of Viktor Orbán in Hungary or Hugo Chávez in Venezuela), promising to solve the problems faced by their countries, invariably through illiberal means.
The third point, closely related to the rarity of charisma in contemporary democratic politics, is that we should be able to distinguish real charismatic leaders from pseudo-charismatic ones. Unlike the former, who attain personal authority over mass parties by promising to carry out radical political change, the latter do not enjoy full control over a party of loyal followers and/or are unable to project a moral, inspirational or salvational radical political programme. In most cases, they are simply colourful demagogues capable of rhetorically exploiting historical prejudices and common misperceptions, and promising impulsive thrills, for personal short-term political gain.
To appreciate the difference, just think of politics in Britain today. As the Brexit saga drags on, national politics has become infested with rabble-rousing narcissists who have absolutely no charisma. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is not a real party, and Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has only a slim working majority in Parliament but plenty of potential rebels inside it. Neither of these leaders is offering guiding radical ideas, just the promise of Brexit. What they, and also Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party, offer British society is reckless gambits, totally devoid of an authentically radical positive plan for the future.
The genuine charismatic leader is an alluring figure, seemingly possessing gifts above the abilities of ordinary leaders. But in contemporary liberal democracies, the charismatic individual is more generally an unattractive option. This is probably the reason why Bertolt Brecht put in the mouth of his fictional Galileo the assertion: “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”
