Who Are the Spellbinders? Identifying Personal Attributes of Charismatic Leaders

Abstract

While much is known about what charismatic leaders do, where they emerge, and what their followers' reactions are, relatively little systematic empirical research has been conducted to assess who charismatic leaders are, and how we differentiate charismatic from noncharismatic leaders. To address this gap in the literature, multi-source field data were collected in five technology-driven organizations to examine the relationship between five personal attributes of leaders (i.e., self-monitoring, self actualization, motive to attain social power, self-enhancement, and openness to change), ratings of charismatic leadership, and follower (i.e., extra effort, self-actualization, collectivistic work motivation, organizational citizenship behavior) and managerial performance outcomes. Two hundred and eighteen managers provided self-reports of their personal attributes and 945 subordinates provided ratings of follower outcomes and their manager's charismatic leadership. Superiors of the managers provided ratings of the manager's charismatic leadership and managerial performance two months after collecting the managers' and subordinates' ratings. Results indicated that managers rated by subordinates as high on charismatic leadership reported higher levels of self-monitoring, self-actualization, motive to attain social power and self-enhancement values than managers rated low on charismatic leadership. Managers rated by superiors as high on charismatic leadership were associated with followers who reported higher levels of extra effort and OCB than managers rated low on charismatic leadership.