Charismatic Leadership Is Not One Size Fits All: The Moderation Effect of Intolerance to Uncertainty and Furlough Status During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study aims to examine the effect of charismatic leadership on followers’ attitudinal, emotional, and well-being outcomes in a crisis setting. Combining leadership literature with Conservation of Resources and leader-follower distance theories, we propose that the effect of charismatic leadership on follower outcomes depends on the interplay between the follower's furlough status during the lockdown period and their Intolerance to Uncertainty (IU) dispositional characteristic. A cross-sectional study was conducted at two points in time: during the first lockdown (March–April 2020) and four months after the lockdown (August 2020). The final sample included 336 employees with data for both points in time ( n = 199 continued to work during the lockdown, n = 137 were on furlough). The findings confirmed the study's hypotheses and revealed that charismatic leadership significantly contributed to employee outcomes only in the case of furloughed employees with low levels of IU and of continuously-employed employees with high levels of IU. It did not make a similar contribution in the edge cases—employees with low IU levels who continued to work during the lockdown or those with high levels of IU who were furloughed. This study provides novel insights into the relationship between charismatic leadership effectiveness and follower outcomes, and informs managers how to better adjust their leadership style to their followers in a crisis setting. The findings extend our knowledge about charismatic leadership by suggesting the mutual contribution of the distance dimension and employee dispositional characteristics as a boundary condition to charismatic leadership effectiveness.