The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader

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DOI: 10.1177/1742715006062933 2006; 2; 165 Leadership

Donna Ladkin Aesthetic Encounter

The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader: Charisma Reconsidered as

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Leadership

Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)Vol 2(2): 165–179 DOI: 10.1177/1742715006062933 www.sagepublications.com

The Enchantment of the CharismaticLeader: Charisma Reconsidered as AestheticEncounterDonna Ladkin, University of Exeter, UK

Abstract This article takes a novel approach to understanding the phenomenon ofcharisma by viewing it through the frame of the aesthetic category of the sublime. Itdraws similarities between the account of the sublime as theorized by the Enlighten-ment philosopher Immanuel Kant, and the theory of charismatic authority asrendered by Max Weber. The resulting analysis contributes insight into the phenom-enon in three ways: it serves to locate the experience of charisma as a relationalencounter rather than one situated solely within the leader him or herself, it high-lights contextual factors which contribute to the experience of charismatic leader-ship, and it suggests a new way of distinguishing between generative anddegenerative forms of charisma based in its relational quality rather than inoutcomes associated it. The article concludes that, interpreted as an expression ofthe sublime, charismatic leadership functions as a means by which followers areempowered to wake up to their own sense of agency to respond in radical ways duringtimes of crisis.

Keywords aesthetics; charisma; charismatic leadership; Kant; the sublime; Weber

IntroductionThroughout the last century ‘charisma’ has been a perennial refrain within leader-ship literature. Theorists such as Bass (1985), Bryman (1992), Burns (1978), Carlyle(1847/1907), Conger and Kanungo (1998), Drath (2001), House (1977), Peters andWaterman (1982), Quinn (2000) and Stogdill (1948) have each contributed theirparticular variation on the theme laid down in the western canon as early as the worksof Plato (Takala, 1998). Although much has been written about it, there is no unifiedview as to how charisma arises or how it should be defined. Furthermore, an implicitunease seems to imbue both the experience of charisma and its theorization. For everyinstance of charismatic leadership which fosters generative ends, a correspondingillustration can be cited of how it has been implicated in malevolent outcomes.

To date, much written about charisma analyses it from either a psychological ora sociological perspective. This article contributes a new variation on the charisma

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theme by considering it as an experience of the ‘aesthetic’, particularly as an expe-rience of the aesthetic category of the ‘sublime’. The resulting analysis contributesinsight into the phenomenon in three ways: it locates the experience of charisma asa relational encounter rather than one situated solely within the leader him or herself;it highlights the contextual factors key to its experience; and it suggests a new wayof understanding generative and degenerative forms of charisma based in the qualityof relationship between follower and leader, rather than in outcomes associated withit.

The argument is formed through comparing and aligning two theoretical ideas:that of the sublime as articulated by the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kantand that of charisma as offered by the sociologist Max Weber. By noticing key simi-larities between the two theories, I hope to offer a new way of conceptualizingcharisma which neither eulogizes nor demonizes it but places it within a vital sphereof human sensibility, that of aesthetic appreciation.

The article begins with a brief overview of contemporary thinking about charisma.An examination of the aesthetic category of the sublime follows, focusing on Kant’stheory as presented in his Critique of Judgement. Parallels between Kant’s theory andcharisma as theorized by Max Weber are then identified and illustrated. Charisma isreconsidered in terms of its expression of a particular quality of aesthetic, one partic-ularly capable of bringing us to new thresholds of perception and experience. Finally,the means by which charismatic leaders can encourage followers’ beliefs in their owncapacities are discussed as a key contribution resulting from interpreting charisma asan aesthetic encounter.

Charisma in contemporary literatureThis brief account focuses on two themes which emerge from contemporary writingsabout charismatic leadership: controversy over its definition and genesis, and ageneral ambivalence about its role and value. Turning to the first, a recent debatewithin Leadership Quarterly (Bass, 1999; Beyer, 1999; House, 1999; Shamir, 1999)illustrates well the range of views held about how charisma should be defined andfrom where it originates. Beyer (1999) argues that Weber’s (1924/1947) seminalaccount of charisma has been ‘watered down’ to cohere with contemporary render-ings. Rather than seeing charisma as the truly extraordinary and rare occurrencebestowed as a ‘gift from Divinity’, Beyer argues that modern accounts definecharisma in a way which makes it available to anyone. Such redefinition, sheproposes, supports the largely western preoccupation with the romance of the indi-vidual, heroic leader. Beyer also suggests that the emphasis on a psychologicalparadigm for researching charisma (as opposed to a sociological one) has resulted inan overemphasis on individual traits of ‘the leader’ without sufficiently accountingfor the impact of context on this phenomenon.

Indeed, representation of charisma as a much prized, individually based attributeto which leaders should aspire is a recurring refrain in the literature. For instance,Kets de Vries (2004) gives the charismatic role (as distinct from the instrumental role)a key place in effective leadership, suggesting that it encompasses ‘how leadersenvision, empower and energize’ their followers. The leadership theory recently invogue which perhaps most relies on the notion of charisma is ‘transformational

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leadership’, which suggests that effective leadership relies on personal charisma,comprised of particular skills or traits in the leader including moral vision, coupledwith sensitivity to the demands of the context (Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1994; Bass& Steidlmeier 1999).

Others, such as Drath (2001) allude to a more relational dynamic operating withinthe experience of charisma. He writes that ‘dominance and charisma come from thisperfect attunement between leader and follower in the shared creation of a kind ofleader who is irreplaceable’ (pp. 65–6). In fact, Weber himself (1924/1947) recog-nized that not only did the charismatic leader have to be the recipient of extraordinarygifts, but followers also had to recognize those gifts in order for the leader to beperceived as charismatic. Weber’s view about this will be explored in greater depthlater in the article.

Although charisma is largely seen as a desirable and sought-after phenomenon,the disquiet it generates is evidenced by an alternative strand of writing. Just as helegitimizes charisma in the work cited previously, Kets de Vries elaborates on hisdisquiet about how it arises in other writings. Together with Miller (1986) he explorestransference and the pathological aspects of leadership, assigning charisma a key rolein the process of regressive projection. In his latest book he links charisma with thephenomenon of ‘leadership by terror’ as enacted by despots ranging from Shaka Zuluto Hitler (Kets de Vries, 2004). Explanations of such aberrant forms of charismaticleadership focus on the psychological tendencies for followers to regress into power-less identification with charismatic leaders, thus diminishing their own agency in theface of charismatic authority.

From a sociological perspective, writers such as Gemmil and Oakley (1997) repre-sent charismatic leadership as an ‘illusory social phenomenon’, asserting that‘[charisma represents] a black hole in social space that serves as a container for thealienating consequences of the social myth resulting from intellectual and emotionaldeskilling by organisational members’ (p. 278).

Perhaps another aspect of the ambivalence charisma generates is suggested by theterm ‘enchantment’ used in this article’s title. Charismatic leaders ‘enchant’ theirfollowers. How else could the response of a housewife visiting the UK from DesMoines, Iowa, to attend Bill Clinton’s recent book-signing event in London beexplained? ‘“I can’t stop looking at him. I’ve been looking at him for ten years onmy refrigerator”, said Marilyn Rothstone, a diehard fan from Des Moines. She hadwoken at 3.30 am to get in for his lunchtime show’ (The Guardian, 26 October 2004).

The word ‘enchantment’ itself has an interesting connection to the notion ofrefrain. Both have roots in musical worlds, enchantment deriving from the Latin incantare, to sing. In common parlance, ‘to chant’, like a refrain, is to repeat.Gregorian Chant epitomizes this phenomenon in musical form, and anyone who haslistened to more than ten minutes of Hildegard of Bingen can vouch for its mesmeris-ing tendencies. The word ‘enchant’ however, can also mean ‘to put someone undera spell’ or ‘to delude’ (New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998) – to dupe, in otherwords. And perhaps this definition speaks to our ambivalent response to charismaticleadership: as we are enchanted by it, we are also aware at the back of our minds thatwe could be on the verge of being duped.

Interpreting charisma from the aesthetic perspective of the sublime, however,provides an alternative choice to the follower drawn to the charismatic leader. Before

Leadership The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader Ladkin



exploring how that might be possible, the article considers the aesthetic category ofthe sublime.

Aesthetics and the sublime‘Aesthetic’, like ‘charisma’ is a widely contested term. Csikszentmihalyi andRobinson (1990) suggest that aesthetic experience includes four aspects of ‘feltmeaning’: perceptual, emotional, intellectual and communicative. The aestheticsphere of experience speaks to the qualities we perceive in another along with theemotional and sensual response to those qualities. Strati (2000: 16) points out thatthe root of ‘aesthetic’, ‘aisth’, from the ancient Greek, means ‘feeling throughphysical perceptions’. In contemporary discourse, we are more familiar perhaps withits opposite – anaesthetic – something that ‘puts us to sleep’. At its most fundamen-tal, the aesthetic ‘wakes us up’ to the pleasure of sensory response.

In this article the aesthetic is defined as the dimension of experience which servesan integrating function between our senses, emotions and intellect. Our aestheticsensibility alerts us to the qualities of those people, things, and environments weencounter. Both the perceiver and the object of perception have roles to play in thatencounter. Those objects, people, or even ideas which pique our aesthetic senseexhibit certain qualities, but perhaps just as importantly, the perceiver must be openand attentive to appreciating those qualities. In this way the experience of theaesthetic could be said to be ‘co-created’ in that it arises between the perceiver andthe object of perception.

‘Beauty’ is perhaps the most commonly known aesthetic category. In fact, the twowords are often used interchangeably – we say something appeals to our aestheticsense, meaning that we judge it to be beautiful. But other aesthetic categories, suchas the grotesque, the comic, and even the ugly (Strati, 2000) exist and exert distinc-tive qualities of their own. This article focuses on the aesthetic category of thesublime because of parallels in the way charisma and the sublime have beentheorized, and now turns to a fuller rendering of that theory.

The sublime

The notion of the sublime within the field of aesthetics dates back most notably toLoginus (1965) who wrote On Sublimity in the first century AD. He suggests:

the sublime denotes the moment when the individual’s affective and cognitivedispositions towards the world are subjected to a sense of displacement . . .amazement and wonder exact invincible power and force and get the better ofthe hearer . . . Sublimity . . . produced at the right moment, tears everything uplike a whirlwind. (p. 2)

Loginus thus portrays the sublime as a quality of powerful and ‘out of the ordinary’proportions. The quote highlights the sublime’s ability to disrupt both affective andcognitive capacities. It has the capacity to ‘up-end’ and disorient the perceiver, to ‘getthe better’ of him or her.

Having been lost, Loginus’s work was rediscovered by Immanuel Kant inGermany and Edmund Burke in England during the 18th century. Burke’s work




predates that of Kant by about 50 years, but Kant provides a fuller treatment of thenotion within his Critique of Judgement published in 1790. This article draws prima-rily from Kant’s account.

Kant’s theory of the sublime

Kant considered the sublime a distinct category of aesthetic value. In The Critiqueof Judgement (1952), he cites the sublime as a comparative category to that of thebeautiful. According to Kant, the sublime distinguishes itself from the beautiful inthree key ways:

� the ground of the sublime resides within the perceiver rather than in theobject of perception as happens in the experience of the beautiful;

� the object which evokes the experience of the sublime cannot be adequatelyheld by the imagination, it is ‘other-worldly’, or in some way ‘magical’,whereas the beautiful can be held in the perceiver’s imagination;

� the experience of the sublime involves ‘negative’ pleasure and disturbance,whereas the experience of the beautiful evokes happiness and peacefulness onthe part of the perceiver.

Each of these is explored in greater detail below.

The sublime: ‘it’s in the eye of the beholder’

Although colloquially we often refer to beauty as being ‘in the eye of the beholder’,according to Kant describing the sublime in that way would be far more accurate. InThe Critique of Judgement (1952), Kant argues that beauty resides within an object’sform, specifically within its symmetry and regularity. In contrast, he describes thosethings which evoke the experience of the sublime as ‘formless’, ‘irregular’, and‘larger than life’. But the key distinction he draws between the beautiful and thesublime is in terms of where he argues they originate as experiences. The beautiful,he asserts, rests within that which is regarded as beautiful. In contrast, the experienceof the sublime resides within the observer. For instance, when contrasting thebeautiful and the sublime as they are manifested in nature, Kant suggests, ‘for thebeautiful in nature we must seek a ground external to ourselves, but for the sublimeone merely in ourselves and the attitude of mind that introduces sublimity’ (p. 23).Further along, he elaborates on this, writing:

we express ourselves on the whole inaccurately if we term any object of naturesublime . . . the object lends itself to the presentation of a sublimity discernable inthe mind. For the sublime, in the strict sense of the word, cannot be contained inany sensuous form, but rather concerns ideas of reason . . . [It is] the dispositionof soul evoked by a particular representation engaging the attention of thereflective judgement, and not the object, that is to be called sublime. (p. 25)

How are we to make sense of this formulation? First, the role reason plays in Kant’ssystem of aesthetics (and overall philosophy) must be appreciated. Fundamentallylocated within the Enlightenment tradition, Kant extols reason above any other




human capacity. Much of his project as a philosopher was devoted to arguing for theprimacy of reason and creating a philosophical system which proved this case. TheCritique of Judgement is largely an account of the way in which reason, rather thansubjective feeling, mediates our aesthetic response. This would have the effect ofraising the ‘aesthetic’ to a superior category of human experience, in line with theintellectual rather than relegating it to a merely ‘subjective’ reaction.

For Kant, the experience of the sublime depends wholly on the human capacityto reason. He explains how this experience arises in the following way: the perceiverencounters something which is impossible for her imagination to grasp, such as awild storm, the vastness of the sea, or a magnificent cathedral such as Chartres. Sheexperiences her sense of self balancing on an on edge of obliteration; the vastness orwildness can be of such an extent as to render her helpless and without ground. Atthe point when her imagination becomes overwhelmed by the vastness or chaos ofthat which it perceives, reason steps in. According to Kant, it is the faculty of reasonwhich enables the perceiver to find some way of engaging with the object of over-whelming qualities. In this way, the experience of the sublime occurs when reasonasserts itself and mediates the encounter between the perceiver and that which isuncontainably formless, chaotic, or vast. He elucidates this further by writing:

sublimity must be sought only in the mind of the judging subject, and not in theobject of nature that occasions this attitude by the estimate formed of it. Whowould apply the term ‘sublime’ even to shapeless mountain masses towering oneabove the other in wild disorder, with their pyramids of ice, or to the darktempestuous ocean, or such like things? But in the contemplation of them, withoutany regard to their form, the mind abandons itself to the imagination and to areason placed, though quite apart from any definite end, in conjunction therewith,and merely broadening its view, and it feels itself elevated in its own estimate ofitself on finding all the might of imagination unequal to its desires. (p. 26)

This passage presents the key feature of Kant’s argument. In the first instance, weencounter an entity which is somehow greater than our imagination can grasp. Thiscan be on account of its enormity, complete formlessness, or perceived mightiness.At the point of non-comprehension by the imagination, reason asserts itself and findsa way of engaging with the phenomenon. In this way, according to Kant, reasonasserts its ‘superiority’. This formulation also locates reason as the superior humancapacity. This assertion of one’s reasoning capacity in the face of the unimaginableproduces the experience of the sublime.

By way of illustration, I’ll refer to a contemporary philosophical system, thatcreated by the cartoonist Bill Waterson in the shape of Calvin and Hobbes. One ofmy favourite strips presents a series of three frames in which Calvin stares up intothe night sky ablaze with a multitude of stars. Who has not done the same, and beentransported by the sheer enormity of the universe? In the fourth frame, Calvin yellsinto the darkness, ‘I am TOO significant!’ (Waterson, 1992).

Kant might explain Calvin’s outburst as the rising up of his powers of reason ina moment of sublime aesthetic encounter. (I’m not sure what Calvin would make ofsuch an interpretation!) The point here remains, for Kant, that the sublime resideswithin the perceiver, and signals that reason has negotiated a way of interacting withsomething beyond the powers of the perceiver’s imagination. Having said this, the




sublime arises because of an encounter with something outside of the perceiver. Thenext section elaborates on the qualities of those objects, people or situations whichmight evoke the experience of the sublime.

The sublime: that which is absolutely great

Although I have already introduced some of the characteristics of those things whichevoke the experience of the sublime, this section elaborates on those descriptions byoffering a fuller rendering of Kant’s position. In the Critique of Judgement Kant(1952) writes:

the sublime . . . is ill adapted to our faculty of presentation, and to be, as it were,an outrage to our imagination, and yet it is judged all the more sublime on thataccount . . . it is rather in chaos, or in the wildest and most irregular disorder anddesolation, provided it gives signs of magnitude and power that nature chieflyexcites the idea of the sublime. (p. 23)

In more contemporary accounts of the sublime, the natural world remains a well-spring for experience of sublime aesthetic encounter. Henry David Thoreau’s (1972)account of his time hiking up Mount Katahdin, the endpoint of the Appalachian Trailon the East Coast of the United States presents this experience vividly:

we have not seen pure Nature, unless we have seen her thus vast and drear andinhuman, though in the midst of cities. Nature was here something savage andawful, though beautiful. I looked with awe at the ground I trod on, to see whatthe Powers had made there, the form and fashion and material of their work.This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night.Here was no man’s garden, but the unhandelled globe . . . It was Matter, vast,terrific, – not his Mother Earth that we have heard of, not for him to tread on, orbe buried in, – no, it were being too familiar even to let his bones lie there, – thehome, this, of Necessity and Fate. There was there felt the presence of a forcenot bound to be kind to man . . . (p. 77)

Although terrifying, experiences which evoke the sublime are also energizing andinvigorating, and consequently draw us to them. As Thoreau’s quote intimates, theyhave the power to connect us with a different plane of reality, one which exceeds thebounds of our normal, day-to-day existence. These natural entities, or man-madeones such as the Pyramids or great cathedrals, astound us, they makes us aware ofour smallness. Charismatic leaders can seem to evoke a similar response, perhapsthrough the astonishing quality of their vision, or their perceived capacity to extendthe ‘normal’ bounds of human capability. Before considering that parallel in moredetail, I turn to the third aspect of the sublime which Kant described, its ability toevoke ‘negative pleasure’.

The sublime: an ambivalent pleasure

Unlike our experience of the beautiful, argued Kant (1952), the sublime evokes inperceivers a kind of alternating experience of pleasure and unease; either fear,distaste, or even repulsion, as described in the following quote:




the feeling of the sublime is a pleasure that arises only indirectly, being broughtabout by the feeling of a momentary check to the vital forces followed at onceby a discharge all the more powerful . . . since the mind is not simply attractedby the object, but is also alternately repelled thereby. The delight in the sublimedoes not so much involve positive pleasure as admiration or respect, i.e. meritsthe name of a negative pleasure. (p. 23)

In other words, in the first instance, an encounter with the sublime threatens our ‘vitalforces’, our life itself. Only through the power of reason do we experience thephenomenon as something with which we can cope and survive. Through engagingour reason we find a way of relating to the overwhelming entity. In so doing, we feela concurrent surge of pleasure.

Through reason, the perceiving subject focuses on an aspect of the phenomenonwhich can be comprehended. For example, faced with overwhelming limitlessnessor chaos, we tell ourselves we can ‘sort it out’, the mountain can be climbed ‘onestep at a time’, or we shout into the night sky that we, too, are significant. This bringsus a sense of mastery, along with a corresponding feeling of pleasure. Kant expandson this:

the feeling of the sublime, is therefore, at once a feeling of displeasure, arisingfrom the inadequacy of imagination in the aesthetic estimation of magnitude toattain to its estimation by reason, and a simultaneously awakened pleasure,arising from this very judgement of the inadequacy of the greatest faculty ofsense being in accord with ideas of reason, so far as the effort to attain to these isfor us a law. (p. 27)

The ambivalent pleasure which Kant describes echoes what has been written aboutthe experience of charisma. In fact, all three of these aspects of the sublime –

� its genesis within the perceiver, and being evoked as a result of a co-createdengagement between the perceiver and the object of perception;

� the nature of the object which evokes the experience of the sublime, a being‘larger than life’ and or in some way overwhelming; and

� the experience of the sublime as a negative pleasure –

have parallels with the way in which charisma has been theorized, most particularlyby Max Weber. The article now turns to explore his thinking about charisma and theway in which it resembles Kant’s analysis of the sublime.1

Weber’s theory of charismatic authorityThe German sociologist Max Weber is often cited as the first modern thinker totheorize extensively about charisma. In his books, The Theory of Social andEconomic Organisation (1924/1947) and Economy and Society: An Outline of Inter-pretive Sociology (1968) Weber sets out a total system for understanding the inter-relationships between economic activity, organizations, and authority. He introducesthree pure types of authority – that is, the force someone has to ensure others will doas they want – and their grounds: the rational, the traditional, and the charismatic.He defines the charismatic grounds for authority as:




resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary characterof an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed orordained by him . . . In the case of the charismatic authority, it is thecharismatically qualified leader as such who is obeyed by virtue of personaltrust in his revelation, his heroism or his exemplary qualities so far as they fallwithin the scope of the individual’s belief in his charisma. (Weber, 1924/1947:215–16)

This quote highlights some of the key traits commonly associated with charismaticleadership, such as ‘exceptional heroism’ and ‘exemplary character’. But where doescharisma comes from in the first instance? Weber notes (in a footnote) that the word‘charisma’ originates from the vocabulary of early Christianity and means ‘the giftof grace’, and as such informs the notion of the Divine Right of Kings. He elaborateson this idea, suggesting:

The term ‘charisma’ will be applied to a certain quality of an individualpersonality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated asendowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptionalpowers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person,but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them theindividual concerned is treated as a ‘leader’. (p. 241)

This passage suggests that Weber considered the person endowed with charisma asdemonstrating truly extraordinary and rare gifts. Weber’s description resembles theextraordinary qualities typified of entities which evoke the sublime aesthetic experi-ence; they are both characterized as being ‘beyond everyday experience’, ‘larger thanlife’ and ‘able to exhibit a force beyond normal human bounds’.

However, just as with the sublime, Weber proposes that the experience ofcharisma is not solely dependent on an individual’s demonstration of extraordinaryqualities. In both cases, these qualities must be experienced by the other: theperceiver in the case of the sublime, or the follower in the case of charisma, asbeing so. Weber makes this point by writing, ‘it is recognition on the part of thosesubject to authority which is decisive for the validity of charisma’ (p. 330). Thefollower must believe in the leader’s charisma. When writing of the Divine Rightof Kings and its connection to charismatic leadership, Weber notes that if the King’spower is seen to diminish, and those benefits which could be expected to bebestowed upon him are not forthcoming, followers will cease to perceive the leaderas being charismatic, and withdraw their allegiance. This suggests that as in theexperience of the sublime, the experience of charisma arises from the interactionbetween certain qualities perceived in the leader and the perception of thefollowers.

Jones (2001) elaborates on Weber’s view of charisma and explains the ‘external’nature of charisma thus:

A leader becomes (a charismatic) symbol on the basis of two things. First thereare ‘specific gifts of body and spirit’ (Weber, 1946: 245) that mark a person asunique . . . The critical thing is not the specific gift, but whether potentialfollowers see it as somehow blessing them. This is the second factor in therecognition of the charismatic leader. (p. 762)




In other words, although certain gifts need to be present, it is the perception of thesegifts by the followers which actually gives rise to the experience of the charismaticleader. Jones then goes on to identify a number of studies (Conger & Kanungo, 1987;Hater & Bass, 1988; House et al., 1991) which indicate the role situational variablesplay in the emergence of a leader. He concludes:

Leadership is a process that cannot take place apart from the response offollowers, and the findings of both the trait and the behaviour research indicatethat follower response depends upon the leader’s provision of an answer to asituational need. This agrees with what Weber (1946) said about charismaticleadership: it occurs only when followers believe they have found in someindividual a solution to the problems that confront them. (Jones, 2001: 763)

Jones’s reference to a ‘situational need’ signals a second area of concern for thisarticle: the role context plays in experiences of both charismatic leadership and ofthe sublime. This link is considered in the following section.

Charisma and the sublime: the role of contextContext plays a key role in Weber’s account of charismatic authority. Trice and Beyer(1986: 118) identify ‘a social crisis or situation of desperation’ as one of the fiveelements of charisma germinal to Weber’s theory. Similarly, the experience of thesublime occurs at moments in which the possibility of one’s mortality is appre-hended. According to Kant (1952), fear of death operates at the heart of the powerof the sublime. Consequently, he writes, there is something of the sublime in theGeneral over the statesman and we therefore owe more respect to the General.

Indeed, the list of leaders commonly hailed as ‘charismatic’ unfailingly includesleaders of military campaigns, from the despotic Hitler to the statesman Churchill.Gandhi made his mark through his radical vision of the non-violent but neverthelessrevolutionary overthrow of the British Government in South Africa and again inIndia. Each of these men literally presided over life-and-death situations. Leaderssuch as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela were pivotal inleading their nations through times of huge societal upheaval when significantcultural meanings were dying and being transformed into new social forms. Suchcontexts, rife with uncertainty and potentially overwhelmingly chaotic can evoke theexperience of the sublime. They also provide the perfect ground for the experienceof charismatic leadership.

The sublime: a conduit between realities

A deeper grasp of the significance of context in the experience of the sublime mightbe gained through considering something of the etymology of the term itself. Theword ‘sublime’ has its root in the word ‘limen’, or threshold – ‘that which is at aboundary’ (Turner, 1976). Rella (1994: 65) describes this more fully, writing, ‘thelimen . . . the border understood not as an exclusion but as the potential for transitbetween subject and object, between subjects and “things” a subject, in a word,capable of relating to alterity without mythologizing it’. In Rella’s terms then, theexperience of the sublime could alert us to the proximity of a particular threshold.




The ‘limen’ as he explains, is a particular kind of border, one which can be negoti-ated and transformed into a conduit for relating. In other words, through the experi-ence of the sublime, at such a border death does not have to be the final word. Ourimagination brings us to the threshold of knowing the possibility of our mortality,but at the point where we would be overwhelmed by this apprehension, reason stepsin and enables us to relate to the overwhelming entity in a new way. The resultingaesthetic experience of the sublime provides a moment of elation in the mastery ofbeing able to delve into unchartered territory.

Similarly, charismatic leaders stand amidst the maelstrom of confusion and chaosof crisis situations and conjure up radical visions for engaging with them. Gandhiproposed the British could be defeated through non-violent means. Martin LutherKing dreamed of white and black children holding hands and sharing in America’swealth. Leaders gifted in this way offer stories which enable followers to negotiatepreviously unimagined inter-relationships and identities. Certainly not all of thesenew identities are wholesome, however. The knowledge that charismatic leadershipcan result in atrocities as well as noble acts features highly in the ambivalencesurrounding the phenomenon. It is to further examination of that ambivalence, andhow it might be interpreted through the frame of the sublime, that the article nowturns.

The ambivalence of charismaIn later writings, Weber (1968) notices the alternation between opposing states ofpleasure and unease arising from the charismatic encounter. He explains this byhypothesizing that, through engagement with charismatic authority, the individualconcedes his or her sense of individual identity to the leader. In doing so, the followerexperiences a sense of annihilation. This sense of annihilation is subsequently (andrapidly) countered by a greater sense of identification with the leader. This identifi-cation produces an enlarged sense of the self and the concurrent pleasure which arisesfrom that identification.2

Even in more contemporary theories such as transformational leadership, a keycomponent of the exchange is the leader’s ability to provide followers with a visionwith which they want to identify (Bass, 1985). What transformational leadershiptheory does not mention is the extent to which the individuality of the follower mustbe compromised in the ‘transformational’ process. This loss of a sense of individualagency coupled with overidentification with a larger-than-life vision can leave thefollower ‘ungrounded’, and in extreme cases result in tragic acts of self- and otherdestruction. Perhaps the (unconscious?) recognition of the potential loss of one’sindividuality as well as its consequence accounts for some of the ambivalence follow-ers can feel in the face of charismatic power.

Both the experience of the sublime and that of the charismatic then, are imbuedwith a sense of ‘negative pleasure’. In the encounter with the sublime, the perceiverencounters a force with the power to annihilate, or at least make his or her existencemeaningless, until rationality negotiates a way of engaging with the phenomenon. Inthe charismatic dynamic interpreted from a psychological stance offered by Weber,the follower loses his or her sense of self (a similar annihilation to that which occursin the sublime) but alleviates this by identifying with the leader.




Although a similar experience of fluctuation between negative and positive statesoccurs in both, the source of the positive pole of tension differs between them. Thisis a crucial distinction in the ways these two phenomena are theorized. In Weber’saccount of charisma, the positive feeling can be attributed to identification with anenlarged sense of the self through merging with the leader’s vision. This inevitablyleaves the follower ungrounded and vulnerable to that vision. However, in the expe-rience of the sublime, the perceiver feels pleasure through apprehension of his ownagency. He recognizes a way in which he himself can re-establish a sense of self inthe face of an overwhelming force. I am suggesting that through this interpretationthe charismatic leader can be seen to act as a catalyst for followers to apprehend theirown agency and power. Through the charismatic leader’s radical vision, followerscan find within themselves a way of dealing with desperate situations. The resultingexperience is sublime.

This key difference between the ways charisma and the sublime have beentheorized offers important implications for rethinking the difference between whatconstitutes generative and degenerative forms of charismatic leadership. I amsuggesting that if charismatic leadership has a sublime aesthetic quality about it,followers will recognize their own strengths and capabilities in responding to thesituation, and have the possibility of responding in a generative and self-affirmingmanner. If, alternatively, followers merely lose their sense of self in the leader’sflamboyance, the charismatic encounter is not sublime but perhaps evokes anaesthetic experience more akin to the ugly, tragic, or grotesque in the worst scenar-ios. In this way, the determining factor of whether or not charismatic leadership isgenerative or degenerative rests in whether or not followers are empowered throughthe encounter, or diminished by it.

This analysis differs from other current interpretations of the ‘shadow’ side ofcharisma such as that presented by Howell and Avolio (1992). They distinguishbetween personalized and socialized charisma, proposing that personalized charismais used for the self-aggrandizement of the leader, whereas socialized charisma leadsto beneficial community outcomes. Their argument suggests that the choice as towhich form is embodied rests with the leader and his or her motives.

The analysis presented here provides a different way of making sense of whethercharisma is experienced as generative or degenerative. I am proposing that, as aprimarily relational dynamic, the quality of that experience must also be a result ofthe dynamics of that relationship. Both parties are implicated. Furthermore, I amarguing that if the engagement between leader and follower creates a space withinwhich the follower awakens to his or her own capabilities and potential mastery ofa situation, that experience could be indicative of a sublime aesthetic encounter.

Conclusion: charisma as a sublime aesthetic encounterThe sublime is one of the most powerful of aesthetic encounters. Experiencing itmeans the journey has been travelled between apprehending one’s own mortality anddiscovering within the self a means for relating to that knowledge. Furthermore, byalerting us to the proximity of death it asserts our own alive presence, here and now.I would argue that the experience of the sublime keeps mountain climbers climbing,parachutists jumping out of planes, as well as white water rafters shooting through




rapids. Repeatedly I hear people who engage in extreme sports say the same thing,‘I’ve never felt as alive as when I knew I could die any minute’.

Similarly, charisma – of the variety about which Weber wrote, which veerstowards magic – speaks of the ‘other-worldly’ capability to negotiate untravelledboundaries and to engage anew with chaos and confusion. The clarity and suretycharisma can bring to desperate situations can be breathtaking and inspiring. I amthinking here of Nelson Mandela, for instance, who after spending 28 years aprisoner, was able to envision more equitable relations between all of the citizens ofSouth Africa and, moreover was pivotal in the relatively peaceable realization of thatvision. I wonder if the relative success of South Africa’s post-Apartheid transitioncan be attributed to Mandela’s ability to let go of his own need for revenge and retal-iation, and in doing so alert other South Africans that they too, had this capacity.

Such a leader wakes us up to our own potentialities. I am reminded of this furtherwhen recalling Mandela’s inaugural speech in which he quoted MarianneWilliamson’s (1985) text about each person’s responsibility to be the best, most beau-tiful and most powerful person they can be. The use of charismatic power onMandela’s part has been highly generative. Despite all of the social and political diffi-culties which South Africa still faces, the nation moves forward in a way few couldhave predicted possible during the Apartheid era. This article has argued that suchgenerative charismatic power could be viewed as embodiment of a sublime aestheticencounter, one which has brought, in this case, South Africans, to the realization oftheir own capabilities in transitioning to a more equitable social and economic state.

Although charisma has been a recurring theme within the leadership canon, manyof the variations on its theme have focused on either psychological or sociologicalinterpretations of this phenomenon. This article has offered an interpretation ofcharisma as an aesthetic encounter. Just as we are creatures imbued with our ownpsychologies, living in social and socially constructed worlds, we are also creaturessensitive to aesthetic qualities. We appreciate beauty, we recoil from the grotesque,we are cheered by the comic. We are also drawn to the tantalizing dance between lifeand death resting at the heart of the sublime. Charismatic leaders, I have argued, tapinto that fascination. Perhaps charisma’s mesmerising call – enticing us with thepossibility of engagement with the other-worldly, the limitless, the unknown – is oneof the reasons it will undoubtedly remain a key refrain within the leadership canon.

Notes

1. I do note the irony of finding similarities between Kant and Weber’s accounts due to thevery different philosophical positions each took in regard to the sublime and thecharismatic. Kant was in many ways the ultimate ‘Enlightenment’ philosopher, with hisheralding of the power of reason, whereas Weber championed the view that charisma wasa mysterious and Divinely bestowed phenomenon. However, I hope to show that they wayin they analysed each of these phenomena has important similarities.

2. This process could be described psychodynamically as a process of projection andintrojection (Klein, 1946).




Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Steve Taylor and Peter Case who, along with anony-mous reviewers provided insightful and helpful comments which have contributedgreatly to the rewriting of this article.

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Donna Ladkin is Director of Research at the Centre for Leadership Studies at theUniversity of Exeter, UK, where she also acts as Programme Director for the Centre’sMA in Leadership Studies. Her current research interests include leadership as anaesthetic form, how leaders and managers take ethical action in complex situationsand the key aspects of leading for sustainability. Exploring the interface betweentheoretical concepts and their application is an important focus of her researchapproach. [email: [email protected]]




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The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader

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