HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership, case research and conversations with the world’s high enterprise and administration specialists, hand-selected that can assist you unlock the very best in these round you. In our leader-obsessed society, how typically will we think about the function of followers? Today, we carry you a dialog in regards to the relationship between leaders and followers — with Barbara Kellerman. She’s a fellow on the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership and was a member of the school there for greater than 20 years. Kellerman explains that there’s a phrase that describes the highly effective, emotional bond that exists between leaders and followers: charisma. That time period implies that leaders and their followers share energy equally – for higher and typically for worse. This episode initially aired on HBR IdeaCast in February 2009. Just a word — we recorded this by telephone. While the audio high quality isn’t nice, the dialog is. I feel you’ll get pleasure from it. Here it’s.
SARAH GREEN: Welcome to the Harvard Business IdeaCast. Today we’re discussing management, followership, and that ineffable essence, charisma. And hopefully making it a bit extra effable. I’m Sarah Green, an editor at Harvardbusiness.org, and I’m on the telephone at this time with Barbara Kellerman, the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She’s the writer of many books, most lately Followership: How Followers Create Change and Change Leaders. And you may learn her writing on Harvardbusiness.org as properly. Barbara, thanks for becoming a member of us at this time.
BARBARA KELLERMAN: My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Sarah.
SARAH GREEN: Barbara, you wrote a chunk for Harvardbusiness.org during which you argued that the phrase charisma has been watered down in recent times, and that Barack Obama is definitely the primary really charismatic president we’ve seen in a very long time, and even in our lifetimes. But earlier than we get into that, I wished to ask you to clarify to us what charisma is, and simply as importantly, maybe, what charisma will not be.
BARBARA KELLERMAN: Well to start with, it’s vital to notice charisma was first popularized, if that’s the precise phrase, by a German sociologist by the identify of Mac Weber, W-E-B-E-R, who divided management into three normal classes. The first was authorized, or rational, which is just like the chief of a corporation or an elected chief, for that matter. The second is conventional management, which might be just like the son or daughter, usually the son, after all, of somebody who had royal lineage, conventional management. And the third was charismatic management. Now when Weber first coined the time period in its unique kind, the time period was highly effective in a approach that it typically will not be these days. Weber supposed to speak a few actually robust, highly effective, emotional bond between leaders and followers. He described followers who adopted their chief, went together with their chief gladly, eagerly. Thought so extremely of the chief that perhaps in at this time’s phrases can be nearly thought of a cult-like standing, nearly much like a non secular chief. But in any case the chief’s so extremely esteemed and so valued that followers went alongside gladly. And my level in that article– the place I described Obama in the course of the marketing campaign– was that he actually was one of many first in recent times to evoke in his followers such robust passions that they’d go to nice lengths to see him elected. And that’s fairly completely different from the best way the phrase charisma has been used in recent times, which you appropriately say. I think about it to have been watered down so it means engaging, or attractive, or interesting, however doesn’t essentially suggest the robust emotional bond to which Weber initially referred.
SARAH GREEN: Barbara, you began speaking about charismatic management as a relationship between the chief and the followers, and really put a substantial amount of emphasis on the followers. But I feel that appears a bit bit counter intuitive to me, and perhaps a few of our listeners, since isn’t charisma all in regards to the thought of the chief as hero, the superstar aspect of management?
BARBARA KELLERMAN: Well really, no. Not in its unique and rather more persuasive and highly effective incarnation. You know, these of us within the management subject– and I’ve been within the management subject a few years and have written many books and articles on management– all of us are likely to fixate on the chief. It’s a part of the human situation. But the real management is finest understood as a relationship. A relationship between the chief and his or her followers, which is why the phrase management is a lot extra evocative, actually, than the phrase chief. And actually charismatic management implies the ability of the follower each bit as a lot because it does the ability of the chief. So, I agree with you, Sarah, that it’s counter intuitive, however that’s solely as a result of we’re in a pacesetter obsessed society. We have fixated, actually within the final 20-30 years. We are continuously speaking about coaching for good management, and educating for good management, and what’s the mission of a pacesetter, and the imaginative and prescient of a pacesetter, and we’ve uncared for– to our personal collective detriment– the function of the follower. Which actually within the twenty first century, with adjustments within the tradition, adjustments in expertise, is rather more vital than it ever was earlier than. So, whereas it might be counter intuitive, it isn’t in any respect inaccurate, and it’s actually in line with Weber’s unique definition of charisma as being all in regards to the relationship between leaders and followers, reasonably than in regards to the chief per se.
SARAH GREEN: Based on what you simply stated, I’m curious. Can charisma be taught? Can anybody do it?
BARBARA KELLERMAN: Great query, and I’d argue, no. We assume that management may be taught. And many college students the place I’m now on the Kennedy School, on the Harvard Business School, and folks all throughout the United States and more and more all over the world take management programs and workshops and seminars, they usually learn books on management. I nonetheless suppose we’ve very scant proof that even good management may be taught– to not converse of charismatic management. Certainly these programs will help across the edges. I actually assume that in my work. But whether or not nice management may be taught– to not converse of charismatic management– to me may be very a lot an open query. I feel it’s a present. Sometimes a toxic reward, I would add. Not all charismatic leaders are by definition nice. But it’s a form of pure reward, identical to being an excellent swimmer, an excellent athlete of any sort, or, for that matter, an excellent artist or an excellent musician. Charismatic management, the real article, is normally thought of nice and highly effective not directly. And that form of greatness usually can’t– I at the very least would argue– be taught.
SARAH GREEN: Now I need to return to one thing that you simply had in the course of that response, which is the draw back, probably, of charisma. Can you elaborate a bit bit extra on that?
BARBARA KELLERMAN: Well once more, is determined by how we need to use the phrase. But if you wish to go to an excessive instance, Hitler, in the course of the early years of Nazism, this diminished considerably over time– however earlier than World War II, which began in 1939, Hitler got here legally to energy in 1933. And there may be ample proof that in these years, of the 1930’s particularly, he was very extensively adored in Germany. Not all people was a Nazi, for certain, however there was a excessive stage of actual devotion to the person. So, it’s actually attainable to have components of charismatic management, towards ends which might be ignoble reasonably than noble.
SARAH GREEN: I wished to ask you one remaining query. And I’m as a result of up to now on this interview we’ve talked about Barack Obama, and on the different finish of the spectrum, Adolph Hitler. And I do typically see male leaders extra continuously described as charismatic than feminine leaders. In reality, I used to be attempting to suppose earlier than we sat down on the telephone at this time if I’d ever heard a girl known as charismatic, and I couldn’t consider one. So, I’m curious to listen to your ideas on that.
BARBARA KELLERMAN: It’s an exquisite query, Sarah. You know, partly it’s in regards to the numbers. Overwhelmingly in human historical past, leaders have been males. This is the case now, whilst we converse within the twenty first century, and it’s been much more the case earlier in human historical past. So real charismatic management is admittedly uncommon. It’s uncommon in males, and it’s arguably rarer nonetheless in ladies. I can’t simply identify a charismatic girl chief. Obviously, folks like Carrie Nation– the temperance leaders and so forth, ladies leaders– have had massive followings. But they’re not as well-known to us, as a result of ladies leaders are typically misplaced within the mist of historical past typically. And second of all, as I stated, there are so few of them relative to males. So the pattern measurement is simply approach too small to count on that we might have a listing of feminine charismatic leaders, when even the listing of real male charismatic leaders is brief certainly.
SARAH GREEN: And maybe it has one thing to do with the truth that charisma, as an thought, has been watered all the way down to the purpose the place it’s typically confused with one thing like intercourse attraction, so perhaps we’re simply extra used to saying that girl, she’s obtained nice intercourse attraction, you realize. You know, as a substitute of considering of it as charisma.
BARBARA KELLERMAN: You know, it’s humorous that you simply point out intercourse attraction. Because I’ve written, and I’ve argued that Sarah Palin– not the Sarah Palin we see now, however the Sarah Palin who was launched by John McCain, and who was, within the early weeks of her introduction on the nationwide scene, I don’t imply as governor of Alaska– was really one of many sexiest public ladies leaders that this nation has ever seen. She traded on that. Her viewers’s most devoted followers had been largely males. Jokes had been made about how engaging and interesting she was. But there’s a distinction between being engaging, and even attractive, and being charismatic.
SARAH GREEN: Well, thanks, Barbara, for becoming a member of us at this time.
BARBARA KELLERMAN: My pleasure, and thanks for having me, Sarah.
HANNAH BATES: That was Harvard Kennedy School fellow Barbara Kellerman – in dialog with Sarah Green Carmichael on the HBR IdeaCast. We’ll be again subsequent Wednesday with one other hand-picked dialog about management from the Harvard Business Review. If you discovered this episode useful, share it with your folks and colleagues, and comply with our present on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, make sure to depart us a overview. We’re a manufacturing of the Harvard Business Review – if you’d like extra articles, case research, books, and movies like this, ll at HBR.org. This episode was produced by Anne Saini and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special because of Maureen Hoch, Adi Ignatius, Karen Player, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and also you – our listener. See you subsequent week.
