Jessica McNairy
4/29/14
The person I choose was Adolf Hitler and the leadership style I chose for him was Charismatic leader.
Weber defines charismatic leadership as “resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him” He envisaged religious leaders like Jesus as charismatic leaders. Later researches considered various social-political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi as charismatic leaders. Dictators like Hitler also had some charismatic traits. These were the leaders with exceptional qualities which made them almost god-like for their followers. The charm of such people made their followers go behind these leaders without questioning them. While analyzing such a strong bond between the leaders and his followers Weber focuses on the social patterns and conditions under which the leader exists. However, the later researches throw light on the psychological attributes of the leaders which make them successful charismatic leaders. Research shows that charismatic leaders appeal strongly to the values of the followers and it is this psychological bondage between the two which makes the charismatic leadership succeed. Neither the sociologically oriented Weberian approach nor the psychological approach alone can explain charismatic leaders.
Charismatic leadership process is seen as a compound product of three factors: The leader and his attributes, the social situation which demands for such a leader and the interaction between the leader and his followers. Charismatic leadership process undergoes six steps from the rise of the leader to the final routinization and thus the fall of the leader.
Step 1: Identification
This step takes place from the composite mixture of the three factors mentioned above. It is a stage where the aspiring leader is on the social horizon; the followers are in distress and are looking...