Definition

The type of authority known as charismatic authority is built on a follower’s affective or emotional engagement. It is based on the conviction that the leader has unique personality traits. It is one of the three primary categories of legitimate power that Max Weber distinguished. The foundation of charismatic power is loyalty to a special person or leader and the norms they establish.

According to Weber, charismatic power rests on devotion to the unique sanctity, valour, or outstanding personality of a specific individual and of the normative patterning or arrangement disclosed or proclaimed by such individual.

Explanation

The German sociologist Max Weber devised the concept of charismatic authority. It includes an organization or leadership where the leader’s charisma confers authority.

In charismatic leadership, the instructions are given by someone who has received a “gift of grace” from transcendent powers, allowing them to carry out great deeds that demonstrate the might of those forces and benefit others who follow them. These accomplishments may include military triumphs achieved via unparalleled military action, resulting in extensive conquest and great loot, or the proclamation of new ideas and ideals, providing fresh perspectives on the purpose of life and access to redemption in the hereafter. As a result, such instructions are inherently novel, do not reaffirm tradition, and must be followed since they represent the unquestionable will of the individual issuing them.

The power justified by a leader’s remarkable character traits or by the display of uncommon insight and success, which elicits devotion and obedience from followers, is known as charismatic authority. Contrary to how the term charismatic leader is now used in society, Weber saw charismatic authority as more of a connection between a leader and his followers than a set of personality attributes. The charismatic trait, according to Weber, is “a definite feature of an individual personality, by which he is set aside from other individuals and viewed as gifted with supernatural, superhuman, or at least notably outstanding abilities or qualities.”

The traditional or rational-legal authority sets constraints for how charismatic power may develop, but by nature, charismatic authority tends to question established authority and is often seen as revolutionary. But when charismatic power gets ingrained into a community via routinization, the ongoing problem it poses to that society will finally disappear. Routinization is the process by which “traditional and bureaucratic power is combined to replace charismatic leadership with a bureaucracy governed by a rationally constituted authority.”

Numerous authoritarian nations, autocracies, dictatorships, and theocracies exhibit charismatic dominance in politics. Such regimes frequently create a sizable cult of personality to support the maintenance of their charismatic authority. This is evident when a person uses mass media, propaganda, or other techniques to project an idealized and heroic public image, frequently through uncritical flattery and praise. Such a regime is likely to crumble rapidly after the head of such a state dies or leaves office if a new charismatic leader does not emerge unless it has been completely institutionalized.

Bolshevik political cartoon poster from 1920 featuring the charismatic leader Lenin sweeping over monarchists and capitalists with the phrase, “Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth.”

According to Max Weber, the mechanisms of charismatic succession include searching, revelation, founding leader designation, qualified staff classification, inherited charisma, and office charisma. These are strategies a person or society may use to keep their charismatic leadership qualities and special charisma.