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The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader: Charisma Reconsidered as

Aesthetic Encounter
Donna Ladkin
Leadership 2006; 2; 165
DOI: 10.1177/1742715006062933

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 Leadership

The Enchantment of the Charismatic

Leader: Charisma Reconsidered as Aesthetic
Encounter
Donna Ladkin, University of Exeter, UK

Abstract This article takes a novel approach to understanding the phenomenon of

charisma by viewing it through the frame of the aesthetic category of the sublime. It
draws similarities between the account of the sublime as theorized by the Enlighten-
ment philosopher Immanuel Kant, and the theory of charismatic authority as
rendered 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 relational
encounter 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 and
degenerative forms of charisma based in its relational quality rather than in
outcomes associated it. The article concludes that, interpreted as an expression of
the sublime, charismatic leadership functions as a means by which followers are
empowered to wake up to their own sense of agency to respond in radical ways during
times of crisis.
Keywords aesthetics; charisma; charismatic leadership; Kant; the sublime; Weber

Introduction
Throughout 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 and
Waterman (1982), Quinn (2000) and Stogdill (1948) have each contributed their
particular variation on the theme laid down in the western canon as early as the works
of Plato (Takala, 1998). Although much has been written about it, there is no unified
view as to how charisma arises or how it should be defined. Furthermore, an implicit
unease seems to imbue both the experience of charisma and its theorization. For every
instance of charismatic leadership which fosters generative ends, a corresponding
illustration can be cited of how it has been implicated in malevolent outcomes.
To date, much written about charisma analyses it from either a psychological or
a sociological perspective. This article contributes a new variation on the charisma

Copyright 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol 2(2): 165179 DOI: 10.1177/1742715006062933 www.sagepublications.com
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Leadership 2(2) Articles

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 contributes
insight into the phenomenon in three ways: it locates the experience of charisma as
a 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 way
of understanding generative and degenerative forms of charisma based in the quality
of relationship between follower and leader, rather than in outcomes associated with
it.
The argument is formed through comparing and aligning two theoretical ideas:
that of the sublime as articulated by the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant
and 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 conceptualizing
charisma which neither eulogizes nor demonizes it but places it within a vital sphere
of 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 Kants
theory as presented in his Critique of Judgement. Parallels between Kants theory and
charisma as theorized by Max Weber are then identified and illustrated. Charisma is
reconsidered 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 own
capacities are discussed as a key contribution resulting from interpreting charisma as
an aesthetic encounter.

Charisma in contemporary literature

This brief account focuses on two themes which emerge from contemporary writings
about charismatic leadership: controversy over its definition and genesis, and a
general ambivalence about its role and value. Turning to the first, a recent debate
within Leadership Quarterly (Bass, 1999; Beyer, 1999; House, 1999; Shamir, 1999)
illustrates well the range of views held about how charisma should be defined and
from where it originates. Beyer (1999) argues that Webers (1924/1947) seminal
account of charisma has been watered down to cohere with contemporary render-
ings. Rather than seeing charisma as the truly extraordinary and rare occurrence
bestowed as a gift from Divinity, Beyer argues that modern accounts define
charisma in a way which makes it available to anyone. Such redefinition, she
proposes, supports the largely western preoccupation with the romance of the indi-
vidual, heroic leader. Beyer also suggests that the emphasis on a psychological
paradigm for researching charisma (as opposed to a sociological one) has resulted in
an overemphasis on individual traits of the leader without sufficiently accounting
for the impact of context on this phenomenon.
Indeed, representation of charisma as a much prized, individually based attribute
to 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 leaders
envision, empower and energize their followers. The leadership theory recently in
vogue which perhaps most relies on the notion of charisma is transformational

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Leadership The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader Ladkin

leadership, which suggests that effective leadership relies on personal charisma,

comprised of particular skills or traits in the leader including moral vision, coupled
with 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 within
the experience of charisma. He writes that dominance and charisma come from this
perfect attunement between leader and follower in the shared creation of a kind of
leader who is irreplaceable (pp. 656). In fact, Weber himself (1924/1947) recog-
nized that not only did the charismatic leader have to be the recipient of extraordinary
gifts, but followers also had to recognize those gifts in order for the leader to be
perceived as charismatic. Webers view about this will be explored in greater depth
later 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 he
legitimizes charisma in the work cited previously, Kets de Vries elaborates on his
disquiet about how it arises in other writings. Together with Miller (1986) he explores
transference and the pathological aspects of leadership, assigning charisma a key role
in the process of regressive projection. In his latest book he links charisma with the
phenomenon of leadership by terror as enacted by despots ranging from Shaka Zulu
to Hitler (Kets de Vries, 2004). Explanations of such aberrant forms of charismatic
leadership focus on the psychological tendencies for followers to regress into power-
less identification with charismatic leaders, thus diminishing their own agency in the
face 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 the
alienating consequences of the social myth resulting from intellectual and emotional
deskilling by organisational members (p. 278).
Perhaps another aspect of the ambivalence charisma generates is suggested by the
term enchantment used in this articles title. Charismatic leaders enchant their
followers. How else could the response of a housewife visiting the UK from Des
Moines, Iowa, to attend Bill Clintons recent book-signing event in London be
explained? I cant stop looking at him. Ive been looking at him for ten years on
my refrigerator, said Marilyn Rothstone, a diehard fan from Des Moines. She had
woken 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 of
refrain. Both have roots in musical worlds, enchantment deriving from the Latin in
cantare, to sing. In common parlance, to chant, like a refrain, is to repeat.
Gregorian Chant epitomizes this phenomenon in musical form, and anyone who has
listened 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 under
a spell or to delude (New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998) to dupe, in other
words. And perhaps this definition speaks to our ambivalent response to charismatic
leadership: as we are enchanted by it, we are also aware at the back of our minds that
we 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

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

Aesthetics and the sublime

Aesthetic, like charisma is a widely contested term. Csikszentmihalyi and
Robinson (1990) suggest that aesthetic experience includes four aspects of felt
meaning: perceptual, emotional, intellectual and communicative. The aesthetic
sphere of experience speaks to the qualities we perceive in another along with the
emotional and sensual response to those qualities. Strati (2000: 16) points out that
the root of aesthetic, aisth, from the ancient Greek, means feeling through
physical perceptions. In contemporary discourse, we are more familiar perhaps with
its 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 serves
an integrating function between our senses, emotions and intellect. Our aesthetic
sensibility alerts us to the qualities of those people, things, and environments we
encounter. Both the perceiver and the object of perception have roles to play in that
encounter. Those objects, people, or even ideas which pique our aesthetic sense
exhibit certain qualities, but perhaps just as importantly, the perceiver must be open
and attentive to appreciating those qualities. In this way the experience of the
aesthetic could be said to be co-created in that it arises between the perceiver and
the object of perception.
Beauty is perhaps the most commonly known aesthetic category. In fact, the two
words are often used interchangeably we say something appeals to our aesthetic
sense, meaning that we judge it to be beautiful. But other aesthetic categories, such
as 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 the
sublime because of parallels in the way charisma and the sublime have been
theorized, 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 to
Loginus (1965) who wrote On Sublimity in the first century AD. He suggests:
the sublime denotes the moment when the individuals affective and cognitive
dispositions towards the world are subjected to a sense of displacement . . .
amazement and wonder exact invincible power and force and get the better of
the hearer . . . Sublimity . . . produced at the right moment, tears everything up
like a whirlwind. (p. 2)
Loginus thus portrays the sublime as a quality of powerful and out of the ordinary
proportions. The quote highlights the sublimes ability to disrupt both affective and
cognitive capacities. It has the capacity to up-end and disorient the perceiver, to get
the better of him or her.
Having been lost, Loginuss work was rediscovered by Immanuel Kant in
Germany and Edmund Burke in England during the 18th century. Burkes work

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Leadership The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader Ladkin

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

Kants theory of the sublime

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

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

the object which evokes the experience of the sublime cannot be adequately
held by the imagination, it is other-worldly, or in some way magical,
whereas the beautiful can be held in the perceivers imagination;

the experience of the sublime involves negative pleasure and disturbance,
whereas the experience of the beautiful evokes happiness and peacefulness on
the part of the perceiver.
Each of these is explored in greater detail below.

The sublime: its 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. In
The Critique of Judgement (1952), Kant argues that beauty resides within an objects
form, specifically within its symmetry and regularity. In contrast, he describes those
things which evoke the experience of the sublime as formless, irregular, and
larger than life. But the key distinction he draws between the beautiful and the
sublime 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 experience
of the sublime resides within the observer. For instance, when contrasting the
beautiful and the sublime as they are manifested in nature, Kant suggests, for the
beautiful in nature we must seek a ground external to ourselves, but for the sublime
one 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 nature
sublime . . . the object lends itself to the presentation of a sublimity discernable in
the mind. For the sublime, in the strict sense of the word, cannot be contained in
any sensuous form, but rather concerns ideas of reason . . . [It is] the disposition
of soul evoked by a particular representation engaging the attention of the
reflective 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 Kants
system of aesthetics (and overall philosophy) must be appreciated. Fundamentally
located within the Enlightenment tradition, Kant extols reason above any other

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human capacity. Much of his project as a philosopher was devoted to arguing for the
primacy of reason and creating a philosophical system which proved this case. The
Critique of Judgement is largely an account of the way in which reason, rather than
subjective feeling, mediates our aesthetic response. This would have the effect of
raising the aesthetic to a superior category of human experience, in line with the
intellectual rather than relegating it to a merely subjective reaction.
For Kant, the experience of the sublime depends wholly on the human capacity
to reason. He explains how this experience arises in the following way: the perceiver
encounters something which is impossible for her imagination to grasp, such as a
wild storm, the vastness of the sea, or a magnificent cathedral such as Chartres. She
experiences her sense of self balancing on an on edge of obliteration; the vastness or
wildness can be of such an extent as to render her helpless and without ground. At
the point when her imagination becomes overwhelmed by the vastness or chaos of
that which it perceives, reason steps in. According to Kant, it is the faculty of reason
which 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 reason
asserts itself and mediates the encounter between the perceiver and that which is
uncontainably 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 the
object of nature that occasions this attitude by the estimate formed of it. Who
would apply the term sublime even to shapeless mountain masses towering one
above the other in wild disorder, with their pyramids of ice, or to the dark
tempestuous ocean, or such like things? But in the contemplation of them, without
any regard to their form, the mind abandons itself to the imagination and to a
reason 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 of
itself on finding all the might of imagination unequal to its desires. (p. 26)
This passage presents the key feature of Kants argument. In the first instance, we
encounter an entity which is somehow greater than our imagination can grasp. This
can be on account of its enormity, complete formlessness, or perceived mightiness.
At the point of non-comprehension by the imagination, reason asserts itself and finds
a way of engaging with the phenomenon. In this way, according to Kant, reason
asserts its superiority. This formulation also locates reason as the superior human
capacity. This assertion of ones reasoning capacity in the face of the unimaginable
produces the experience of the sublime.
By way of illustration, Ill refer to a contemporary philosophical system, that
created by the cartoonist Bill Waterson in the shape of Calvin and Hobbes. One of
my favourite strips presents a series of three frames in which Calvin stares up into
the night sky ablaze with a multitude of stars. Who has not done the same, and been
transported by the sheer enormity of the universe? In the fourth frame, Calvin yells
into the darkness, I am TOO significant! (Waterson, 1992).
Kant might explain Calvins outburst as the rising up of his powers of reason in
a moment of sublime aesthetic encounter. (Im not sure what Calvin would make of
such an interpretation!) The point here remains, for Kant, that the sublime resides
within the perceiver, and signals that reason has negotiated a way of interacting with
something beyond the powers of the perceivers imagination. Having said this, the

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Leadership The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader Ladkin

sublime arises because of an encounter with something outside of the perceiver. The
next section elaborates on the qualities of those objects, people or situations which
might 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 which
evoke the experience of the sublime, this section elaborates on those descriptions by
offering a fuller rendering of Kants 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 that
account . . . it is rather in chaos, or in the wildest and most irregular disorder and
desolation, provided it gives signs of magnitude and power that nature chiefly
excites 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 Thoreaus (1972)
account of his time hiking up Mount Katahdin, the endpoint of the Appalachian Trail
on 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 and
inhuman, though in the midst of cities. Nature was here something savage and
awful, though beautiful. I looked with awe at the ground I trod on, to see what
the 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 mans 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, or
be buried in, no, it were being too familiar even to let his bones lie there, the
home, this, of Necessity and Fate. There was there felt the presence of a force
not bound to be kind to man . . . (p. 77)
Although terrifying, experiences which evoke the sublime are also energizing and
invigorating, and consequently draw us to them. As Thoreaus quote intimates, they
have the power to connect us with a different plane of reality, one which exceeds the
bounds of our normal, day-to-day existence. These natural entities, or man-made
ones such as the Pyramids or great cathedrals, astound us, they makes us aware of
our smallness. Charismatic leaders can seem to evoke a similar response, perhaps
through the astonishing quality of their vision, or their perceived capacity to extend
the normal bounds of human capability. Before considering that parallel in more
detail, I turn to the third aspect of the sublime which Kant described, its ability to
evoke negative pleasure.

The sublime: an ambivalent pleasure

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

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the feeling of the sublime is a pleasure that arises only indirectly, being brought
about by the feeling of a momentary check to the vital forces followed at once
by a discharge all the more powerful . . . since the mind is not simply attracted
by the object, but is also alternately repelled thereby. The delight in the sublime
does not so much involve positive pleasure as admiration or respect, i.e. merits
the name of a negative pleasure. (p. 23)
In other words, in the first instance, an encounter with the sublime threatens our vital
forces, our life itself. Only through the power of reason do we experience the
phenomenon as something with which we can cope and survive. Through engaging
our reason we find a way of relating to the overwhelming entity. In so doing, we feel
a concurrent surge of pleasure.
Through reason, the perceiving subject focuses on an aspect of the phenomenon
which can be comprehended. For example, faced with overwhelming limitlessness
or chaos, we tell ourselves we can sort it out, the mountain can be climbed one
step at a time, or we shout into the night sky that we, too, are significant. This brings
us a sense of mastery, along with a corresponding feeling of pleasure. Kant expands
on this:
the feeling of the sublime, is therefore, at once a feeling of displeasure, arising
from the inadequacy of imagination in the aesthetic estimation of magnitude to
attain to its estimation by reason, and a simultaneously awakened pleasure,
arising from this very judgement of the inadequacy of the greatest faculty of
sense being in accord with ideas of reason, so far as the effort to attain to these is
for us a law. (p. 27)
The ambivalent pleasure which Kant describes echoes what has been written about
the 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-created
engagement 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 particularly
by Max Weber. The article now turns to explore his thinking about charisma and the
way in which it resembles Kants analysis of the sublime.1

Webers theory of charismatic authority

The German sociologist Max Weber is often cited as the first modern thinker to
theorize extensively about charisma. In his books, The Theory of Social and
Economic 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 introduces
three pure types of authority that is, the force someone has to ensure others will do
as they want and their grounds: the rational, the traditional, and the charismatic.
He defines the charismatic grounds for authority as:

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Leadership The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader Ladkin

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 . . . In the case of the charismatic authority, it is the
charismatically qualified leader as such who is obeyed by virtue of personal
trust in his revelation, his heroism or his exemplary qualities so far as they fall
within the scope of the individuals belief in his charisma. (Weber, 1924/1947:
21516)
This quote highlights some of the key traits commonly associated with charismatic
leadership, such as exceptional heroism and exemplary character. But where does
charisma 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 gift
of grace, and as such informs the notion of the Divine Right of Kings. He elaborates
on this idea, suggesting:
The term charisma will be applied to a certain quality of an individual
personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as
endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional
powers 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 the
individual concerned is treated as a leader. (p. 241)
This passage suggests that Weber considered the person endowed with charisma as
demonstrating truly extraordinary and rare gifts. Webers description resembles the
extraordinary qualities typified of entities which evoke the sublime aesthetic experi-
ence; they are both characterized as being beyond everyday experience, larger than
life and able to exhibit a force beyond normal human bounds.
However, just as with the sublime, Weber proposes that the experience of
charisma is not solely dependent on an individuals demonstration of extraordinary
qualities. In both cases, these qualities must be experienced by the other: the
perceiver in the case of the sublime, or the follower in the case of charisma, as
being so. Weber makes this point by writing, it is recognition on the part of those
subject to authority which is decisive for the validity of charisma (p. 330). The
follower must believe in the leaders charisma. When writing of the Divine Right
of Kings and its connection to charismatic leadership, Weber notes that if the Kings
power is seen to diminish, and those benefits which could be expected to be
bestowed upon him are not forthcoming, followers will cease to perceive the leader
as being charismatic, and withdraw their allegiance. This suggests that as in the
experience of the sublime, the experience of charisma arises from the interaction
between certain qualities perceived in the leader and the perception of the
followers.
Jones (2001) elaborates on Webers view of charisma and explains the external
nature of charisma thus:
A leader becomes (a charismatic) symbol on the basis of two things. First there
are specific gifts of body and spirit (Weber, 1946: 245) that mark a person as
unique . . . The critical thing is not the specific gift, but whether potential
followers see it as somehow blessing them. This is the second factor in the
recognition of the charismatic leader. (p. 762)

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In other words, although certain gifts need to be present, it is the perception of these
gifts by the followers which actually gives rise to the experience of the charismatic
leader. 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 variables
play in the emergence of a leader. He concludes:
Leadership is a process that cannot take place apart from the response of
followers, and the findings of both the trait and the behaviour research indicate
that follower response depends upon the leaders provision of an answer to a
situational need. This agrees with what Weber (1946) said about charismatic
leadership: it occurs only when followers believe they have found in some
individual a solution to the problems that confront them. (Jones, 2001: 763)
Joness reference to a situational need signals a second area of concern for this
article: the role context plays in experiences of both charismatic leadership and of
the sublime. This link is considered in the following section.

Charisma and the sublime: the role of context

Context plays a key role in Webers account of charismatic authority. Trice and Beyer
(1986: 118) identify a social crisis or situation of desperation as one of the five
elements of charisma germinal to Webers theory. Similarly, the experience of the
sublime occurs at moments in which the possibility of ones mortality is appre-
hended. According to Kant (1952), fear of death operates at the heart of the power
of the sublime. Consequently, he writes, there is something of the sublime in the
General over the statesman and we therefore owe more respect to the General.
Indeed, the list of leaders commonly hailed as charismatic unfailingly includes
leaders of military campaigns, from the despotic Hitler to the statesman Churchill.
Gandhi made his mark through his radical vision of the non-violent but nevertheless
revolutionary overthrow of the British Government in South Africa and again in
India. Each of these men literally presided over life-and-death situations. Leaders
such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela were pivotal in
leading their nations through times of huge societal upheaval when significant
cultural meanings were dying and being transformed into new social forms. Such
contexts, rife with uncertainty and potentially overwhelmingly chaotic can evoke the
experience of the sublime. They also provide the perfect ground for the experience
of charismatic leadership.

The sublime: a conduit between realities

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

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Leadership The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader Ladkin

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. Our
imagination 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 steps
in and enables us to relate to the overwhelming entity in a new way. The resulting
aesthetic experience of the sublime provides a moment of elation in the mastery of
being able to delve into unchartered territory.
Similarly, charismatic leaders stand amidst the maelstrom of confusion and chaos
of crisis situations and conjure up radical visions for engaging with them. Gandhi
proposed the British could be defeated through non-violent means. Martin Luther
King dreamed of white and black children holding hands and sharing in Americas
wealth. Leaders gifted in this way offer stories which enable followers to negotiate
previously unimagined inter-relationships and identities. Certainly not all of these
new identities are wholesome, however. The knowledge that charismatic leadership
can result in atrocities as well as noble acts features highly in the ambivalence
surrounding the phenomenon. It is to further examination of that ambivalence, and
how it might be interpreted through the frame of the sublime, that the article now
turns.

The ambivalence of charisma

In later writings, Weber (1968) notices the alternation between opposing states of
pleasure and unease arising from the charismatic encounter. He explains this by
hypothesizing that, through engagement with charismatic authority, the individual
concedes his or her sense of individual identity to the leader. In doing so, the follower
experiences a sense of annihilation. This sense of annihilation is subsequently (and
rapidly) 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 arises
from that identification.2
Even in more contemporary theories such as transformational leadership, a key
component of the exchange is the leaders ability to provide followers with a vision
with which they want to identify (Bass, 1985). What transformational leadership
theory does not mention is the extent to which the individuality of the follower must
be compromised in the transformational process. This loss of a sense of individual
agency coupled with overidentification with a larger-than-life vision can leave the
follower ungrounded, and in extreme cases result in tragic acts of self- and other
destruction. Perhaps the (unconscious?) recognition of the potential loss of ones
individuality 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 imbued
with a sense of negative pleasure. In the encounter with the sublime, the perceiver
encounters a force with the power to annihilate, or at least make his or her existence
meaningless, until rationality negotiates a way of engaging with the phenomenon. In
the 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 occurs
in the sublime) but alleviates this by identifying with the leader.

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Leadership 2(2) Articles

Although a similar experience of fluctuation between negative and positive states

occurs in both, the source of the positive pole of tension differs between them. This
is a crucial distinction in the ways these two phenomena are theorized. In Webers
account of charisma, the positive feeling can be attributed to identification with an
enlarged sense of the self through merging with the leaders vision. This inevitably
leaves the follower ungrounded and vulnerable to that vision. However, in the expe-
rience of the sublime, the perceiver feels pleasure through apprehension of his own
agency. He recognizes a way in which he himself can re-establish a sense of self in
the face of an overwhelming force. I am suggesting that through this interpretation
the charismatic leader can be seen to act as a catalyst for followers to apprehend their
own agency and power. Through the charismatic leaders radical vision, followers
can find within themselves a way of dealing with desperate situations. The resulting
experience is sublime.
This key difference between the ways charisma and the sublime have been
theorized offers important implications for rethinking the difference between what
constitutes generative and degenerative forms of charismatic leadership. I am
suggesting that if charismatic leadership has a sublime aesthetic quality about it,
followers will recognize their own strengths and capabilities in responding to the
situation, and have the possibility of responding in a generative and self-affirming
manner. If, alternatively, followers merely lose their sense of self in the leaders
flamboyance, the charismatic encounter is not sublime but perhaps evokes an
aesthetic 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 is
generative or degenerative rests in whether or not followers are empowered through
the encounter, or diminished by it.
This analysis differs from other current interpretations of the shadow side of
charisma such as that presented by Howell and Avolio (1992). They distinguish
between personalized and socialized charisma, proposing that personalized charisma
is used for the self-aggrandizement of the leader, whereas socialized charisma leads
to beneficial community outcomes. Their argument suggests that the choice as to
which form is embodied rests with the leader and his or her motives.
The analysis presented here provides a different way of making sense of whether
charisma is experienced as generative or degenerative. I am proposing that, as a
primarily relational dynamic, the quality of that experience must also be a result of
the dynamics of that relationship. Both parties are implicated. Furthermore, I am
arguing that if the engagement between leader and follower creates a space within
which the follower awakens to his or her own capabilities and potential mastery of
a situation, that experience could be indicative of a sublime aesthetic encounter.

Conclusion: charisma as a sublime aesthetic encounter

The sublime is one of the most powerful of aesthetic encounters. Experiencing it
means the journey has been travelled between apprehending ones own mortality and
discovering within the self a means for relating to that knowledge. Furthermore, by
alerting 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

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Leadership The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader Ladkin

rapids. Repeatedly I hear people who engage in extreme sports say the same thing,
Ive never felt as alive as when I knew I could die any minute.
Similarly, charisma of the variety about which Weber wrote, which veers
towards magic speaks of the other-worldly capability to negotiate untravelled
boundaries and to engage anew with chaos and confusion. The clarity and surety
charisma can bring to desperate situations can be breathtaking and inspiring. I am
thinking here of Nelson Mandela, for instance, who after spending 28 years a
prisoner, was able to envision more equitable relations between all of the citizens of
South Africa and, moreover was pivotal in the relatively peaceable realization of that
vision. I wonder if the relative success of South Africas post-Apartheid transition
can be attributed to Mandelas 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 further
when recalling Mandelas inaugural speech in which he quoted Marianne
Williamsons (1985) text about each persons responsibility to be the best, most beau-
tiful and most powerful person they can be. The use of charismatic power on
Mandelas 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 could
have predicted possible during the Apartheid era. This article has argued that such
generative charismatic power could be viewed as embodiment of a sublime aesthetic
encounter, one which has brought, in this case, South Africans, to the realization of
their own capabilities in transitioning to a more equitable social and economic state.
Although charisma has been a recurring theme within the leadership canon, many
of the variations on its theme have focused on either psychological or sociological
interpretations of this phenomenon. This article has offered an interpretation of
charisma as an aesthetic encounter. Just as we are creatures imbued with our own
psychologies, living in social and socially constructed worlds, we are also creatures
sensitive 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 life
and death resting at the heart of the sublime. Charismatic leaders, I have argued, tap
into that fascination. Perhaps charismas mesmerising call enticing us with the
possibility of engagement with the other-worldly, the limitless, the unknown is one
of 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 Webers accounts due to the
very different philosophical positions each took in regard to the sublime and the
charismatic. Kant was in many ways the ultimate Enlightenment philosopher, with his
heralding of the power of reason, whereas Weber championed the view that charisma was
a mysterious and Divinely bestowed phenomenon. However, I hope to show that they way
in they analysed each of these phenomena has important similarities.
2. This process could be described psychodynamically as a process of projection and
introjection (Klein, 1946).

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Leadership 2(2) Articles

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 contributed
greatly to the rewriting of this article.

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Donna Ladkin is Director of Research at the Centre for Leadership Studies at the
University of Exeter, UK, where she also acts as Programme Director for the Centres
MA in Leadership Studies. Her current research interests include leadership as an
aesthetic form, how leaders and managers take ethical action in complex situations
and the key aspects of leading for sustainability. Exploring the interface between
theoretical concepts and their application is an important focus of her research
approach. [email: donna.ladkin@exeter.ac.uk]

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