Charisma and the Archetypes of Leadership

TLDR

The model builds on Max Weber’s definition of charisma, contrasting it with the New Leadership Approach’s polymorphous phenotype. The study aims to develop a business‑organizational charisma model grounded in social‑cognitive information processing, operationalizing charisma beyond prototypical attributes. The authors define four leadership archetypes—hero, father, saviour, and king—to operationalize charisma within this framework. The model reveals a clear correlation between charisma and stigma, showing that hyper‑ and anti‑representativity, as well as social dramatization and reversion, can generate charismatic allocation.

Abstract

The following contribution attempts to develop a charisma model in the context of business organizations, based on a social-cognitive information processing approach in the perception of leadership. It tries to operationalize charisma, departing from prototypical attributes that are inherent in the cognitive category of leadership. In contrast to the 'New Leadership Approach', we depart from a 'polymorphous phenotype' of charisma. This position is derived from the concept of charisma as Max Weber understands it. Based on the concept of 'archetypes' of leadership, four different phenotypes are then defined: the hero ('heroic charisma'), the father ('paternalistic charisma'), the saviour ('missionary charisma') and the king ('majestic charisma'). The main idea of this model is the correlation that is brought out clearly between charisma and stigma, and thus also the idea that both 'hyper-representativity' and 'anti-representativity' as well as 'social dramatization' and 'social reversion' can occasion the allocation of charisma.