Charismatic Leadership and Ethics from Gender Perspective.
By: Tuomo Takala & Iiris Aaltio
1. Introduction
In this paper we will explore leadership,
charismatic leadership, gender issues and ethical aspects together. All
these areas have been developed around organization studies on
leadership. There is no doubt that leadership plays a role in
organizational creation and growth. A number of studies are conducted
that have shown its dependency on surrounding cultural context, focused
on special behavioural characteristics, individual features etc.
Charismatic leadership research has developed so far from 1980´s, and
led from individual characters to analyse its nature in the mirror of
media, social environment and various other contextual up-to-date
aspects. In leadership studies gender is nowadays used as a critical
focus to understand its nature, whereas in charismatic leadership
studies gender as a focus is not used so far. We wonder is there are
issues in charismatic leadership that make it gender related and in this
paper we discuss, if the theory of charismatic leadership is gender
neutral, or, laden by features favourable to masculine aspects. We will
also cross issues from leadership theory, charismatic leadership theory
and gender studies to explore the possibility of "feminine charisma". We
use examples from political life to study their "leadership philosophy"
and its charismatic nature, using ethic as a frame. All these examples
of feminine and masculine charisma also reflect ideals about what it
means to be a good or bad leader and we will discuss if these features
also differ between women and men.
Charisma, in terms used by Max Weber (1964), means
literally "the gift of grace". It is used by Weber to characterize
self-appointed leaders followed up by people who are in distress and who
need to follow the leader because they believe him to be
extraordinarily qualified. The role of a follower is to acknowledge this
destiny, and the authority of genuine charisma is derived from the duty
of the followers to recognize the leader. The very nature of
charismatic authority is unstable; this is because the source of
charisma is continuously "moving on". It will never be stable and
unchanging.
Charismatic leader uses power on his followers, but
also the followers use power over the leader. This leads to the
question what is good and what is bad. The study of ethics of
charismatic leadership is related to questions of how to use power, i.e
which ways and in what manner. The aims and vehicles, he/she uses, are
the main objects when one evaluates the ethical behaviour of the
charismatic leader. Gender is a cultural creation instead a feature of
an individual, whether biological or psychological. It is laden with
cultural meanings, and these meanings create the gendered context for
women and men leaders to use their charisma. We discuss the possibility
of "good" or "bad" charisma in terms of gendered leadership behaviour.
While gender is a cultural creation, it is probably woven to
understanding of charisma much more than usually thought.
2. Leadership and gender
In organization studies the complex relationships
between leadership, power and gender became a research topic in 1970's,
when Rosabeth Moss Kanter started the debate on the "blind spots" of
organizational analysis (Kanter, 1977). The aspects of organizational
life that hide gender attributes of leadership and power became topical
in research. The prevailing gender-neutral tradition, particularly in
the US, was broken, and the discourse of organizations as sites where
gender attributes are presumed and reproduced, started to gain foothold
especially in 1990's. The under-representation of women in high-status
roles has been documented by feminist literature (for example Acker,
1992; Auster; 1993; Gherardi; 1995).
In organizations and management, gender segregation
and gender relations occur in roles and organizational positions, like
the (female) secretary is subordinate to the (male) boss (Pringle,
1988), in similar way the supportive wife / mother looks up to the
authoritative husband / father. There are inequalities that favor men on
various criteria including salary and professional grade. Feminist
theory argues that sex roles exist in patriarchal societies and
organizations, which are established by social structures and
relationships that favor men. (Gough, 1998). Gender regime exists and
continues to exist. (Wahl, 1992). Social roles are gendered and
determined by a variety of social, political and economic factors, and
in addition to sex and biological differences between men and women,
there are cultural and historical factors that build them. It is
generally believed that leadership, organizational culture and
communication are constructed with a masculine subtext, and dominant
views on leadership are difficult to integrate with femininity.
(Lipman-Blumen, 1992; Aaltio, 2002).
Earlier management research took it for granted that
managers were men, (see for example Mintzberg, 1973, 1989; Dalton,
1959), and ignored gender issues altogether. The so-called great-man
theory is one of the earliest management theories. It argues that
persons (men) who have influenced Western civilization, have
characteristics that are needed in a good leader.
To give an overview of leadership theories, there
are, rougly, three bodies of theories: trait, behavioural and
contingency theories (Metcalfe & Altman, 2000, 107-111). Early
theory development in 1930's and 1940's usead a trait theory approach
based on the premise that successful leaders would possess
distinguishable characteristics not found in their followers (Weiss,
1996).
Trait approaches link psychological features and
capabilities like intelligence, superior judgement, decisiveness and a
high need for achievement to leadership, and even physical features
characteristics like weight, height, physique and energy were argued to
be needed in affective leadership. This is not surprising thinking the
close link between leadership and military occupations and law
enforcement. There was a subtext in the trait theories that there are
natural reasons that lead to the fact that there are more men than women
as leaders. Instead of intelligence and logic, emotionality and
therefore irrationality suit better, stereotypically, to female traits
than to male, and in body strength they also become the second sex.
There are many interesting pieces of research like
the one by Maddock and Parkin (1993) that highlight how women in
organizations may struggle to convey appropriate female behaviour and
valued management competence. They look to be difficult to combine.
There is even "gentlemen's" culture which acknowledges the special
skills and abilites of women, leading them to "ladies' club" that
supports male management decision making. In locker room cultures there
is exclusion of women from men´s club with sporty male outlook, and
inclusion would mean to attend football matches and partaking male
sexual joking that undermine women, that means, to compromise their
feminine identity. The idealization of masculine features and seeing
them as representations of ideal leadership traits is the outcome of
these cultures.
Behavioral theories focus on managers' behavior.
There are three main types of behavioral theories. One distinguishes
between two types of behavior; task-oriented style and interpersonally
oriented style. Another distinguishes between two types of leadership;
autocratic and democratic. The third type, situational theory, regards
different types of behavior appropriate for various situations. The
behavioral theories implicitly suggest that better managers are either
masculine (i. e. high task / low interpersonal style, autocratic
decision making) or feminine (i. e. low task / high interpersonal style,
democratic decision making). (Powell, 1993), and are gendered as well
as trait theories and great-man theories are.
Behavioral theories are seemingly more
gender-neutral in that they study effective leadership in terms of
leaders help their sub-ordinates to achieve their goals. Usually, the
samples consisted male managers, seeing gender not relevant at all
(Mills, 1988). If gender sometimes was focused, there were found
interesting differences like that identical leadership style may be seen
differently depending on the gender of the manager (Eagly et al.,
1992), or the idea of sex-role spillover that refers to gender-based
expectations for behavior that are irrelevant or inappropriate to work
(discussed in Metcalfe & Altman, 2000, 108-109).
Contingency theories focus on organizational
contexts that make some leadership behaviors or features more effective
than the others. There are some studies that give emphasis on the
situation and its gendered consequences on leadership behavior. Men and
women work differently, like women communicate in a way that exchanges
feelings and creates personal relationships, whereas men communicate to
establish their status and show independence. In addition, men are
socialized to believe that they have the right to influence and the
historical evidence with male dominantly managed organizations supports
this.
3. Charismatic leadership and gender
The basic nature of charismatic leadership is in its
emotional tie between the leaders and the led. Charismatic leadership
takes place within the process between the leader and the subordinates,
which relationship is personalized and intimate and where mutual trust
prevails. Organizational contexts that allow emotionality may trigger
charismatic leadership and followership in organizations. Charismatic
leadership can also lead to bad or good consequences. We can study it
using the threatening examples taken from history, but it is also
possible to adopt a brighter and more everyday understanding of its
nature instead and see it as a commonly shared attribute.
Differences and similarities between female and male managers
Overall, there is some research made using male and
female gender as a critical factor. We now review a few of those studies
where comparisons between female and male managers are made. Powell
(1993) brings forward a modern approach to management theory and claims
that there are three perspectives on the difference between female and
male managers. (1) there are no differences between men and women as
managers, women managers try to become like men and reject the gender
stereotype. (2) men make better managers because their early
socialization experiences differ: they are playing more team sports than
girls do (Hennig and Jardim, 1977). (3) stereotypical differences
between the sexes, where women in managerial roles bring out their
feminine characteristics that tend to be stereotypical.
Feminist researchers, such as Rosener (1990), argue
that female and male leaders differ in accordance with gender
stereotypes. She argues that femininity is particularly needed in
today's work life. Rosener claims, along the same lines as Powell
(1993), Gardiner and Tiggemann (1999), that there are profound
differences between male and female leaders; female leaders concentrate
on the relationships between people whereas men tend to concentrate on
the issues or tasks. Women use more personal power, i. e. power based on
charisma and personal contacts, whereas men tend to use structural
power, i. e. power based on the organizational hierarchy and position.
(Eagly and Johnson, 1990). Lundberg and Frankenhaeuser (1999) in turn
argue that there is no difference between men and women in interpersonal
style of leadership, but that men are more task-oriented than women.
Schein's (1973) classic study concluded that both
female and male executives believed that managers possessed
characteristics that were more associated with men than with women. In
later studies that examined the perceptions of executive women, women
have no longer described successful managers as having only masculine
characteristics. More recent management theories, such as the Managerial
Grid Theory, claim that both masculine and feminine characteristics are
important in a good manager. The Theory suggests that best managers are
androgynous: they combine both (masculine) high task and (feminine)
high interpersonal styles. (Powell 1993). Although the concept of
androgyny has received mixed support, one aspect has been agreed upon:
Leadership is generally conceived in masculine terms (Goktepe and
Schneier, 1988; Kruse and Wintermantel, 1986), but also feminine
features are needed in a manager. Frankenhaeuser et al. (1989) claim
that female managers are psychologically more androgynous than men
suggesting that female managers absorb masculine features, whereas men
stick to the masculine style more.
Some researchers suggest that women should adopt a
masculine style to become accepted as leaders (Sapp, Harrod, and Zhao,
1996). Women in leading positions have shown to be more masculine
(Fagenson, 1990). However, Watson (1988) has indicated that masculine
women's performance level is low, and women choosing such a strategy
often experience role conflicts (Geis, 1993). Baril, Elbert,
Mahar-Potter and Reavy (1989) claim that adopting one's masculine and
feminine behavior to suit each situation separately might be the best
approach. Powell (1993) argues that both feminine managers and
androgynous managers seem to fit in today's work environment. This is
true even if the managerial, masculine favorable subtext still exists.
However, management and leadership are dependent on the local context
and culture where they are practiced, and this makes drawing universal
theories difficult. When overall conclusions are led, the outcome looks
to be that masculine is dominant. When we essentialize the difference,
the implication is that women lead not like men, but are lesser than men
or men with a lack (Oseen, 1997). This is because people hold sex
stereotypical beliefs and attitudes about women and men, and not tend to
see that women as leaders can be as competent as their male colleagues.
About charisma and leadership
Even ancient philosophers like Plato already talked
about charisma, society and leadership. Plato's view of leadership, from
a normative standpoint, was that a leader must be a man of power with a
sincerely truth-seeking vision. According to Plato, a leader must have
charisma, a gift of grace, to be successful in his actions. Without
charisma, a leader is unable to do his job, to head an organization. And
this charisma is something mystical, which cannot be obtained by force
or through training. It is of divine origin. Charisma is based on the
aura of the leader's exceptional quality and deviates from the
prototypical (Weber, 1964, Takala, 1998).
Leadership theories can be divided into
transactional and transformational theories Conger & Kanungo, 1998).
In the transactional approach, leaders are seen as people who motivate
and guide their followers in the direction of established goals by
clarifying their role and their tasks. There is also another type of
leader who inspires his or her followers to transcend their own
self-interests for the good of the organization and who is capable of
having a profound and extraordinary effect on the followers. Among these
leaders, who may be called transformational, are charismatic leaders
such as Mother Teresa and Lee Iacocca. They use their personal abilities
to transform their followers' values by creating a sense of importance
and value to the tasks. The inspirationality of the leadership function
is emphasized in these approaches.
Charismatic leadership in organizations has recently
been the focus of several organizational studies (Steyer, 1998, Gardner
& Avolio, 1998), even though basic conceptual work (Bryman, 1992,
Cogner & Kanungo, 1987, 1998) and empirical work (House, 1977) has
been ongoing in the field from 70´s onwards. Nowadays it is often
studied in relation to organizational contexts (like Aaltio-Marjosola
& Takala, 1999). The interrelationships between the leader's inner
world and its outcomes affect the nature of organizational culture and
even the strategic choices made in the company, as pointed out in
several investigations. Among the outcomes there are also the effects
of the dark sides of the leaders personalities on organizations, as
amphasized in the psychodynamic approaches (Kets de Vries and Miller,
1984).
Charisma is stigmatized by the glory given to a
selected few. Charisma can serve not but personal interests but the
society, and the organization as a whole. The followers must feel the
over-individual, leader-independent targets and visions in charismatic
leader context, in order to commit themselves to their leadership style.
A charismatic leader´s selfisheness and narcissism may together lead to
undesired consequences, whereas the unselfish and sacrificing features
of a charismatic leader may be seen to bring about desired and admirable
consequences. The nature of charisma is not very rational. Charisma
works between the leaders and their followers and is evidently based on
authority given to the leader only because of his or her overwhelming
knowledge or experience, but rather is based on his or her personal
characteristics. The acceptance of charisma, from the follower's point
of view, can be regarded as dubious and showing the tendency to be
easily impressed by others - a sign of weakness and subordination.
Followers may leave space for irrational forces to operate in society
(Aaltio-Marjosola, 1994).
The discussion on charisma in leadership and
organizations takes often a tone of danger. Charisma has sometimes been
interpreted as the politically dubious characteristics of individuals in
society, and it is searched the psychological mechanisms which lead to
the emergence of charismatic leaders and attraction of such leaders to
the people that follow them. Totalitarian aspects of societies and the
truth manipulation practiced by charismatic leaders are negative and
undesired consequences of charismatic leadership, as some gloomy
examples taken from the history show (Aaltio-Marjosola & Takala,
2001)..
Recent developments have brought insights that
emphasize the organizational contexts of charismatic leadership, as well
as its consequences for organizations and followers. It looks as if
charismatic leadership comes into question especially when the visionary
nature, transformational role and emotionality of leadership is
explored. In general, charismatic followership is crucial for
understanding charismatic leadership and the processes by which it takes
place. The legitimacy of charisma and charismatic leadership is
sociologically and psychologically attributed to the belief of the
followers and not so much to the quality of the leader. In this respect,
the leaders are important because they can 'charismatically' evoke this
sense of belief and can thereby demand obedience. At the same time the
nature of charisma is not very rational. Charisma works between the
leaders and their followers, and is evidently not based on authority
given to the leader only because of his or her overwhelming knowledge or
experience, but rather is based on his or her personal characteristics.
The message of sceptical approaches towards charismatic leadership is
that the charisma of leaders together with its acceptance by followers
may leave space for 'irrational' forces to operate in society. This
allows extra space for persuasion and manipulation in charismatic
leadership.
Charismatic leadership is created in the ongoing
process between leaders and followers in which the environment,
different actors and different audiences play their role in defining a
situation and in jointly constructing a charismatic leadership.
Charismatic leaders make efforts to manage their followers' impressions
of themselves by framing, scripting, staging and performing, which
constitute the basic phases in the process.
Charismatic leadership and ethical dimensions
In such processes between the leaders and the led
ethics and emotions are important. Applied business ethics, in its
traditional form, seeks to "say and define" what kind of action Good
Business Life is. A tricky issue is that different ethical theories
state different criteria, and thus give different and occasionally
contradictory solutions to ethical problems. Applied business ethics can
be used in the role of a guardian in evaluating which kind of
charismatic leadership is "good" or "bad", or "right" or "wrong", when
studying its effect on the followers and on society as a whole. But
values are both born socially and they die socially. There is no
objective measure for value, and not only one right way of defining and
explaining charisma. Traditional ethical theories are also rational in
the sense that they imply cutting off emotions and the so-called
irrational elements of the mind, or in general they do not focus on
them. But certainly charismatic leadership involving persuasion and
rhetoric between the leaders is emotionally charged. By contextualizing
it is possible to break the guardianship and explore ethical issues in
the field by showing the multiplicity and complexity in real-life
occurrences of charismatic leadership.
Business ethics is a controversial issue, although
it is seen as a vital part of everyday business life. The importance of
ethics has usually been justified by suggesting that most people want
to live in a society in which justice and charity prevail. Concern for
business ethics is also a matter of practical life when the economic
system is considered. The economic systems can endure only if they
operate in such a way that the majority of the people believe that at
least some degree of justice prevails there. If the system lacks
legitimacy, it is likely to fail. Conger and Kanungo (1998, 213) refer
to Thomas Aquinas, according to whom the moral goodness of behaviors
should be judged on the basis of the objective act itself, the
subjective motive of the actor, and the context in which this act is
performed. Applying this to charismatic leadership, there are three
ethical dimensions: the leader's motives, the leader´s influence
strategies, and the leader's character formation. As further analyzed
by Kanungo and Mendonca (1996), charismatic leadership in its positive
form is altruistic, influences in empowering ways, emphasizes vision by
changing followers' core attitudes, beliefs and values, and manifests
needs that are self-developmental. In negative forms there are egoistic
interests, control strategies, needs for personal power, and emphasis
on compliance behavior and identification with the leader, that makes
the charismatic leadership unethical. We now ask if charismatic theory
with ethical dimensions is gender biased.
4. Discussion on gender differences in charismatic leadership
Often sport teams with coaching give excellent
examples about how to succeed in leadership. Even if the context for
leadership differs in business enterprises and sports, there are similar
issues: there is an intimate contact between the leader and the
followers and the creation of team spirit. One example of charismatic
sport leadership comes from Curt Lindström (Aaltio-Marjosola &
Takala, 2000), who successfully coached the Finnish ice-hockey team in
1993-94 into World Championship. As a personality C.L. was not an
extravert character, but rather resembled the Finnish "deep charisma"
with humility, humbleness and silence. There is a lot of dramatics and
theatre in Curre's behavior as well, and even impression management
style looks to appear. Charisma will emerge, ripen, and fall down,
which was also true with C.L. Paradoxically, there are no examples
until now of female coaches who would be given the label of charisma;
even in theatres, orchestras and other cultural organizations there
looks to appear more men than women. Overall, leadership charisma with
its strong emphasis on individuality and autonomy looks to apply more to
male character than to women - exactly the same way as there are fewer
women as leaders in top positions of organizations all over the world.
But there are some examples of women who may be
characterized as very charismatic, even in their old meanings of divine
origin. Mother Theresa, who worked in Indian slums, was given the label
of a "good" person because she sacrified her life and made people in
slums see their future lighter. Also Margaret Thatcher was a
charismatic leader, in many ways having a strong impact on her
followers, a strong vision for Britain that she held before the EU
entering by England, and it was argued that her way to lead was very
'male-like', in a negative way, and she got labeled as an Iron Lady, in
fact judged to be very masculine. She was loved and hated at the same
time. In England there were also other ancient strong queens, like the
Bloody Mary from Scotland.
Also a sort of ancient 'military' female leader was
Jeanne D'Arch, a French young, poor shepherd girl who got a divine
vision and led the solders for victories towards British army. She was
later burnt as a witch in England. She happened to express very feminine
characteristics, sensitivity - being able to get the divine vision -
and being able to share her vision with the military forces, becoming a
symbol of French patriotism in those times. There is a somewhat similar
kind of Finnish story about Liisa Eriksdaughter in 1700-1800's, based
on an investigation by Irma Sulkunen (1999). Also Liisa was a young
shepherd girl from Kalanti in 1750's. She started a large-spread
ecstasian movement in Finnish cultural structures. As Sulkunen argues,
those structures are seen in religious revival movements, but as well in
mental and ideological-social practices.
Liisa Eriskdaughter, a shepherd girl became in an
odd way 'hit by God', being alone in Santtio forest with the cattle. She
read the book by Arthur Dent about religious revival. There was a page
telling about sufferings and pains of those driven to hell. Liisa
continued reading and fell a deep sleep, waking up after a while with a
scream. Pain and threat were so real that that Liisa thought to be in
hell. She run, being greatly confused, to a village, and repeated what
she had seen to the village inhabitants. After some time the whole
village started the same scream, wiping and crying, because of their
pagan, unchristian life. 'Madness', said someone, 'women's fancies',
said another. Something like that had happened also before. But now it
became differently. The odd phenomena did nod stop in Santtio but
spread like a wind, felling down people also in other places. There
were similar stories about these outbursts, where mind and body became
confused. Later those women gave religious speeches. Chaotic group
movements spread, and also men joined those separatistic movements.
Later there became new female revivers, some of those also older women
as well, but the process of felling down was very much the same. Later
the church took quite negative attitude towards the movements, and they
moved far to East in Finland. Near the Eastern cost there was built a
group of women revivers, who wandered around Eastern Finland. Later
the atmosphere towards them became very negative. They were labeled as
'hysterical fancy-old-women' who treated the healthy Finnish
Christianity. They should be silenced by men - and it was especially
pointed the Bible messages according to which women should be silent in
the congregation. As in the case of Jeanne D'Arch, also nationalism and
patriotism walked hand in hand with religious revivals, so the treat
for the state power and to male administrators, was multiple. "The
healthy national fundamentals" gave their strict judgment to this turbid
ecstasy, unruly mental behavior, that was breaking down the patriarchal
hierarchy, and first of all, women's stepping down to modern arenas of
powerful, influential positions in political and earlier church
organization arenas. The image of women that these ecstasy movements
pictured also became very opposite to that one built in educated, active
and healthy women's movement that was religious as well. Shamanism was
labeled as bad, a threat to the society and the communities rejected
the ecstasy women, who, however, took their place at the history.
A person with a lot of charisma, but with very
questionable consequences is Osama bin Laden. As a charismatic leader
there are some notions that describe him and his ways to be a leader.
Matters dealing with Osama bin Laden (abbrev.OSB) were considered in
media very often during the last few years. He is called monster, hero,
freak, manipulator and so on. However, there evidently are features that
make it worth believing that he represents a kind of a leader, called
charismatic leader.
Max Weber defined the ideal types of leadership as
follows, bureaucratic, traditional and charismatic. Afghanistan, Osama's
home country, can be defined as traditional society with many tribes
and villages. It has the long tradition of powerful tribe-leaders.
Charismatic leadership emerges at periods of transition in societies.
Those sad happenings in the WTC's towers in Washington were starting
shots for the new coming of Bin Laden as charismatic leader. Charismatic
leaders, to be successful, demand unordinary conditions in the
community.
Magical nature of charismatic leadership is commonly
accepted phenomenon. It has been said that OSB lives in dark gave, and
he has some kind of magical powers. His super natural talents give him
strong possibilities to influence his followers. Leader-follower
relation is in this case very tight. Here comes manipulation in the
picture. The dark side of charisma convinces us the power and ethics of
using power. The leader must have strong sense of personal
responsibility to be a good charismatic leader. There have existed cases
in which fatal consequences are more a rule than an exception.
Charismatic leadership is based on the emotions. It
is irrational, as Weber put it. It is also interactive situation and
relation, leader has power over his followers, but followers have power
over the leader. The power becomes legitimised. The follower will obey
in cases when his/her values are congruent with values of the leader.
This is not coercion, but a voluntary action.
Presenting a vision of better life is one issue in
Osama's agenda. He has a video in order to recruit new members to his
group in which he puts forth some ideas concerning the wholly war.
First, it is told why the whole muslim-world must rise against U.S.
Second, it is told that the duty of every Muslim is to join in this war.
Third, the vision of better life is presented, and the way to that is
Ajihad. The texts of Koran and other writings of the wholly men are used
as legitimize the jihad. In the end, there are showed terrorist
training camps in Afghanistan. These camps offer a potential force for
better world according to Osama's video.
The Latin word terreo means something like
terrorize, or frighten people. The act of terror is messaging. Terrorist
wants leave his message in any means. The purpose is justifying the
means. His own ethical code is seen as suitable inner norm e.g for
killing people if this is necessary to reach the ultimate purpose. This
is a power in question, a power of media. The power rhetoric of media is
based on violent messaging. The victims of terrorists are only means
not purposes to terrorists. The discourse of violence constructs the
subject receiving the message. Terrorist leaves his message, violence
means more power on communication. We can see that this is a kind of
talk, which is aimed to great public. The great public is a very general
audience. The discourse of terrorism demands global audience to be
effective.
To study the ethical dimensions of charismatic
leadership, and roughly place them in four boxes, we can put some of the
figures now in their place.
ETHICAL DIMENSION
GOOD
ERIKSDAUGHTER JEANNE D'ARC |
ERIKSDAUGHTER, JEANNE D'ARC JEESUS CURRE LINDSRÖM |
BLOODY MARY MARGARET THATCHER |
OSAMA BIN LADEN HITLER IVAN THE CRUEL |
BAD
FEMININE "GENDER DIMENSION" MASCULINE
Figure 1. Gender and ethical dimension of charismatic leadership
Female and male characters carry charisma in ways
that may differ. Many characterizations about charisma suit better to
masculine ideals. This difference is not so much about the "real"
differences people hold that means, their physiological differences, or
tested psychological differences concerning mental abilities or
personality issues. As much there are culturally based expectations,
institutional and other that come from the audiences, from the followers
and that have impact what is expected about female charisma. What is
credible, allowed female charismatic leadership, what are the general
stereotypes about essential female behaviour, and how these suit to
charismatic ideals.
In general, stereotypic traits of women and men differ (Rosenkranz, 1968, Brannon, 2002, 165):
Women:
-
- Gentle
- Talkative
- aware of feelings of others
- interested in own appearance
- neat in habits
- strong need for security
- expresses tender feelings
- tactful
- does not use harsh language
- quiet
-
- wordy
- active
- competitive
- dominant
- makes decisions easily
- independent
- logical
- direct
- acts as a leader
- ambitious
- able to separate feelings from ideas
- adventurous
The given stereotypes of men fit much better to
definitions of leadership, especially to notion of transformational
leadership. If we look at charismatic leadership definitions with a
strong impact, often personal, that people make on their followers, the
list, again fits much better to men than women. Women, portrayed as a
passive, traditional, silent sex, fit evidently better for the role of
followers. Mother Theresa might present a typical, accepted female
charisma because she sacrifices for the other, for "higher" targets (to
work for the poor people) with a caring attitude, the special and
honoured feminine characteristics.
From the followers point of view, taking the example
of Liisa Eriksdaughter, she used charisma, but in a very suggestive,
manipulative and emotional way. She became a symbol of extreme female
"inner" nature, features that turned out to be negative and a danger for
the ruling class. She was a charismatic "witch" that created feelings
on her followers, but she also led them wrongly, to wrong directions.
The vision she held was important, but only for a while, and not led to
remarkable social movements. Also Jeanne D'Arch was burnt as a witch,
after leading the French solders with a dream, vision for France, that
she got while sleeping.
To be a "bad" charismatic leader would mean to
manipulate followers, being egoistic, aggressive, to lead a group of
followers for evil consequences (Osama bin Laden). Female charisma
(like Jeanne D'Arch) might work in another way, leading people (in this
case men) to wrong direction in a chaotic way, manipulate, lead with
uncontrolled emotions, making people to follow without their own
consideration. The ruling class (British, USA and the unmuslim world)
sees the charisma of Jeanne D'Arch and OBL in a negative light. They
are charismatic leaders, but only to their own followers - for the
others they become enemies with evil acts and consequences. From
relational point of view "good" and "bad" charisma are much more
difficult to separate than it first looks. Sport coach like Curt
Lindström is working in a way that does not cause any harm for the
followers, he is neutral in that way.
There are much fewer female leaders than men, and
there are much fewer charismatic female leaders than male ones. The
whole idea that leaders use power, fit better to male ideals compared to
female ones. Transformational leadership, part of any charismatic
leadership with a strong, visionary and change agent- type of leading
style fits better to male stereotypes than to female ones (look the
earlier picture). Again the bad consequences of charismatic leadership
style look to be gendered again: men's actions lead to warring, women´s
to chaos and manipulation that threatens the ruling class ways that are
suggestive. They both use the magic, the divine vision and the holy
truth with divine origin, but end with bad consequences: killing people
or rising patriotism that leads to war. A bad female charismatic leader
might look as a witch, and a bad male charismatic leader as a devil,
the sins they commit with, differs. A good charismatic leader is
portrayed as self-sacrifying, inegoistic, and visionary in a sense that
does not hurt anybody else, but works for other, more commonly shared
and accepted targets, the holy mother and the humble saint would be the
examples.
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