Even though there are many different definitions of charisma, they all seem to revolve around the ability of an individual to influence others. This includes social skills and communication, as the leader needs to be able to connect to and inspire their followers through appeal of emotions.
It was interesting to learn about the “charismatic authority” theory, which states that charismatic leadership involves the leader just as much as the follower. This theory claims that while it is necessary that a leader obtains effective persuasive skills, their success is also based on the degree to which the follower agrees and believes in what the leader has to offer. Much of what takes for a leader to be effective, however, goes back to their ability to use emotional expressiveness as an outlet to inspire others. One specific example of this kind of behavior is Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again”. Through those four words, Trump is declaring a promise to Americans that he is capable of repairing all issues in our nation. When expressing his slogan, he is satisfying voters by telling them what they want to hear. These characteristics associated with charisma allow Trump to appear loyal to his audience, even though it is extremely unlikely that he is capable of achieving full success. Through the confidence Trump possesses with his promise, he gains trust from voters… somehow.
On another note, I was shocked to learn that there is such a clear connection between charismatic leadership and dynamic attraction. This is because individuals who display energy and emotional expressiveness appear to be more trustworthy to any kind of audience. This concept makes me wonder about the possibility of training an individual to become more charismatic, which relates to our in class conversation about nature versus nurture. While it seems reasonable that developing someone’s communication and interaction skills would improve their charisma, I think it is also important to focus on emotional expressiveness, enthusiasm, drive, eloquence, vision, self-confident, and responsiveness to others. I agree with the reading in that these six characteristics are the distinguishing factor between any individual and a charismatic leader.
As this post acknowledges, I also think that it is important to recognize that a key factor to leaders becoming leaders is partly because of their followers/supporters. It is interesting to begin to explore the idea of nature vs nurture as well and how that could effect one’s charismatic tendencies and leadership qualities.
I agree with this post, I found it very interesting how the follower leader relationship is so important and can make or break a leader. I also think that this person did a great job of bringing in an outside perspective with referencing Trumps slogan for his 2016 presidential campaign. I also found the point about teaching an individual to be more charismatic and how nature vs nurture plays into it.
I really liked how you stated that leadership involves the leader as much as it involves the followers. To be an effective leader, one has to listen to and understand they followers; in order to gain a following, people have to feel like they are heard and their leader wants to help all of them. Your example of Trump somehow maintaining votes despite his views demonstrates how if a leader can reach his audience and tell them that they are heard, they will be supported by their followers.
With regards to Trump, I think that he is a very good example of the charismatic leadership equation (personal charisma + responsive followers + external situation). His followers largely consist of people who felt left behind by past administrations and were very receptive to an outsider who wanted to shake things up and “Make America Great Again.” Also, he received a lot of support from the industrial Midwest, a region that has not has jobs and stable industry for decades and is currently racked with the opioid crisis, creating the perfect circumstances for a man like Trump. He may not appeal to you or me, but clearly he does to some people.