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TopCharismatic Leadership
Across all industry sectors, the leadership style that has a tendency to emerge within hyper-competitive and high velocity environments, where change and going above and beyond the call of duty is critical for survival, has been identified as charismatic. Heifetz (1994) explains, “Particularly at the early stage of an adaptive process, charismatic authority is a very great resource for leadership” (p. 247). When there is a crisis in an organization, it is common for a charismatic leader to emerge (Pillai, 1995; Pillai & Meindle, 1991), and crisis management becomes critically important in these turbulent environments (Sheaffer, Bogler, & Sarfaty, 2011). Being responsive to crisis is one of the hallmarks of charismatic leadership (Hunt, Boal, & Dodge, 1999).
In an organizational crisis, there is a sense that an unplanned event or set of conditions may affect the performance and survival of an organization (Coombs & Holladay, 2010; Holladay & Coombs, 1994; King, 2002). Charismatic leaders provide clarity to explain unclear circumstances (Babcock-Roberson & Strickland, 2010), and they are able to convince followers to exert additional effort to achieve the goals that will bring about the leader’s vision of the future (Galvin, Balkundi, & Waldman 2010). Charismatic leaders “cause followers to become highly committed to their mission, to make significant personal sacrifices in the interest of the mission, and to perform above and beyond the call of duty” (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993, p. 577).