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  • 1.  Charismatic Leadership

    Posted 08-14-2014 13:20

    Dear Colleagues,

    Charismatic leadership was a "waste basket" hypothesis employed by Max Weber (1947) to dump all the variance in organizational behavior unexplained by his bureaucratic hypothesis (Cucina, Hayes, Walmsley, & Martin, 2014).  A hypothesis is not a tested theory in social science.  It is an untested hypothesis or an educated guess without scientific support "Scientific theories verify themselves by surviving repeated experimental tests" (Pasachoff, & Filippenko, 2014, p. 15), e.g., LMX theory.

    Charismatic leadership has not been properly tested (van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013).  In fact, no study has shown that leaders agree with their followers on the manager's possession of the imaged gift of charismatic leadership.  Although most managerial leaders would say they sprinkle some charisma on all their people, some subordinates disagree strongly.  The research on "transformational" or charismatic leadership consistently showed that some followers in a unit received charismatic treatment while others did not.  The correlations between haves and have nots within a unit and leadership outcomes were as strong as those supporting LMX theory.  In fact, meta analysis revealed the estimated population correlation between the transformational measure of charisma and LMX was between .80 and .90 (Graen, 2014).  Although this was taken as positive support for charisma, the results were negative.  Followers systematically disagreed about the charismatic leadership of their managers.  Moreover, tests of the intersubjective validity between leaders and followers was ever published for charismatic leadership.  If leaders and followers do not agree that a leader employed charisma leadership, the measure cannot support the hypothesis (Graen, 2014).  In contrast, the LMX agreement between leaders and followers at the dyadic level is about 90% which supports LMX theory.

    The confusion regarding how the charismatic hypothesis concerning the average behavior of a leader toward the team cannot be supported by dyadic data should be clear.  It is an error in logic.  Charismatic leadership was hypothesized at the unit level and wrongly tested at the dyadic level.  Clearly, when followers systematically disagree regarding the leader's use of charisma, the unit level hypothesis goes unsupported.  Where were all the journal reviewers?  Who missed this?

    My final point in this note is that Leader-Member Exchange Theory accounts for all of the outcomes of studies employing the poor substitute (charisma) for LMX-7 and LMX-7 has shown intersubjective agreement between leaders and members.  In sum, the charismatic leadership hypothesis adds nothing to the power of LMX theory of managerial leadership (Grace & Graen, 2014).  Please let charismatic leadership rest in peace.  We grow weary of repeatedly burying a seductive but useless hypothesis.  LMX theory has generated many fruitful new hypotheses that will extend its explanatory power.  Why not contribute to a useful theory?  I realize it is fun to play with hypothesis, but these are parlor games like that of the cognitive dissonance hypothesis.

    Cheers,

    George Graen

     

    References

    ·       Cucina, J. M., Hayes, T. L., Walmsley, P. T., & Martin, N. R. (2014).  It is time to get medieval on the overproduction of pseudo theory? Industrial and Organizational Psychology Perspective 7, 3 356–364.

    ·       Grace, M. & Graen, G. B. (2014).  Millennial spring: Designing the Future of Organizations.  LMX leadership: The series Vol IX.  Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

    ·       Graen, G. B. (2014). What have we learned that is intersubjectively testable regarding the leadership process and leadership-performance relations?  Industrial and Organizational Psychology Perspective on Science and Practice, 7, 1, 193-196.

    ·       Pasachoff, J. M. & Filippenko, A. (2014).  The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium (4th ed.) New York, NY: Cambridge University Press

    ·       van Knippenberg, D. & Sitkin, S. B.  (2013).  A Critical Assessment of Charismatic-Transformational Leadership Research: Back to the Drawing Board? Academy of Management Annals, 7, 1, 1-60.

    ·       Weber, M. 1947. The theory of social and economic organization. (Translated by A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons) New York: Oxford University Press.

     

     



  • 2.  Charismatic Leadership

    Posted 08-14-2014 15:44

    George,

     

    It was please meeting you at the AOM in Philadelphia. I wish that I had your note below when I was writing a chapter on leadership for the book, Shared Entrepreneurship: A Path to Engaged Employee Ownership, that was just published yesterday by Palgrave-McMillian (See URL below if interested in this book). In Chapter2, I wrote:

     

    "Another difference that became apparent in the interviews and conversations was the use of the descriptive terms "worker-owners" used to describe their leaders. Words not commonly part of the leadership theory vocabulary were used, such as "honest," "sincere," "cares for others," "intense," "integrity," "trust," and "puts others first." A search of over 100 hours of transcribed interviews did not identify one leader described as charismatic. Some, but not all leaders, could probably be described as charismatic, but this was not reported by the worker-owners as an important attribute. One could argue that the "leaders' honesty, sincerity, caring for others, intensity, integrity, and putting others first" overcame any lack of charisma that they might have."

    I could have added that a computer search of thousands of written comments also failed to reveal charisma as an important attribute. Judge, T. A. and  Piccolo, R. F. in 2004 analyzed 87 studies in "Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Test of Their Relative Validity," in Journal of Applied Psychology, 89: 755–768. On page 755, they concluded in the abstract, "...transformational leadership failed to predict leader performance." As van Knippenberg & Sitkin  (2013) suggest, we need to look elsewhere if we want to understand leadership.

    Frank

     

    Frank Shipper, PH.D.

    PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT

    PERDUE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

    SALISBURY UNIVERSITY

    SALISBURY, MD 21801-6860

    fmshipper@Salisbury.edu

    http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~fmshipper/Shared_Entrepreneurship.pdf

     

    From: Management Education and Development Discussion [mailto:MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of George Graen
    Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2014 1:20 PM
    To: MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Charismatic Leadership

     

    Dear Colleagues,

    Charismatic leadership was a "waste basket" hypothesis employed by Max Weber (1947) to dump all the variance in organizational behavior unexplained by his bureaucratic hypothesis (Cucina, Hayes, Walmsley, & Martin, 2014).  A hypothesis is not a tested theory in social science.  It is an untested hypothesis or an educated guess without scientific support "Scientific theories verify themselves by surviving repeated experimental tests" (Pasachoff, & Filippenko, 2014, p. 15), e.g., LMX theory.

    Charismatic leadership has not been properly tested (van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013).  In fact, no study has shown that leaders agree with their followers on the manager's possession of the imaged gift of charismatic leadership.  Although most managerial leaders would say they sprinkle some charisma on all their people, some subordinates disagree strongly.  The research on "transformational" or charismatic leadership consistently showed that some followers in a unit received charismatic treatment while others did not.  The correlations between haves and have nots within a unit and leadership outcomes were as strong as those supporting LMX theory.  In fact, meta analysis revealed the estimated population correlation between the transformational measure of charisma and LMX was between .80 and .90 (Graen, 2014).  Although this was taken as positive support for charisma, the results were negative.  Followers systematically disagreed about the charismatic leadership of their managers.  Moreover, tests of the intersubjective validity between leaders and followers was ever published for charismatic leadership.  If leaders and followers do not agree that a leader employed charisma leadership, the measure cannot support the hypothesis (Graen, 2014).  In contrast, the LMX agreement between leaders and followers at the dyadic level is about 90% which supports LMX theory.

    The confusion regarding how the charismatic hypothesis concerning the average behavior of a leader toward the team cannot be supported by dyadic data should be clear.  It is an error in logic.  Charismatic leadership was hypothesized at the unit level and wrongly tested at the dyadic level.  Clearly, when followers systematically disagree regarding the leader's use of charisma, the unit level hypothesis goes unsupported.  Where were all the journal reviewers?  Who missed this?

    My final point in this note is that Leader-Member Exchange Theory accounts for all of the outcomes of studies employing the poor substitute (charisma) for LMX-7 and LMX-7 has shown intersubjective agreement between leaders and members.  In sum, the charismatic leadership hypothesis adds nothing to the power of LMX theory of managerial leadership (Grace & Graen, 2014).  Please let charismatic leadership rest in peace.  We grow weary of repeatedly burying a seductive but useless hypothesis.  LMX theory has generated many fruitful new hypotheses that will extend its explanatory power.  Why not contribute to a useful theory?  I realize it is fun to play with hypothesis, but these are parlor games like that of the cognitive dissonance hypothesis.

    Cheers,

    George Graen


     

    References

    ·       Cucina, J. M., Hayes, T. L., Walmsley, P. T., & Martin, N. R. (2014).  It is time to get medieval on the overproduction of pseudo theory? Industrial and Organizational Psychology Perspective 7, 3 356–364.

    ·       Grace, M. & Graen, G. B. (2014).  Millennial spring: Designing the Future of Organizations.  LMX leadership: The series Vol IX.  Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

    ·       Graen, G. B. (2014). What have we learned that is intersubjectively testable regarding the leadership process and leadership-performance relations?  Industrial and Organizational Psychology Perspective on Science and Practice, 7, 1, 193-196.

    ·       Pasachoff, J. M. & Filippenko, A. (2014).  The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium (4th ed.) New York, NY: Cambridge University Press

    ·       van Knippenberg, D. & Sitkin, S. B.  (2013).  A Critical Assessment of Charismatic-Transformational Leadership Research: Back to the Drawing Board? Academy of Management Annals, 7, 1, 1-60.

    ·       Weber, M. 1947. The theory of social and economic organization. (Translated by A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons) New York: Oxford University Press.