Visionary versus crisis-induced charismatic leadership: An experimental test

This laboratory study attempts to determine whether there are two types of charismatic leadership, crisisinduced as well as visionary, by examining the effects of both types on followers. This study also investigates the existence of both types of leader charisma across time. The results of this study offer evidence that charismatic leadership differs from noncharismatic or transactional leadership. Followers' perceived performance under both types of charismatic leaders was stronger than perceived performance under transactional leadership. Followers' perceptions of charisma followed a similar pattern in that perceptions of leader charisma in both the crisis-induced charismatic and visionary charismatic conditions were stronger than perceptions of charisma in the transactional leadership condition. Only in one case, task completion, was crisis-induced charisma significantly different from (stronger than) visionary charisma. An investigation of the temporal effects of leader charisma revealed that followers' task performance (task completion) under a crisis-induced charismatic leader declined after the crisis and remained stable over time for both the visionary and transactional leaders. Also as hypothesized, followers' perceptions of charisma remained stable across time in the visionary leadership condition. Finally, task meaningfulness was found to act as a moderator on the effects of crisis-induced charismatic leadership. There was a significant interaction between task meaningfulness and leadership on task accuracy and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE). High task meaningfulness was associated with high scores on both criterion variables in the crisis-induced charismatic leadership condition.