The Enchantment of the Charismatic Leader: Charisma Reconsidered as Aesthetic Encounter

Abstract

This article takes a novel approach to understanding the phenomenon of charisma by viewing it through the frame of the aesthetic category of the sublime. It draws similarities between the account of the sublime as theorized by the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, and the theory of charismatic authority as rendered by Max Weber. The resulting analysis contributes insight into the phenomenon in three ways: it serves to locate the experience of charisma as a relational encounter rather than one situated solely within the leader him or herself, it highlights contextual factors which contribute to the experience of charismatic leadership, and it suggests a new way of distinguishing between generative and degenerative forms of charisma based in its relational quality rather than in outcomes associated it. The article concludes that, interpreted as an expression of the sublime, charismatic leadership functions as a means by which followers are empowered to wake up to their own sense of agency to respond in radical ways during times of crisis.