Charisma and Leadership, Cultural Implication Regarding Charismatic Communication - Essay Example

TOPIC: CHARISMA AND LEADERSHIP, CULTURAL IMPLICATION REGARDING CHARISMATIC COMMUNICATION (your Name) (Institution's Name) As defined by Psychology Today Magazine, Charisma is a trait, in a person that involves eloquence, leadership abilities, persuasiveness and charm. This traits makes a person seem supernatural over others in his or her ability to lead, inspire, persuade or even bringing influence on people. This grace makes a person draw the attention of others through his/her positive or his/her negative personality or appearance. Related to the above qualities of charismatic individuals is their ability to bring or show high degree of confidence, dominance, calmness and assertiveness. The communication style is superb since they are eloquent and they do pass whatever information they have to their audience with much ease. They do pass these by simply being clear, forceful and articulate fluent and occasionally slowing down in their speech for tension and sometimes as a sign of emphasis. These qualities are said to be a part from ordinary people. they are taken to be either supernatural or beyond what other human beings may have and are taken to be beyond normal or exemplary. Any individual who holds such qualities therefore be they men or women are taken to be leaders. Hence charisma and leadership can not be separated .Any leader has to posses several if not all of this traits if he/ she wants to lead Psychology Today Magazine in any capacity i.e. political arena, acting pop-music stars, public speakers to mention a few. This is because a leader has to develop a magnetic force that automatically connects him to whatever audience he or she speaks to. Three attributes have been cited that makes a charismatic individual lead other and hence be regarded as a leader. Firstly emotions play a very crucial role. (Bhindi, 1997) It is their strong emotions that they feel or burn within that makes them persuasive dominate others and convince others to follow their own ideologies. Secondly, charismatic people are able to inject their strong emotions to look real in other individuals making them change their minds and their ways of thinking to rhyme with their own. Thirdly charismatic people are very conscious or sensitive to any influence that other charismatic people have brought to people. This they do in order to find new ways of detaching people from what they had earlier believed to their own beliefs. Physical features have also been attributed to being charismatic. For example an open posture depicts confidence or even sometimes dominance. Standing up straight while talking also shows that the person is confident of themselves and this is also admired by their audiences. Acknowledging and also giving a nod to what is spoken, looking at the people in their eyes and moving eyes to the whole audiences are also taken to be other qualities of a good charismatic person and a leader. There are theories that have explained that the charismatic leader is taken to be parent whom people believe will guide and nature them to solve problems that people have. They are also taken to be people who know much more than the rest and maybe from previous achievements are perceived to be people who can solve the current or even future problems of the people. A leader leads and therefore must have an information that empowers him or her above all other people. (Bhindi, 1997) The parent-child relationship that crops up between the leader and his followers enables the leader therefore to manipulate his follower’s perceptions, thoughts and more so emotions. This makes it very possible for any charismatic leader to prevail and grow more powerful in any environment to the extent of abusing power even though he /she had good intentions at first. Charisma is a word which is does not know good or bad. This means that it does not bring out the difference between good or moral values and immoral deeds. This is the reason why some of the known leaders like Adolf Hilter used their powerful charismatic leadership in the negative perspective. This is because any evil charismatic leader uses power for his/her own gain and imposes decision on others by being insensitive to any needs of other people especially his/her own followers. (www.apa.org) On the other hand any moral charismatic leader uses his power knowing that he/she is a servant of his followers hence accepts criticism ,accepts views, from his/her own followers. This means with an ethical charismatic leader there is a win-win situation or form of communication. A charismatic leader exercises charismatic authority over his /her own follower's .It is also this authority that brings on obedience and loyalty from his/her own followers. This is well done through their persuasive and convincing tactics that are depicted in their communication. This develops a sense of trust in their followers and this makes them dominate their followers in almost all the matters. Charismatic leaders take time to study their followers’ needs and problems and uses this as tools to convince their followers to believe that they are able to solve this problems and give better answers to their followers problems. Hence authority has also to be exercised by any charismatic leader who wants to remain in his/her position for a long time. One quality of a leader is inspiration. This means that a leader has to be smart or attractive to his/her followers especially in the way he/she handles the problems of his/her own followers. He/she should be ready to listen ,act and solve problems in time, being role models and using their abilities to motivate others. With their inspirational communication they are able to motivate their followers using symbols, stories, songs and slogans which relate to the speech directed to their followers. This instills confidence in followers that their leader is able to speak on their behalf and act as their spokes person who puts forward their grievances to be heard by the outside world. Since this traits of a charismatic leader are not found with many people it can be said therefore that it is an inborn trait which a child shows even while he/she is young. If well observed children in early ages can show signs of dominating, influencing and leading other children in their games or talking. This rhymes with the definition of leader. Courage and ability to convince other children to play a certain game instead of the one suggested by other colleagues shows a sign of dominance despite any resistance which characterizes leadership. Other theories have suggested that leadership is learnt and not inborn. However, for a child to grow to become a charismatic leader, the environment matters a lot. This is because if a child grows with a strong self-image then he/she can develop all of the qualities or traits of a charismatic leader. On the other hand if a child grows under a harsh environment then some of this qualities or traits may not develop and hence affect the leadership qualities in the child. Hence charisma and leadership start when children are young and it is advisable to nurture these traits while children are young. There are cultural implications regarding charismatic communication. This implication can either be positive or negative as cited earlier that charismatic communication related to leadership can either be positive or negative. Firstly charismatic communication can instill confidence. In any society regarding their culture there are cultural beliefs which have been taken to be inferior as compared to others and this has either caused the people involved to be regarded as inferior to other people. Through charismatic communications which persuade, convince and depict leadership abilities the confidence of such people is restored. The cultural values and ways of life of such communities is respected and regarded with respect. Secondly through charismatic communication an ethical charismatic individual turns followers into people who can lead themselves such that various cultural groups can be able to take responsibility in all matters of their ways of life. This goes along way into reducing over-dependency on outside forces, such cultural groups can therefore take charge of their development agenda's without necessary seeking for assistance from outside forces. This is only possible if their confidence is restored through charismatic communication which induces in them courage that their culture is superior and not inferiors as other people may perceive it. Thirdly charismatic communication affirms the importance of upholding cultural values and therefore prevents people from being swayed easily or influenced by other doctrines that may come their way. This is done by convincing communities not o abandon their positive teachings in their cultures. Charismatic leaders are able to persuade their followers that their cultural teachings are important and the need to observe them. Fourthly, charismatic communication has been associated with promotion of peace and respect of each other cultural practices and values. (Allesandra, 2000) Different cultural groups take their cultures to be superior to others and therefore charismatic communication breaches this gap by persuading these groups to respect one another and hence live in peace. Therefore charismatic communication promotes peace amongst different cultural groups. However charismatic communication has its negative implications, the parent-child relationship that develops between the charismatic leader and his/her followers, makes the leaders abuse their power since they are able to twist, change and influence their followers thoughts, perceptions and emotions,. Therefore even if ill-advised the followers take whatever their leader says as absolute truth. This may go along way into creating hatred amongst different cultural groups the result being conflicts amongst these groups. (Argyris, 1976) Through charismatic communication, charismatic leaders are able to change people’s view of things and drive their followers from reality to suit their own self-gain. If funds meant for development are misused, he or she can convince, persuade his or her followers to believe that the funds have been used for intended purposes. This is because of the magnetic like force that attracts followers to him or herself that makes followers believe whatever their leader does and says is the truth.(www.leadersdirect.com) It can therefore be concluded that charismatic communication is useful if used ethically and it can be dangerous if used unethically. Therefore charisma and leadership can not be separated since the qualities and traits of a charismatic individual are what make a leader. Because not all people portray these traits, it can be concluded that they are in-born traits and to a small extent learn t. References Adles and Elmhorst, (2002), Communication Culture and Work; Communication at Work, 7th edition, (New York: Mc-GrawHill companies) Allesandra, T (2000), Charisma: Seven legs to Developing The Magnetism That leads to Success, (New York: warmer business Books) Argyris, C (1976), Increasing leadership effectiveness, (New York: Wiley and sons) Bhindi, N. (1997), Leadership for new century, Auttertaty intentionality, spirituality and sensibility, (London: sage publications.) Blackmore, B. et al .(1996), Managing change and self management in schools of the future. leading and managing. (London: Cambridge university Press). Chryssides, D.(2001), Unrecognized charisma? A study and comparison of charismatic leaders, (London, Cambridge University Press) Laubach, (2005), Leadership is influence Available from www.leadersdirect.com (Retrieved December 8, 2006.) Maxwell, J.C. & Dornan, J. (2003) Becoming a person of influence Available From www.uncg.edu/hrs/leader.htm (Retrieved December 8, 2006) Power, Domination, Legitimation, and Authority, Sociology, Available at www.apa.org (Retrieved December 8, 2006.) The Psychology of Charismia – from Psychology Today Magazine. Read More