Charisma as a Follower-centric, Cognitive-affective Phenomenon: Initial Qualitative Evidence for the Cognitive Dimension

Abstract

Taking the follower-centric approach to charismatic leadership, this paper explores how followers construct charisma. Based on in-depth data from followers representing members of the Senior Management Team and a task force of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation project of two Sri Lankan business operations, this paper illustrates that followers construct charisma through multiple cognitive processes concurrently. The paper concludes that charisma is a constellation of meanings consisting of leader prototypes, leader archetypes, leader extraordinariness, and perhaps even leader group prototypes. Consequently, this paper contributes to the followercentric theory by showing the need and the possibility of taking an integrative approach to charisma.