Charismatic Versus Transformational Leadership (Essay Sample)

Charismatic Versus Transformational Leadership
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Charismatic Versus Transformational Leadership
A successful leadership style is described by the leader’s ability to combine their attributes with the organization’s vision and mission to inspire the team to perform. Traditional leadership concepts concentrated on interpersonal economic relations between leaders and employees where employees’ were rewarded to influence behavior. Modern charismatic and transformational leadership theories focus on how leaders can impact their followers to perform best with the group's interests at heart. The two theories describe how an organization’s success can be achieved through the creation of a strong bond between leaders their subjects. While in charismatic leadership, the leader’s charm and devotion creates loyalty and inspiration among the led, transformative leader creates a collective vision which inspires the team. The two are also similar because they aim to achieve effectiveness from their followers.
The first key difference points to the leaders' focus to influence their fsubjects' performance. While charismatic leadership emphasizes on the leader's charisma and other individual physical attributes such as charm and appeal to inspire their followers, transformational leadership emphasizes changing the subjects' behavior through the collective organization’s mission. Charismatic leadership is a style of fulfilling and establishing self-confidence by the followers, especially during distress and emotional breakdown. According to Shamir and Howell (2018), people can be “motivated by irrational non-calculative faith because a state of hope is intrinsically satisfying p. 258.” On the other hand, transformational leaders solicit to inspire, motivate through communicating and encouraging feedback, to influence a progressive performance in line with the group's mission. According to Marshall and Broome (2020), a transformational leader is guided by a set of organizational ethical rules to steer his follower’s actions and behaviors. The two styles provide different concepts that offer critical professional and emotional support to their followers. 
In addition, the two tyles’ approach to transparency and empowerment of the followers differ. Whereas charismatic leaders encourage strict adherence and obedience to their set of rules, transformational leadership deliberately empowers the led to engage leaders in feedbacks and initiate and suggest transformative recommendations to build up productivity. According to Irwin (2017), a charismatic leader relies more on setting their examples and is not interested in the broader organizational or global symbolic vision. On the contrary, transformational leaders encourage their subordinates to understand and commit to the organization's mission and respect their ideas and rationality in developing their followers' competence (Zineldin, 2017). A transformative leader clarifies the followers’ responsiblities and offers constructive feedback to shapes their believes (Xenikou, 2017). The two styles have essential negative and positive impacts in developing the productivity of the followers.
Another difference is their democratic approach towards the vision of the organization. In transformational leadership, the leader and the subjects are involved in establishing the vision and mission of the group. A charismatic leader, on the other hand, solely dictates their tenets, which become the vision for the group. Marshall and Broome (2020) explain that one of the primary precepts of transformational leadership in nursing is encouraging nurses to express their voice in their vision. Charismatic leaders, on the contrary, encourage their followers to demonstrate confidence in the leader's ability as a role model for the group's vision (Shamir & Howell, 2018). Groups led by a charismatic leader carefully follow the leader's vision, while those led by a transformative leader are guided by their joint vision. According to Xenikou (2017), the followers identification with the organization and change of values are shaped by the direction the leader provides.
The two styles of leadership share some similarities with one of them being that they understand their followers' strengths and weaknesses which encourages positivity within the group. Although a transformative leader offers a broad outline to the success of the subordinates, both styles of leadership have a sense of concern and ownership to the organization’s success. Zineldin (2017) reckons that in both cases, there is an activated motivation that contributes to accelerated trust and achievement of the set goals. In addition, both styles directly lead to a change in behavour of the followers. The strong professional and emotional bond and cooperation between the leaders and the led are essential to effect changes in attitude and beliefs (Zineldin, 2017). Charisma is depicted as one of the characteristics of transformational leadership.
Because the vision of focus is the leader in charismatic leadership, this style offers less participation by the followers. Lack of participation could demotivate or demoralize the team’s efforts or influence their behaviour. The collective involvement of the group in establishing the vision in transformational leadership is a precursor to the sacrifice and dedication for the organization’s success (Marshall & Broome, 2020). In the same breath that transformational leadership may lead to anarchy because of personal opinion differences, charismatic leadership can also contri