You Can Do Only So Much With Vision and Charisma
Or, having followers is not equivalent to knowing how to lead
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Q: How important is charisma in leadership?
In 1425, a peasant girl from a French village had a vision: “God has sent a voice to guide me.” The voice was that of Saint Michael and he came with a message from God: You have been chosen to rid France of the English invaders who now rule most of the country, and of the resulting chaos and war.
She was also to restore the French crown to the prince — the Dauphin of France, later Charles VII — who was its rightful heir. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret also spoke to her.
Her visions were extraordinarily vivid: she saw Saint Michael, touched him, smelled him.
At first she told no one what she had seen. For all anyone knew, she was a quiet farm girl.
But the visions became even more intense, and so in 1429 she left her village, determined to realise the mission for which God had chosen her.
Her goal was to meet Charles in the town of Chinon, where he had established his court in exile. The obstacles were enormous: Chinon was far, the journey was dangerous, and Charles, even if she reached him, was a lazy and cowardly young man who was unlikely to crusade against the English.
Undaunted, she moved from village to village, explaining her mission to soldiers and asking them to escort her to Chinon.
Young girls with religious visions were a dime a dozen at the time, and there was nothing in her appearance to inspire confidence.
One soldier was intrigued with her. What fascinated him was the detail of her visions: she would liberate the besieged town of Orléans, have the king crowned at the cathedral in Reims, lead the army to Paris.
She knew how she would be wounded, and where. The words she attributed to Saint Michael were quite unlike the language of a farm girl. And she was so calmly confident, she glowed with conviction.
He was moved. He swore allegiance and set out with her for Chinon. Soon others offered assistance and word reached Charles of the strange young girl on her way to meet him.
The journey took several months. When she finally arrived, the Dauphin decided to meet the girl who had promised to restore him to his throne, despite the advice of his counsellors.
Charles was however bored. He wanted amusement, and decided to play a trick on her. She was to meet him in a hall packed with courtiers. To test her prophetic powers, he disguised himself as one of these men, and dressed another man as the prince.
Yet when the girl arrived, to the amazement of the crowd, she walked straight up to Charles and curtseyed: “The King of Heaven sends me to you with the message that you shall be the lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is the king of France.”
In the talk that followed, she seemed to echo Charles’s most private thoughts, while once again recounting in extraordinary detail the feats she would accomplish.
Days later, this indecisive, flighty man declared himself convinced and gave her his blessing to lead a French army against the English.
This girl was Joan of Arc.
We may no longer believe in miracles, but the psychology is the same: a “visionary” leader has visions of the future. They describe these things in great detail, with an air of authority, and suddenly they stand out.
And if this vision of a better future is just what people want to hear, they are likely to fall under a spell. That’s the power of charisma.
But while it can inspire people into action, it cannot get much else done.
Today, let’s talk about charisma. More precisely, let’s discuss how important charisma is in leadership. Is it essential, or is it just fugazi?
Charisma is a presence that excites us. People think it comes from an inner quality — self-confidence, sense of purpose, contentment — that most people lack and want.
This quality radiates outward, permeating the gestures of charismatics, making them seem extraordinary and superior, and making us imagine there is more to them than meets the eye.
Leaders who are naturally charismatic exploit this phenomenon. But more than often they don’t realise that having followers is not equivalent to knowing how to lead.
More than charisma and vision, a leader needs strategy.
The idea of charismatic leadership dates back to Max Weber (1864–1920), the father of sociology. Describing leaders, he found it necessary to distinguish between formal leaders and those who led by personal charisma.
The latter, he wrote, seemed “endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities … not accessible to the ordinary person.”
Traditionally, charisma was associated with religious and political leaders, not CEOs or school principals. This began to change in the mid-1980s. The tipping point was the appearance of two books in 1985: Warren Bennis and Bert Nanus’s Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge and Bernard Bass’s influential Transformational Leadership: Industrial, Military, and Educational Impact.
These authors broke with tradition and argued that charismatic (now “transformational”) leadership can be learned and practised in settings ranging from schools to corporations to art museums.
The transformational leader, they argued, unlocks human energy by creating a vision of a different reality and connecting that vision to people’s values and needs. These works were followed by a barrage of books and articles in a similar vein.
However, not everyone was drawn to this formulation. Peter Drucker, one of the foremost thinkers about management, said, “Effective leadership doesn’t depend on charisma. Dwight Eisenhower, George Marshall, and Harry Truman were singularly effective leaders, yet none possessed any more charisma than a dead mackerel.… Charisma does not by itself guarantee effectiveness as a leader.”
He was right.
The key innovation in this growing stream has been the reduction of charismatic leadership to a formula. The general outline goes like this: the transformational leader develops a vision, inspires people to sacrifice for the good of the organisation, and empowers people to accomplish the vision.
Some experts place more emphasis on the moral qualities of the leader, others on commitment, and others on the leader being intellectually stimulating — but the crux is the same.
However, reality has a different story to tell. In reality, charisma without strategy is a recipe for a wide-ranging disaster.
Consider the famous Children’s Crusade.
It began in 1212 when young Stephen, a French shepherd boy, had a vision of a band of children travelling to Jerusalem to throw out the Muslims.
In his vision, the sea parted before them as it had for Moses. Those who heard him speak of this vision and his purpose were impressed with his passion and eloquence.
Word of Stephen’s vision travelled to Germany, where another young man, Nicholas, organised his own crusade, his vision being the conversion of the Muslims rather than their conquest.
Both youthful charismatic leaders gathered followers and began their arduous journeys.
Stephen’s large band walked for months, finally arriving at Marseilles. There they managed to embark on seven ships. Two wrecked, killing all aboard. The other five were captured by Muslim raiders, and all aboard were sold into slavery.
Nicholas, starting his trek south with twenty-thousand German children, reached Rome with a much smaller number. There, most were convinced to return home. Only a few made it back. The parents of the dead children hanged Nicholas’s father.
There is no denying the power of charismatic vision to move people. It is a potent way to overcome inertia and motivate both action and self-sacrifice. But in 1212, as in many other times, thousands sacrificed to no end.
Whatever you think about the definition of charismatic leadership, the problem arises when it is confused with strategy. Charisma and strategy may be joined in the same person, but they are not the same thing.
Charismatic leadership inspires and motivates self-sacrifice. Change, for example, requires painful adjustments, and good leadership helps people feel more positively about making those adjustments.
Strategy, on the other hand, is the craft of figuring out which visions of the leader are both worth pursuing and capable of being accomplished.
To achieve great ends, charisma and visionary leadership must almost always be joined with a careful attention to obstacles and action — as Gandhi was able to do in India.
Gandhi’s carefully orchestrated demonstrations, marches, publicity, and times in jail built his base and eroded the British rulers’ self-image of fairness and morality. His charisma and vision, coupled with a good strategy, gave India both independence and a proud heritage.
This belief in charisma without strategy affects us all. Heavy with goals and slogans, governments become less and less able to solve problems. Corporates sign off on strategic plans that are little more than wishful thinking. Education systems might be rich with targets and standards, but without really understanding what’s going on, it becomes poor in comprehending and countering the sources of underperformance.
Miracles and saintliness aside, Joan of Arc had certain basic qualities that made her exceptional. Her visions were intense. She could describe them in such detail that they had to be real.
Furthermore, in a time of great disorder, she was supremely focused, as if her strength came from somewhere unworldly. She spoke with authority, and she predicted things people wanted: the English would be defeated, prosperity would return.
She also had a peasant’s earthy common sense and wit. She had heard descriptions of Charles on the road to Chinon. Once at court, she sensed the trick he was playing, and could confidently pick out his pampered face in the crowd.
Despite her lack of any kind of worldly experience, Joan of Arc was indeed a great charismatic leader. But you can do only so much with vision and charisma.
Things took a turn for the worse soon. After Charles’s coronation, she participated in the unsuccessful siege of Paris and La Charité in 1429. Her role in these defeats reduced the court’s faith in her.
In early 1430, Joan organised a company of volunteers to relieve Compiègne, which had been besieged by the Burgundians — French allies of the English. She was captured by Burgundian troops. After trying unsuccessfully to escape, she was handed to the English.
She was put on trial on accusations of heresy. She was declared guilty and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431. She was only nineteen.
The only remedy to this creeping spread of charismatic leadership is for us to demand more from those who lead.
More than charisma and vision, we must demand good strategy.
Timeless Insight
Our knowledge and inherent understanding of downsides is far more robust than what we know about upsides.
You can safely bet that a pilot who has undergone intensive training in Microsoft Flight Simulator would bring the plane down if allowed to fly a real aircraft, while you can’t be one hundred percent sure if a professional pilot with 30 years of experience isn’t a flight risk.
This is because the greatest of revolutions and discoveries were made after a lot of failures. India got her independence after failing for over a 100 years. Ray Kroc struggled to get his footing until he was in his 50s before hitting it off with McDonald’s. Even Edison was suggesting towards this idea when he (supposedly) said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Human experience comprises of more information about what doesn’t work than what works.
What I’m Reading
Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary
Tiny Thought
In science you need to understand the world. In business you need others to misunderstand it.
Before You Go…
Thanks so much for reading! Send me ideas, questions, reading recs. You can write to abhishek@coffeeandjunk.com, reply to this email, or use the comments.
Until next Sunday,
Abhishek 👋
We can see this in the energy sphere. Many leaders impress the crowds with their committment to being 100% green. But they have no plan to get there, except for statements like "35% by 2035" or whatever.
The result is overdependence on other country's gas supplies. And coal is back in fashion.