Trust in Charismatic Leadership

According to Yukl (2006), trust is very important component in charismatic leaders. The charisma inspires trust and confidence from followers to the leader and makes the leader seem extraordinary and wise. Kamila is a person whom inspires trust and wisdom – as a result other people ask for her advice very often. For example, when some of her friends want to start some new project they usually call her to discuss it and get her opinion. She is always willing to motivate and help others when they need it and she is concerned not only with personal goals but followers’ as well.

As she always tells me, she believes in team work and knows that big things cannot be achieved by a single person. As she often says: ‘When people are together they can achieve anything they want’. I personally trust Kamila due to the fact that she will never let down those who trust her and believe in her. Knowing that she is charismatic and the confidence she shows when she talks makes me feel that everything is attainable and that I can follow her in anything she does without asking extra details.

Unlike non-charismatic leaders, Kamila can make others willing to work harder to achieve high results by motivating them in various ways (i.e. by telling stories and using strong emotional metaphors). When I pass through some difficulties or problems she begins talking about a similar situation where she was in my position and explaining what she did to overcome it.

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While talking she is highlighting the points in where I have to act in the same way and she concludes that after any problems people always learn something and become better. While listening to her inspirational words I become positive and forget immediately about any problems. House’s indicators of charisma:

House (1977) was another researcher to conduct his own theory of charismatic leadership. House’s research has derived some indicators of charisma which I can easily associate with my charismatic friend. He concluded that followers are willing to obey the charismatic leader because they perceive the leader’s beliefs as correct. When we are in a company of common friends discussing or working with Kamila in the same project, I know that her opinion will be the correct one as she inspires confidence to me and other people.

That is why I often wait for her opinion and agree with her even if someone else is not. Moreover, I can see that people are getting emotionally involved when she speaks and that they feel affection towards her. People are always willing to listen to Kamila and in most cases they agree with everything she says. Finally, it is worth saying that by inspiring high performance goals to followers, she makes them believe that they can contribute to the success of the mission and they work harder.

In contrast to the theory of Conger and Canugo (1987) the extraordinary ability of the leader is not necessary. The Self-Concept theory of charismatic leadership talks about the leader’s traits and behaviors. I will now describe them through my personal perspective from my experience with a charismatic leader. Kamila is a person who expresses a high need for power. This does not necessarily mean that she can only exist in the highest level of an organization but it demonstrates a need to control her own future and to be able to make her own choices.

As she described to me, in order to do something which is not led by her she must be motivated and inspired, otherwise she is not willing to work hard. Kamila possesses a strong conviction in her own beliefs and ideals and this makes her confident that she can achieve everything she wants to. According to what she once told me, her core motivation in life is to ‘make her name famous to the world’. This is the main reason why she is currently doing many things at the same time (involvement in several societies at university and organizing charity events with me and other team members apart from studies).

As she often says: ‘The easiest thing in university is to study only and not be doing anything to prove your abilities to the world’. The above statements made me conclude that achievement and recognition are Kamila’s primary sources of motivation. Lastly, I can say that Kamila exerted some sort of influence on me; which is the reason why we work with a common mission and why I got inspired to improve myself and do something that the world can be proud of me. I will now move on and describe how leaders influence followers.