A thought about Ed Brenegar's statement on 20 March that:
"And all that it requires for a charismatic leader to be deemed successful
is to find enough compliant, unthinking people who are looking for someone
to make decisions for them and are willing to place loyalty to the
individual above everything else, and you have a personality cult."
Ed,
I agree this is an important thread and needs further examination.
In regard to your comment.
I suspect that some "charismatic" leaders are successful when they find
enough people who share the same concern which the "charismatic" has
perhaps spent more time thinking about and with whom he/she strikes a
responsive chord. Further, quite often, those are not compliant,
unthinking people, but people caught up in a cause about which they feel
deeply.
They can then coalesce around that leader and, even further, suspect that
leader communicates to them the feeling that he/she can be trusted and
that he/she is open to their inputs. Indeed, perhaps even solicits those
inputs (which may lead to some of the trust factor).
Perhaps the "being forced upon" is a function of the circumstances and
readiness?
Maybe that fits Martie Wagner's comment that "Leadership is about what
people do together."
Whadaya think?
Bill Fisher
renovation@i-way.net
--"Bill Fisher" <renovation@i-way.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>