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Charisma and Leadership in Organizations. Alan Bryman. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992. 197 pp. $49.95, cloth; $17.95, paper.
For decades Max Weber's concept and components of charismatic leadership have been recognized and applied in studies of political and religious organizations. These components include an extraordinarily gifted person in a crisis situation who puts forward a radical solution--a vision or mission-attracting a set of followers who collectively experience successes that validate the charismatic's mission. In addition, a team of devoted followers emerges to administer the radical message (Weber, 1946, 1947; Trice and Beyer, 1986). Only recently, however, have any of these ideas entered into theorizing and research about leadership in work organizations. Since the mid-1980s, a coterie of scholars who specialize in such studies have increasingly turned to Weber's formulations for new insights. But up to now, their use of his concepts has been at best fragmented. Probably the most conspicuous example is that Weber went to considerable pains to demonstrate that "the genuine charismatic situation quickly gives rise to incipient institutions, which emerge from the cooling off of extraordinary states of devotion and fervor" (Weber, 1946: 54). This component, which Weber labeled "routinization." and such situational components as crises and validating successes are often overlooked, while scholars have adopted such components as projected vision and mission. Beyond doubt. the time is ripe for a careful review of the Weberian concept of charisma and its components. Also needed is a constructive critique of recent efforts to apply them to work organizations. Charisma and Leadership in Organizations goes a long way toward meeting these needs.
The book opens appropriately with a thorough review of the current orientations to leadership theory and research: the traits, style, and contingency approaches. Against this background, the author introduces what he calls the New Leadership approach, which typically features various elements of charisma in the study of leadership in work organizations. The Weberian concept is quite frequently in the foreground in the first two chapters as he examines the concept and nature of charisma. He pointedly discusses the role of crises in the emergence of charisma and the need for charisma to be validated through the successes of the...