Charismatic Leadership - Research Paper Example

In the past Kurt Lewin has introduced three major styles of leadership, i.e. Authoritarian or autocratic, Participative or democratic and Delegative or Free Reign. However with the changing times and changing needs, there have also been a number of newer leadership models that have been developed. Some of these include the transactional, transformational, creative, corrective, change, multicultural, Pedagogical, Servant, and last but not the least Charismatic leadership. The leadership strategies adopted by an individual defines the leadership style of the person.

The main aim of this report is to identify and discuss about the newer leadership styles and how they impact the real life organization problems. The main style in focus here is Charismatic leadership. The report will include a brief overview of the traditional concepts and approaches to leadership. A thorough analysis of the concept of charismatic leadership, history of the method, and how charismatic leadership relates to general theories will be made in the paper. Over the years, there have been numerous theories that have been developed for the different leadership approaches.

Authors and experts in the field have provided a range of different styles and techniques of leadership. Here a brief overview of these styles has been developed followed by a detailed study of the charismatic leadership. Over the years, leadership literature has evolved and gained a number of schools of thoughts. These have grown from Great man theory and trait theory to the transformational leadership theory. These theories were developed with focus only on the characteristics and behavior of the leaders however; this has not begun to also take into account the role of the followers in terms of the leadership.

To understand to a greater extent, the following table provides a clear presentation of the journey from the Great man theory and trait theory to the transformational leadership theory. This