CHARM OFFENSIVE

Charisma' has alluring intimations, but have a vague and continuously drifting ^mm^ significance. In its etymology, the word comes from the ancient Greek noun charts (xapic.), meaning grace or beauty. The earliest modern usage of the term is associated with Christian theology, in which charism was thought of as a special spiritual gift or power that was divinely conferred from God on a select few individuals. In Middle English, a person with karisme was someone gifted with special talents such as healing, prophecy or tongues. The term entered the lexicon of applied politics only in the early 20th century, in the work of German sociologist Max Weber. He used it to distinguish between 'charismatic' and the other two types of legitimate power: 'traditional', where people obey because of seniority, long-established law, or custom; and 'rational-legal' or 'bureaucratic' authority (best typified by the impersonal modern state administration). But what do we mean by charismatic leadership today? If you take any of the lexical definitions, or even try to produce a definition of your own, you soon realise that what lies at the core of all efforts to clarify the term is an element of extraordinariness. Above all else, then, charismatic leadership signifies a type of extraordinary leadership. But in thinking about what exactly is extraordinary about charisma-led power relationships, we should first consider what we mean by ordinary leadership.