In Search of Charismatic Leadersor: You get what you ask for

The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) study is currentlythe most comprehensive research endeavor that set out to answer – amongst others – whether ornot charismatic/value-based leadership is universally seen to contribute to effective leadership.The results have been appearing in various journals and books supporting this assumption andconveying the image that charismatic leaders are worldwide successful. Given the study’s scopeand exemplary status we suspect that the aforementioned result will receive the status of a ‘givenfact’ if the study is not critically reviewed. The paper strives to fulfill this call by taking a ‘closerlook’ at the conception of charisma in today’s charismatic leadership theories as well as theGLOBE study, its results and interpretation. We argue that the items that are universally endorsedare not primarily pertaining to charisma but rather represent common, positive connotedleadership attributes. Moreover, the paper proposes an alternative to the research approachadopted by GLOBE, i.e. we present a qualitative leadership study and its result and will discusswhether or not charismatic leadership can be found in the German-speaking part of Switzerland.Our conclusion suggests that the answer to this question is dependent upon the adopted researchapproach. The paper closes by outlining implications and encouraging critical reviews ofestablished research results.