Charismatic leaders: the role of admiration and system justification

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to use the stereotype content model to explore the extent to which voter admiration for presidential candidates mediates the charismatic leadership – voting behavior relationship. The paper also seeks to test whether system justification beliefs moderate the mediated relationship.Design/methodology/approachUsing data collected both before and after the 2008 US presidential election, this paper tested the hypothesized relationships using a conditional indirect effects model with 126 undergraduate students enrolled in the psychology department and business school of a large university in the USA.FindingsResults demonstrated that admiration mediates the charismatic leadership – voting behavior relationship. Moreover, this mediated relationship varied by system justification beliefs.Practical implicationsThese results suggest that charismatic leaders arouse specific emotions (i.e. admiration) in followers and that emotional arousal inspires followers to act on the behalf of the leader. However, this relationship only holds when people are motivated to embrace change. This suggests that not all followers will be responsive to charismatic leaders.Social implicationsFor political leaders, these findings suggest that being charismatic is important when change motives are high, but it may be less important when stability is highly valued.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates that charismatic leaders do arouse the emotions of followers and that such emotions motivate followers to engage in behaviors on behalf of the leader.