The effects of visionary and crisis-responsive charisma on followers: An experimental examination of two kinds of charismatic leadership

A single factor, seven-level, repeated measures, unbalanced experiment was conducted with 191 college undergraduates to test Boal and Bryson's (1988) assertions that: (1) there are at least two forms of charismatic leadership under crisis conditions-visionary and crisis-responsive; and (2) once the crisis condition has abated, the effects of crisis-responsive leadership deteriorate comparatively faster than other forms of charismatic leadership. The experiment consisted of four crisis condition leadership treatments (crisis-responsive, visionary under crisis, exchange under crisis, and low expressiveness under crisis) and three no-crisis condition leadership treatments (visionary no crisis, exchange no crisis, and low expressiveness no crisis) at time one followed by low expressiveness no crisis at time two. Two graduate student "leaders" who memorized carefully prepared scripts delivered the leadership treatments. Analysis consisted of 28 a priori comparisons of cell means and repeated measures ANOVA to determine significant main effects as well as interactions. We found support for our hypothesis that there are two forms of charisma (visionary and crisis-responsive) and that, in the absence of crisis, the effects of crisis responsive charisma decay faster than do the effects of visionary charisma.