Transformational/charismatic leadership's transformation of the field: An historical essay

I use a framework by Reichers and Schneider (1990) to explore the evolution of leadership research across time. This analysis leads to development of the doom and gloom arguments about the field in the 1970s and early 1980s. Transformational and charismatic leadership is discussed as it takes off fo llowing the doom and gloom period. That takeoff is followed by revisiting t he shift to transformational/charismatic leadership and considering why som e of the leading and next-generation scholars set off in this new direction . I then link transformational/charismatic leadership with more traditional approaches and finish with conclusions concerning forces for change, asses sing where the leadership held is currently, and providing a future assessm ent with some caveats. I conclude that a crucial contribution of transforma tional/charismatic leadership has been in terms of its rejuvenation of the leadership held, regardless of whatever content contributions it has made. This rejuvenation came about because of what most would consider a paradigm shift that has attracted numerous new scholars and moved the field as a wh ole out of its doldrums.