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 de teriorate comparatively faster than other forms of charismatic leadership. The experiment consisted of four crisis condition leadership treatments (cr isis-responsive, visionary under crisis, exchange under crisis, and low exp ressiveness under crisis) and three no-crisis condition leadership treatmen ts (visionary no crisis, exchange no crisis, and low expressiveness no cris is) at time one followed by low expressiveness no crisis at time two. Two g raduate student "leaders" who memorized carefully prepared scripts delivere d the leadership treatments. Analysis consisted of 28 a priori comparisons of cell means and repeated measures ANOVA to determine significant main eff ects as well as interactions. We found support for our hypothesis that ther e are two forms of charisma (visionary and crisis-responsive) and that, in the absence of crisis, the effects of crisis responsive charisma decay fast er than do the effects of visionary charisma.