Abstract
Purpose: While charismatic leadership has been typically related to follower commitment, motivation, and organizational cohesion in terms of vision articulation and emotional engagement with followers, the mechanism through which identification with charismatic leaders influences follower commitment may have unintended organizational outcomes in terms of sustaining commitment to organizational strategies beyond rational thresholds. This article introduces the concept of charismatic inertia (CI) to describe a state of charismatic leadership in which follower commitment to charismatic leaders translates into organizational commitment to underperforming strategies. This article aims to conceptualize the influence of charismatic leadership on organizational coordination in terms of delayed response to emerging performance outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on an interpretivist philosophical approach to research. This article proposes a qualitative research methodology based on an inductive research strategy. Semi-structured interviews are suggested as a research methodology to examine follower perceptions of leader credibility in terms of charismatic leadership conditions (Bryman, 2016).
Findings: This article conceptualizes charismatic leadership conditions in terms of sustaining follower commitment to organizational strategies through emotional identification with charismatic leaders. This article suggests a conceptual framework in which charismatic leadership conditions influence organizational coordination in terms of delayed response to emerging performance outcomes.
The proposed concept of charismatic inertia aims to extend the existing body of research on charismatic leadership by exploring the possible organizational outcomes of follower commitment towards leader-sponsored strategic initiatives. The proposed model provides a foundation for further research on the impact of leader influence on strategic inertia in the context of organizational environments (Antonakis et al., 2016).