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Definition: Charismatic Leadership is a leadership style described by its inventor Weber ('22) as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him".
Charismatic people have a remarkable ability to distill complex ideas into simple messages ("I have a dream"); they communicate by using symbols, analogies, metaphors and telling stories. Furthermore they relish risk and feel empty without it, they are great optimists, they are rebels who fight convention, and they may seem idiosyncratic.
Examples: Hitler, Gandhi. A major strength and risk of CL is that followers blindly follow a charismatic leader