Charisma, is it virtuous or villainous? An exploratory study of transformational leadership to examine the ethics gap

Transformational leadership has become the most empirically studied and applied leadership theory over the past 20 years. Scholars have been drawing attention to the fact that the factor of idealized influence or charisma in transformational leadership may have a positive or negative impact on the behavior and decisions of leaders. This issue has become known as the ethics gap. As a result, numerous theoretical frameworks have been adapted and developed to try and include ethics and morality. A preliminary study by Walumbwa, Avolio, Garnter, Wernsing, & Peterson (2008) examined authentic leadership, ethical leadership, and transformational leadership to see if there were associations among the measures in these theoretical frameworks. Some associations were identified. This study further expands this work by examining the same three theories as well as servant leadership. The results reveal that the idealized influence factor (or charisma) is associated with the ethics factors in three other leading leadership theories (ethical, servant and authentic leadership). Although the factor does have significant associations, a factor analysis of idealized influence revealed two subcomponents. The associations with these subcomponents varied in significance and one item relating to power had a negative loading to the ethics item. This paper discusses the findings and implications of the research for future research.