The charismatic leader
Charismatic leadership has made enormous contributions to social change and even egalitarians often have heroes like Aung Sang Suu Kyi and Martin Luther King. The downside of dependence on such leaders is, however, obvious. Sometimes skill-building activist workshops can address the leadership issue, if the facilitator is alert and waits patiently for what we call ‘the teachable moment’.

In Asia a charismatic religious figure was leading a campaign to save the regional rainforests; his style of leadership was to think things out and call the shots. One practical difficulty with his style was that the movement was heavily dependent on him and he was at that time at risk of imprisonment or assassination. I went into the forest to facilitate a campaign strategy workshop for him and his group.

The teachable moment came a couple of days into the workshop when one villager, reporting for his small discussion group, acknowledged that his report was scanty. He accounted for the poor quality of the report by saying: ‘I’ve never thought for myself – I’ve only done what the leader tells me to.’ To me, it was as if a bell rang and I thought I saw reverberations in the group as well. So I asked a series of questions to help them think about the possible benefits of shared strategic thinking. It was delicate work because leader/follower balances can be heavily charged.

The group came to the view that it would like to participate in strategic thinking with the leader, and the leader said he could see the value of that, I challenged the group to show with their bodies their new commitment by sitting close to the leader (who habitually had deference space around his person). They did, half expecting lightning to strike – and I fully expected lightning to strike because I was taking such a risk in cultural dynamics.

Once they’d done the moving around, the relaxation of tension was palpable. Smiles started to appear. About the new arrangement the leader said, poignantly: ‘I don’t feel so alone.’

A new relationship had emerged which enabled the leader to ask the question which had been tacitly hanging over everyone’s heads for the entire workshop: ‘What will this movement do if I am jailed or killed?’ The group had by then grown to the point that it could start to answer that question.