Who Sees Charisma? Power and the Conferral of Charisma

Previous research on charismatic leadership has sought to answer the question “Who has charisma?” In the present research, we ask, “Who sees charisma?” In Study 1, we find that lowpower individuals are more willing than those with high power to confer charisma on others. In Study 2, we replicate this effect and demonstrate an interaction between the power of the perceiver and the power of the target—for targets described as high-power, there is no difference in charisma conferral between lowand high-power perceivers, but for targets described as lowpower, low-power perceivers confer more charisma than do high-power perceivers. We find evidence of an underlying psychological mechanism: low-power perceivers are more readily encouraged to take action, regardless of the power of the target, and therefore confer more charisma.