Charisma revisited: Or why narcissism matters

Abstract In 1990 Charles Lindholm published his landmark study of Charisma, shedding new light on a complex and controversial topic. Today, more than 30 years later, understanding charisma has become newly important as authoritarian leaders and populist politics have begun to reshape the global political landscape. This paper returns to Lindholm's original study to address the two phenomena Lindholm felt were most important – namely, the personality configurations of charismatic leaders and their followers and group psychodynamics. Unlike Lindholm, however, I approach these phenomena from the vantage point of intersubjective self psychology, a post‐Freudian theoretical framework that is particularly well‐suited for analyzing the popular appeal of figures like Jim Jones and the group dynamics that bonded the members of the People's Temple to the movement. To make this point, Lindholm's original case studies are referenced throughout the paper and a distinction between destructive and reparative leadership is made to highlight the difference between ‘leading’ and ‘trailing’ edge orientations as they pertain to charismatic leaders and their movements.