Looking for ‘the vision thing’: The rhetoric of leadership in the 1992 presidential election

Contemporary political leadership is often said to be visionary and charismatic, but do we really know what is meant by these terms? Do the politicians who utilize strategies of vision and charisma understand the relationship between the two, and do they understand how visionary leadership facilitates the dynamic process of change? We provide illumination for these questions by examining and expanding upon four interrelated models of charisma, paradigms which have been both insightful and problematic in the study of organizational leadership. By expanding these dominant models, we are better able to identify and analyze those dimensions of leadership most necessary to the change process. Because researchers of organizational communication have made a strong argument for the management of meaning and the management of change as crucial, interrelated strategies of leadership, we use these dimensions to further add to our understanding of charisma and the means by which politicians can become change masters.

Key concepts:

• vision
• charisma
• transformational leadership
• management of meaning
• management of change