Charismatic rhetoric,perceptions of charisma and narcissism,and voting behavior: Leadership under crisis

Abstract

Although research recognizes the influence of charismatic leadership and rhetoric, their practice in differing contexts and the moderating role of narcissism is understudied. Using a mixed-methods approach, we explore the effects of crises on the way a narcissistic leader employs charismatic rhetoric, and the way charismatic leadership is viewed by followers as they select leaders during a national crisis. In Study 1, we investigate former President Donald Trump’s response to threats to his social power during times of crisis. Content analysis of Trump’s speeches revealed that he used less charismatic rhetoric overall and more self-focused rhetoric during crisis periods, an unexpected outcome given existing findings in the literature. In Study 2, we explore followers’ responses to Trump’s perceived charisma. Three matched waves of data examined responses about perceived charisma, importance placed on the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, and leader choice. Findings from Study 2 suggest that crisis influenced perceptions of charisma and voting behavior, with leader narcissism playing a moderating role. Overall, our findings have implications for understanding the role of crisis in charismatic rhetoric and how narcissism and leader charisma influence followers’ voting behavior.

Keywords

Crisis charismatic rhetoric attributed charisma narcissism voting behavior

Declarations of interest: none

Introduction

Leaders have long employed charismatic leadership to appeal to followers. Weber (1947) described the charismatic leader as having exceptional qualities, placing an importance on context influencing their emotional appeal. Antonakis et al. (2016) defined charisma as “values-based, symbolic, and emotion-laden leader signaling” (p. 294). Charismatic leaders’ need for power, moral conviction, and the ability to tap into followers’ emotions help them motivate followers toward a common goal and identity (House and Howell, 1992). Given the emotional basis of charisma, the emergence of charismatic leadership is argued to be facilitated by crises (Shamir and Howell, 1999). Yet, in understanding individual differences in leaders’ responses to crises and follower reactions, research has found both positive (Bligh et al., 2004) and negative (Bligh et al., 2005) links between charisma and outcomes.

For leaders, a crisis is a highly ambiguous situation presenting a dilemma requiring decisions that can improve or worsen the situation. Such crises might involve potentially high-impact situations that are subjectively experienced by stakeholders as personally and socially threatening (Pearson and Clair, 1998), suggesting that if leaders perceive crises as threats, their responses may differ. Leaders with grandiose narcissism, displaying entitlement and reactivity to criticism (Besser and Priel, 2010), often employ charisma (Deluga, 2001) and may respond to threats with negative emotional reactivity (Besser and Priel, 2010). Thus, narcissistic leaders may display specific responses to crises perceived as threats and consequently impact follower perceptions.

In this study, we explore leader responses to crises that may be perceived as threats by investigating former U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who has been consistently referred to as a narcissistic leader in both the academic literature (Visser et al., 2017; Williams et al., 2020) and popular press (Lunbeck, 2017). Moreover, the unique circumstances of Trump’s first impeachment (i.e., his seeking foreign assistance with a campaign) and the wide criticism of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic (Jacobson, 2020) present interesting contexts in which to study a narcissistic leader’s charismatic appeal to followers during crises. Focusing on Trump, we aim to explore the effects of context on the way a leader who is perceived as narcissistic employs charismatic rhetoric and subsequently the way his charisma is viewed by voters as they make decisions about leader selection during a national crisis. In study 1, we use qualitative analysis to examine Trump’s speeches to reveal patterns of charismatic rhetoric usage before and during times of crisis (2019 impeachment and COVID-19 pandemic). In study 2, we use a three-wave survey to examine follower responses to Trump’s charisma and narcissism during a crisis (COVID-19 pandemic).

The contributions of this study are three-fold. First, we answer calls in the literature to study leaders’ responses, namely their charismatic rhetoric, during crises that may be perceived as threats to advance the understanding of contextual leadership (Oc, 2018). Second, we answer calls to examine how leadership ratings of incumbent presidents rise and fall and the extent to which this affects leader selection (Williams et al., 2009). Finally, we respond to the calls of Davis and Gardner (2012) to investigate potential moderating factors of the charismatic leader-follower relationship, and of Williams et al. (2018) to further investigate the interplay of charisma and narcissism in influencing leader evaluations.

Background and development of research questions

Crisis, charisma, and narcissism

Crisis situations create uncertainty, ambiguity, and a sense of urgency (Stam et al., 2018). Under such circumstances, charismatic leaders’ rhetoric can be used to create shared meaning, minimize uncertainty, inspire, and call to action (Shamir et al., 1994). Because language helps articulate goals, it is an important means through which charismatic leaders influence their followers especially when leaders and followers do not directly interact (Cole et al., 2009). Charismatic rhetoric has been described across eight dimensions (Bligh et al., 2004). Three of these dimensions – collective focus, follower worth, and similarity to followers – highlight the social group and communal aspects of charismatic rhetoric that foster identification between leaders and followers (Schroedel et al., 2013). Collective focus captures a leader’s use of references to collectives and subtracts self-references. Follower worth captures the leader’s use of terms that celebrate and praise followers. Similarity to followers captures the leader’s emphasis on shared experiences and identification with followers. Two dimensions of charismatic rhetoric – action and adversity – help the leader elucidate a poor current state and the actions necessary to reach the leader’s goals and represent the agentic dimension (Schroedel et al., 2013). Action captures the leader’s use of language that motivates followers toward a call to action needed to attain the vision. Adversity captures a leader’s use of language that highlights an unsustainable status quo that must be overcome through the leader’s vision. The remaining three dimensions of charismatic rhetoric – tangibility, values and moral justifications, and temporal orientation –facilitate the communication of the vision to followers and link it to existing values. Tangibility captures the leader’s use of intangible language aimed at broadening the appeal of the vision proposed by the leader. Lower levels of tangibility are associated with more charismatic speech (Bligh et al., 2004). Values and moral justifications capture the leader’s use of high-level values and symbolic language that instills feelings of morality and signals the alignment of the leader’s cause with followers’ values. Finally, temporal orientation captures a leader’s use of connections between past and present time frames.

While research suggests that leaders increase their use of charismatic rhetoric during periods of crisis (Bligh et al., 2004), others argue this use may vary depending on the characteristic of the crisis (Davis and Gardner, 2012). We propose that crises that may be perceived as threats to a leader’s social power may influence charismatic rhetoric use because leaders might prioritize maintaining power over other leadership goals (Williams, 2014). This relationship may be more marked for narcissistic leaders who are predisposed to interpret situations as threatening (Grijalva and Harms, 2014). A leader’s social power refers to the leader’s ability to influence others’ outcomes through personal power and position power (Deng et al., 2018; French and Raven, 1959; Kotter, 1990). Threats to the ability to influence others based on social power may jeopardize the leader’s standing in the group, potentially leading to different leader responses when compared to crises that are not perceived as threats to their social power.

Crises and threats to social power differ in a number of ways that are likely to impact leader responses. Whereas in a crisis there can be variation in how many others are impacted by the situation, perceived threats to social power may predispose leaders to defensively narrow their view of crises to serve self-interests (Williams, 2014). Moreover, while crises (such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks) create unity through focus on a common outside enemy (Davis and Gardner, 2012), a perceived threat to social power can challenge the identification between leaders and followers, an important feature of charismatic leadership. Leaders who perceive their social power to be threatened tend to experience more stress, take more risks, and allocate resources for self-benefit over group goals (Anderson and Brion, 2014).

Threats to social power: The case of Donald Trump

Trump’s Presidency provides an ideal context in which to study how a leader described as charismatic and narcissistic (Maccoby, 2020; Williams et al., 2020) responds to crises that may be perceived as threats to social power. In particular, we focus on two defining crises during the Trump Presidency: The 2019 impeachment and the COVID-19 pandemic, which reflect threats to Trump’s social power.

A threat to the leader’s power, as witnessed in the 2019 impeachment and COVID-19 crises might elicit defensive responses and defensive rhetoric. If impeached in the House, Trump would be tried in the Senate and, if convicted, would have been removed from office. In December 2019, 53% of voters polled believe that Trump abused the power of his office, with 64% agreeing it is not acceptable for the President of the United States to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival (Quinnipiac, 2019). Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic also posed a threat to Trump’s power. With the presidential election fast approaching and a state of emergency underway, the death toll and news stories about the administration’s belated and disorganized response (Jacobson, 2020) had the potential to sway large portions of the population to cast their vote for another candidate. In such threatening conditions, narcissistic leaders may use charismatic rhetoric in unproductive ways, creating conditions for negative unintended consequences to maintain their authority (Asad and Sadler-Smith, 2020).

Our research presents an initial exploration of how leader charismatic rhetoric may change during crises that may be perceived as threats. We pose the following research question.

RQ 1:

How does the charismatic rhetoric of former President Trump differ between conditions of campaign, stability, and crises that may be perceived as threats?

Follower perceptions of a Leader’s charisma and narcissism during crisis

As leaders project charisma in addressing crises, followers respond to the leader by identifying with the unifying vision to meet the challenge (Bligh et al., 2004). Platow et al. (2006) note that attributions of charisma are based on followers viewing the leader as self-sacrificing, employing non-contingent rewards, and focusing on collective identity and performance. Leaders employ socialized charisma when they use their power to serve others, align vision with followers’ needs, maintain two-way communication, and generally focus on self-sacrifice (Popper, 2002). In contrast, leaders are viewed negatively when employing personalized charisma, or using their power for personal gain, self-promotion, and maintaining one-way communication (Popper, 2002). Conger and Kanungo (1998) noted that in a crisis, a charismatic style can produce disastrous outcomes when leaders also have characteristics associated with narcissism. The maladaptive aspects of the narcissist, such as a sense of entitlement (Ackerman et al., 2011), often become emphasized during crises. Thus, the interplay of charisma and narcissism is key when understanding reactions to leader behaviors in such settings.

Accordingly, viewing political leadership leading up to the 2020 Presidential election involved exploring how the pandemic affected follower perceptions about Trump’s charismatic leadership as research suggests that the challenge in maintaining charisma is greater for incumbents facing criticism (Williams et al., 2009). While the COVID-19 pandemic provided the potential for charismatic leadership, the looming election, with each candidate offering different visions for beating the pandemic, meant that the focus was not just on the incumbent’s vision. The challenger, former Vice-President Joe Biden, was not associated with the management of the pandemic response and presented a distinct vision to voters. Moreover, the impact of Trump’s vision was likely diluted by the apparent discord within the government and conflict with CDC guidelines (Rutledge, 2020). Given that the handling of the pandemic was highlighted in the debates and the vision for managing it addressed by both candidates, the crisis was placed into sharp focus as an escalating threat to Trump’s leadership. We posit that follower perceptions of charisma will differ over time and depending on whether the COVID-19 crisis is the most important issue impacting voter choice.

To understand changing perceptions of his leadership, we investigated how Trump was viewed going into the final days of the 2020 presidential campaign. With rising COVID-19 infections and projections for increased mortality heading into the fall of 2020 (Rutledge, 2020), Trump’s falling approval was likely connected with voter evaluations of his performance in managing the pandemic in the U.S. (Jacobson, 2020). Thus, the importance that voters placed on COVID-19 is central in understanding their perceptions of charisma, narcissism, and their support for Trump’s candidacy to reelection given the crisis context. We expect that in a crisis, the negative effects of narcissism (Williams et al., 2020) will be more evident as followers seek leaders who can handle the crisis effectively. As such, we present the following research question.

RQ 2:

Considering the importance followers place on crises, how do perceptions of leader charisma and narcissism vary during an escalating crisis and impact voting behavior?

Study 1

In Study 1, we examine RQ1 to understand how former President Trump’s use of charismatic rhetoric varied over four periods. We explore the levels and characteristics of Trump’s charismatic rhetoric during four time periods: 1) the 2016 campaign, 2) the beginning of his presidency, 3) the impeachment-2019 threat, and 4) the COVID-19 threat.

Methods

Following previous studies that investigated the content of Presidential speeches (e.g., Bligh et al., 2004; Davis and Gardner, 2012), we use content analysis to analyze the charismatic rhetoric content of Trump’s remarks.

Sample and context

Our sample was composed of major speeches, press conference remarks, event remarks, and other public remarks delivered by Trump (see Table A1 in Appendix). Short and minor remarks, such as preceding the signing of an executive order, were not included as those do not reflect a message intended to influence followers. The White House Website (whitehouse.gov) was our primary source of presidential remarks. The University of California Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project was a second source for campaign remarks and for speeches available as prepared for delivery on the White House Website. The periods investigated in our study are: 1) campaign, 2) stability, 3) impeachment-2019 (first threat to social power), and 4) COVID-19 (second threat to social power). As such, our study investigates two crises that acted as defining events of the Trump Presidency (Jacobson, 2020). To validate the periods in our study, 11 scholars in the areas of leadership/organizational behavior or political science were asked to review our definitions of crisis and social power, along with a description of each period. Each expert was then asked to rate the level of agreement (1-4 from strongly disagree to strongly agree) with the description of each period as one of relative stability or crisis to Trump’s social power. We received six ratings with agreement was as follows: 100% agreement for the campaign period and the first three months in office as stable; 83% agreement for the 2019 impeachment and COVID-19 periods as crises to Trump’s social power.

Campaign

The campaign period included all of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign speeches available from the American Presidency Project, from June 15, 2016 until November 9, 2016, his acceptance speech as President-Elect.

Stability

We sought to identify a period of relative stability in Trump’s presidency. With several crises taking place during his presidency that had potential implications for his social power, we identified Trump’s first 3 months in office as the period with the most political stability, beginning when Trump assumed office on January 20, 2017, and ending on April 30, 2017. We selected April 30 as a cutoff point before the firing of FBI director James Comey on May 9, which added Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice to Robert Mueller’s almost-two-year-long investigation about Russian interference in the 2016 election (Johnston and Miller, 2019). The investigation was highly anticipated and cast a shadow of possible impending peril for Trump’s presidency.

Impeachment-2019

The third period in our study began on September 24, 2019, when the impeachment inquiry into former President Trump’s conduct in his call with then Ukrainian President Zelenky was announced (Haltiwanger and Sheth, 2020). This period included Trump’s 2019 impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives and ended on February 5, 2020, when he was acquitted by the U.S. Senate. This posed a threat to Trump’s power as only one of three American Presidents to face an impeachment trial (Magee and Galinsky, 2008).

COVID-19

The fourth period in our study was defined as the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. This period began on February 26, 2020, when the first community-spread case of COVID-19 was announced in the U.S. While the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact the U.S., we selected a cut-off date of May 25, 2020, when most states had announced reopening plans (“Where States are Reopening after America's Shutdown”, 2020) and just prior to the nation-wide protests prompted by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Charismatic rhetoric measures

We operationalized the eight dimensions of charismatic rhetoric (collective focus, follower worth, similarity to followers, action, adversity, tangibility, values and moral justifications, and temporal orientation) following the procedures outlined in Bligh et al. (2004) and Baur et al. (2016). We also investigated overall levels of charismatic rhetoric in Trump’s speeches with a charismatic rhetoric index - calculated by first reverse coding tangibility and then summing all dimensions (Bligh et al., 2004). A detailed description of the methodological steps is provided in Table A2 in the Appendix.

Data Treatment and analysis

Speeches were reviewed to ensure they contained only Trump’s words. Passages by others were removed, such as audience members speaking in the middle of a speech. During press conferences and event remarks when Trump delivered a speech and then answered questions, only the speech portion was included. It’s worth noting that during the COVID-19 crisis, Trump’s speeches may have been more scientific in nature. Yet, Trump was well-known for going off script, even during his COVID-19 briefings, which he used to deliver his campaign-style, unfiltered messages to the U.S. public (Berenson, 2020).

We analyze Trump’s remarks using DICTION (version 7.0), a software program designed to analyze and ascertain the tone of a written message (Hart and Carroll, 2014). DICTION is a well-established tool in the leadership and political literature and has been used in multiple studies investigating charismatic rhetoric (e.g., Baur et al., 2016; Davis and Gardner, 2012; Wasike, 2017) and other styles of rhetoric (e.g., Hart, 2020; Ridge and Ingram, 2017). The program utilizes an extensive list (approximately 10 thousand) of unique search words organized across dictionaries that can be combined with user-defined lists. Using computer analysis to capture the charismatic rhetoric dimensions ensures that they are measured in an unbiased manner and without human-introduced error and fatigue (Short et al., 2010). Moreover, computer text analysis is a viable approach since text-based measures of charisma correlate well with other measures of the construct (Wasike, 2017). Following Bligh et al. (2004), all speeches were segmented into passages of 500 words. Following recommended procedures, counts from smaller passages were extrapolated to 500-word segments (divided by the number of words in a passage and multiplied by 500) in order to be comparable to other passages (Hart and Carroll, 2014). Each DICTION dictionary count was standardized following Hart and Carroll (2014) before being summed to compose the eight charismatic rhetoric constructs following the procedures outlined in Baur et al. (2016).

We employed a MANOVA design (SPSS v. 26) to test whether Trump’s charismatic rhetoric differed across periods. Our dependent variables were the eight charismatic rhetoric dimensions and the charismatic rhetoric index. Our sample totaled 1050 text passages with 477 from the 2016 campaign period, 104 from the stability period, 194 from the impeachment-2019 period, and 275 passages from the COVID-19 period. Following Bligh et al. (2004), we included the standardized number of unique words in a passage as a covariate.

Results

Charismatic rhetoric index

The results in Tables 1 and 2 and Figures 1 and 2 suggest that Trump’s use of charismatic rhetoric varied across the four periods in our study (F = 26.68, p < 0.001). Trump’s use of charismatic rhetoric was highest during the stability and campaign periods. The third highest use of charismatic rhetoric by Trump took place during the impeachment-2019 period, followed by the lowest use during the COVID-19 period. Compared to the stability period, Trump used less charismatic rhetoric during the impeachment-2019 crisis and during the COVID-19 crisis. During the COVID-19 crisis, Trump used significantly less charismatic rhetoric than during the impeachment-2019 crisis.

Table 1.

Charismatic rhetoric index results.

ANOVA and Multiple Comparisons Results
Test of between-subjects effects	F
Unique words	350.89***
Period^a	26.68***
	Campaign	Stability	Impeachment-2019	COVID-19
Overall charismatic rhetoric index means	0.69 (0.22)	2.19 (0.48)	0.27 (0.35)	−2.05 (0.29)
Multiple comparisons^b	Mean difference^c
Stability-Campaign		1.50*
Impeachment (2019)-Campaign		−0.42
COVID-19-Campaign		−2.74***
Impeachment (2019)-Stability		−1.92**
COVID-19-Stability		−4.25***
COVID-19-Impeachment (2019)		−2.32***

^aPeriods include the 2016 Campaign, Stability, Impeachment-2019 (threat to personal power), and COVID-19 (threat to position power).

^bBonferroni adjusted p-values; †p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 001.

^cMeans adjusted for covariate (number of unique words in a passage) Standard errors for the means shown in parentheses.

Table 2.

Charismatic rhetoric constructs results.

Multivariate Tests
	—		Pillai’s Trace	F
Unique words			0.59	187.50***
Period			0.36	17.61***
Univariate Tests
	F	Campaign	Stability	Impeachment-2019	COVID-19	Partial eta-square	Power
Collective focus	17.19***	0.44 (0.08)	0.54 (0.18)	−0.32 (0.13)	−0.38 (0.11)	0.05	1.00
Follower worth	41.36***	−0.90 (0.08)	0.69 (0.18)	0.32 (0.13)	0.20 (0.11)	0.11	1.00
Similarity to followers	9.57***	0.09 (0.07)	0.49 (0.15)	−0.00 (0.11)	−0.38 (0.09)	0.03	1.00
Action	22.50***	0.62 (0.09)	0.26 (0.19)	−0.12 (0.14)	−0.53 (0.12)	0.06	1.00
Adversity	54.39***	0.80 (0.09)	−0.43 (0.18)	0.04 (0.14)	−0.99 (0.11)	0.14	1.00
Tangibility	12.42***	0.34 (0.08)	−0.08 (0.16)	−0.04 (0.12)	−0.41 (0.10)	0.03	1.00
Values and moral justifications	18.15***	−0.09 (0.07)	0.72 (0.15)	0.26 (0.11)	−0.44 (0.09)	0.05	1.00
Temporal orientation	0.83	0.06 (0.06)	−0.15 (0.13)	0.05 (0.09)	0.05 (0.08)	0.00	0.23
Statistically significant differences^a
Collective focus	Impeachment-2019< Campaign*, COVID-19< Campaign, Impeachment-2019< Stability, COVID-19< Stability**
Follower worth	Campaign < Stability*, Campaign < Impeachment-2019, Campaign < COVID-19**
Similarity to followers	COVID-19< Campaign*, Impeachment-2019< Stability†, COVID-19< Stability*, COVID-19< Impeachment-2019†
Action	Impeachment-2019< Campaign*, COVID-19< Campaign, COVID-19< Stability*
Adversity	Stability < Campaign*, Impeachment-2019< Campaign, COVID-19< Campaign, COVID-19< Stability†, COVID-19< Impeachment-2019*
Tangibility^b	Impeachment-2019< Campaign, COVID-19< Campaign**
Values and moral justifications	Campaign < Stability**, Campaign < Impeachment-2019, COVID-19< Campaign, Impeachment-2019< Stability†, COVID-19< Stability, COVID-19< Impeachment-2019*
Temporal orientation	None

Notes: Campaign N = 477; Stability N = 104; Impeachment-2019 N = 194; COVID-19 N = 275. Means reported are adjusted for covariate. Standard errors shown in parentheses. ^aBonferroni-corrected p-values; †p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Figure 1.

Trump’s charismatic rhetoric across periods.

Figure 2.

Trump’s charismatic rhetoric construct use across periods.

Campaign

The means and standard errors for the eight charismatic rhetoric constructs during the campaign period can be found in Table 2. During the campaign period, then-candidate Trump’s charismatic rhetoric utilized substantial levels of two of the three communal constructs, collective focus, and similarity to followers. However, Trump displayed low levels of follower worth, suggesting that, despite showing low praise for followers, his speech demonstrated high levels of inclusion. His high use of tangibility was the only other dimension that demonstrated low use of charismatic rhetoric since lower tangibility is associated with more charismatic speech (Shamir et al., 1994). Trump’s use of charismatic rhetoric during the campaign period was marked by the agentic constructs of adversity and action.

Stability

Of the four periods under study, Trump used the most charismatic rhetoric during the stability period, immediately after taking office. The stability period is characterized by high use of all three communal constructs (see Table 2), indicating that Trump used language that not only focused on the collective and his similarity with it but also that praised his followers. Trump also made high use of values and moral justifications consistent with the traditional values emphasized by the Republican Party (Doherty, 2008). Another noteworthy characteristic of Trump’s charismatic rhetoric during this time was the relatively low levels of adversity compared to other constructs.

Impeachment-2019 threat

During the impeachment-2019 crisis period, Trump continued using follower worth and values and moral justifications more frequently than other constructs. Trump’s charismatic rhetoric was also marked by substantial use of adversity. The means and standard errors of the eight charismatic rhetoric constructs during the impeachment-2019 period are shown in Table 2.

During the impeachment-2019 crisis, Trump used values and moral justifications less frequently than during the stability period (MD = 0.46, p = 0.07). He also used significantly less collective focus (MD = 0.87, p < 0.001) and marginally less similarity to followers (MD = 0.49, p = 0.05) than during the stability period. To further investigate whether Trump’s change in collective focus meant an increase of references to self over the collective, we explored his use of self-references, people-references, and collective terms, the three dictionary components of the collective focus construct (see Table A2 in appendix). While no statistical differences were noted in Trump’s use of people-reference terms, he decreased his use of collective terms (MD = 0.29, p = 0.05). Concurrently, Trump exhibited the highest use of self-reference terms during the impeachment-2019 crisis period, with a marginally significant difference from the campaign period (MD = 0.19, p = 0.09), and a significant difference from the COVID-19 crisis period (MD = 0.37, p < 0.001).

Finally, there are several significant contrasts between the impeachment-19 crisis period and the campaign period. Trump used significantly less collective focus (MD = 0.77, p < 0.001), action (MD = 0.74, p < 0.001), adversity (MD = 0.76, p < 0.001), and tangibility (MD = 0.38, p = 0.04) during the impeachment-2019 period compared to the campaign period. On the other hand, Trump used significantly more values and moral justifications (MD = 0.35, p = 0.04) and follower worth (MD = 1.22, p < 0.001) during the impeachment-2019 crisis period than the campaign period.

COVID-19 threat

The COVID-19 period saw the lowest levels of charismatic rhetoric use by former President Trump. This decrease during the COVID-19 crisis period was statistically significant when compared to the campaign period (MD = 2.74, p < 0.001), the stability period (MD = 4.25, p = 0.007), and the impeachment-2019 crisis period (MD = 2.32, p < 0.001; see Table 1). As shown in Figure 2 and Table 2, Trump’s use of charismatic rhetoric during this time was marked by the lowest levels of adversity and action across the periods in our study. Notably, adversity was the least used across constructs during the COVID-19 period. Trump emphasized follower worth the most but deemphasized his similarity to followers and collective focus.

We found significant differences between Trump’s use of charismatic rhetoric during the COVID-19 crisis and the stability periods. During the COVID-19 period, Trump used less collective focus (MD = 0.92, p < 0.001), similarity to followers (MD = 0.87, p < 0.001), action (MD = 0.80, p = 0.002), adversity (MD = 0.56, p = 0.06), and values and moral justifications (MD = 1.15, p < 0.001) than during the stability period.

The COVID-19 period also showed significant differences from the 2016 campaign period across all constructs, except for time orientation (see Table 2). Trump used more follower worth during the COVID-19 period than during the campaign period (MD = 1.10, p < 0.001). On the other hand, Trump used less collective focus (MD = 0.82, p < 0.001), similarity to followers (MD = 0.47, p < 0.001), action (MD = 1.15, p < 0.001), adversity (MD = 1.79, p < 0.001), tangibility (MD = 0.75, p < 0.001), and values and moral justifications (MD = 0.35, p = 0.013) during the COVID-19 period than during the 2016 campaign period.

Finally, there were a few differences between the COVID-19 and impeachment-2019 crises periods. The largest contrast is found in Trump’s lower use of rhetoric corresponding to adversity under COVID-19 than under impeachment-2019 (MD = 1.03, p < 0.001). Trump used less values and moral justifications (MD = 0.68, p < 0.001) and similarity to followers (MD = 0.38, p = 0.05) during the COVID-19 period than during the impeachment-2019 period.

Study 1 discussion

In Study 1, we explored how Trump’s rhetoric, a leader widely described as narcissistic, varied across situations and, especially, during crises that posed threats to his social power. We found that Trump’s use of charismatic rhetoric defied established findings in the charismatic rhetoric literature. Trump used lower levels of charismatic rhetoric during the impeachment-2019 and COVID-19 crises than he did during the stability or campaign periods. In light of the well-established finding in the literature that leaders increase their use of charismatic rhetoric under crisis conditions and that this increase can translate into higher follower approval ratings (e.g., Bligh et al., 2004; Davis and Gardner, 2012), it is remarkable that Trump did the opposite. We have posited that Trump likely perceived these crises as threats to his power. While it is difficult for us to determine what Trump really thought during these periods, or how often he remained on script, we find some evidence of changes in his charismatic rhetoric, our construct of interest, during these periods. This perception may have led to a defensive response reflected in his low use of charismatic rhetoric during the 2019 impeachment and the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the impeachment-2019 crisis, Trump decreased his use of language that fostered a collective focus and his connection with voters, while emphasizing adversity. That adversity frequently reflected grievances about his perceived unfairness of the impeachment investigation. The connection with followers in his rhetoric served to transfer the injustice being carried against Trump onto those who voted for him. For instance, during a speech, Trump stated:

But they’re using that call to impeach your President who won, in 2016, perhaps the greatest election of our time. And I won it for you; I didn’t win it for me. I won it for you and others, I won it for you. They are coming — I won it for you and others, but I won it for you. They’re coming after me because I’m fighting for you. It’s a big part of it. And I’m fighting for all Americans and our way of life, but I’m fighting for you. And they don’t like you (Trump, 2019, October 14).

During the COVID-19 crisis, Trump’s rhetoric can be characterized by relative inaction and low connection with followers. In fact, Trump initially appointed Vice-President Pence to lead the COVID-19 taskforce (Choi, 2020), further distancing himself from the pandemic response. Notably, this period saw the lowest levels of adversity present in Trump’s rhetoric at a time when COVID-19 severely impacted the American public. This period included many Coronavirus taskforce briefings, which may have led to more structured speeches. Yet, Trump was well known to go off script even during this time and to use the briefings to deliver campaign-style, unfiltered messaged to the U.S. public (Berenson, 2020). For instance, during a Coronavirus briefing on April 27th, Trump optimistically updated the American people on the evolving Covid-19 response and emphasized his economic accomplishments prior to the pandemic. By that date, the US was approaching 1 million cases and 56,000 deaths (Coronavirus Updates, 2020).

Over the last three years, we built the strongest economy and the most successful country the world has ever seen. Greatest economy the world has ever seen. Nobody has ever done anything like what we were able to do. And we will rebuild that economy. Our economy in the not-too-distant future, I really believe, with all that we’ve learned and all that we’ve done, will be just as strong and maybe stronger than ever before — even stronger than it was just two months ago (Trump, 2020, April 27).

The charismatic rhetoric employed in addressing the COVID-19 crisis during an election year could lead followers to perceive Trump’s charismatic rhetoric as indifferent to the plight of the average American while attentive to himself and his election prospects. This likely influenced follower attributions of charisma. Trump’s disconnect with the public and self-focus may also have exacerbated perceptions of narcissism. We, therefore, conducted a second study with a 3-wave sample of registered voters. Our aim was to continue the exploration of Trump’s charisma and examine perceived narcissism during his management of the COVID-19 crisis. We investigate followers’/voters’ changing perceptions of charisma, the importance they placed on the COVID-19 crisis during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and the effects of narcissism on follower support for the incumbent leader.

Study 2

In Study 2, we examined research question 2 to understand follower responses to the perceived leadership of an incumbent during a national crisis. First, we assessed perceptions of charisma during the escalating COVID-19 pandemic crisis as respondents considered these issues before the presidential debates, in early September 2020, and after the debates in late October 2020. Second, we examined COVID-19 crisis-related voter choice as well as the influence of perceptions of charisma and leader narcissism on voter choice.

Methods

Participants

The study was conducted during the 2020 U.S. presidential election in three waves with a Qualtrics panel employing quality checks and screening techniques, such as only including registered voters, making it appropriate for testing hypotheses about the general voting population (Qualtrics.com, 2020; Walter et al., 2019). Qualtrics maintains a database of six million adults in the U.S. who register to participate in surveys. In exchange for their participation, they receive points that can be redeemed from associated vendors (Dumas et al., 2013). As part of a larger study on candidates Trump and Biden, 650 participants responded to questions on leadership traits and perceptions at time 1, 491 matched responses provided leadership style perceptions and importance of items influencing preferences to support a candidate at time 2, and the final sample of 445 matched responses reported voting choice in the election at time 3.

Participants represented the national population’s geographic regions as reported in census data (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019) - 37.1% of the sample representing the South, 21.6% the Midwest, 15.3% the Northeast, and 26.1% the West. The sample was 55.3% male and 69.4% white, with a mean age of 56.22 years (range: 78.4% were between 25-70 years). Republicans represented 31% of the sample, Democrats 37.8%, Independents 30.6%, and 0.6% “other.” 59.3% voted for Biden, 35.1% for Trump, 2.5% did not vote, and 3.1% “voted for other”.

Given a possible population (registered voters) of 160,000,000 (U.S. Census, 2019) the recommended sample size to allow for a 5% margin of error is 385 (Raosoft, 2004; Shaw et al., 2016). Identifying this target sample size, we started wave 1 with 650 responses, recognizing we would lose respondents with each future wave of data collection. No data were excluded as all items were required in the survey. Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFAs) were conducted using MPLUS version 7.2.

Procedures

Survey 1 (Time 1) was administered 8 weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election and presidential debates, survey 2 (Time 2) was administered 2 weeks before the election and after 2 presidential debates, and survey 3 (Time 3) was administered 1 week after the 2020 election.

Measures

Measures of charisma, narcissism, and social desirability in responding (SDRS) employed a five-point scale ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree.” A summary of the variables measured by wave in shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Summary of variables measured by wave.

Variables	Wave	Time period
Controls (party affiliation, race, time 1 charisma, SDRS)	Time 1	8 weeks pre-election
Attributed charisma	Time 1	8 weeks pre-election
Socialized charisma	Time 1	8 weeks pre-election
Personalized charisma	Time 1	8 weeks pre-election
Narcissism	Time 1	8 weeks pre-election
COVID-19 crisis importance	Time 2	2 weeks pre-election
Voter choice	Time 3	1 week pre-election

Attributed Charisma

The eight-item attributed charisma scale from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass and Avolio, 1990) was employed. Followers responded to items about their attributions of the leader’s charisma through response about their identification with the leader’s vision. Cronbach’s alphas (α) were 0.95 at Time 1 and 0.97 at Time 2.

Socialized Charisma

The four-item socialized charisma measure was employed (Popper, 2002), capturing follower reports of the extent to which actions are for the benefit of others (Time 1 α = 0.90; Time 2 α = 0.92).

Personalized Charisma

The five-item personalized charisma measure was employed (Popper, 2002) capturing follower reports of the extent to which actions are for personal gain (Time 1 α = 0.94; Time 2 α = 0.94).

COVID-19 crisis importance

We measured COVID-19 crisis importance based on Time 2 responses to one item that asked respondents to “rank in order of importance” which issues most influenced their decision (or preference) to vote for a U.S. presidential candidate. Eight issues were provided including “COVID-19,” healthcare, taxes, immigration, economy, law and order, racial injustice, and Supreme Court. Two groups were created and coded as “1” for respondents who ranked COVID as number 1 or most important (N = 264). All other rankings (2 through 8) were coded as “0” to represent the group for which the COVID-19 crisis was not the most important issue influencing their choice of a leader (N = 181).

Narcissism

The four-item measure of the dark triad trait of narcissism capturing entitlement (Jonason and Webster, 2010) was employed in the Time 1 survey. The items were adapted to describe Trump on entitlement narcissism (e.g., “…tends to want others to pay attention to him”; α = 0.95).

Voter choice

On the post-election questionnaire (Time 3) respondents indicated who they voted for in the 2020 presidential election. The response choices were: Biden, Trump, Other, or Did not vote. The variable was coded into 1 for “Candidate (Trump)” and 0 for “all other options.”

Controls

We control for a number of background variables that may impact our outcome variables. Republican Party affiliation, race, and Time 1 charisma were included as covariates on voter choice. For party affiliation, “Republican” was coded as 1 for Republican affiliation and 0 for “all others.” Race was coded 1 for “White” and 0 for all other races. At Time 1 SDRS was measured to capture tendencies toward biased responding using a 5-item scale (Hays et al., 1989; e.g., “I am always courteous even to people who are disagreeable” α = 0.68).

Results

Table 4 shows the means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of Study 2 variables. CFAs support the 3-factor solution for attributed charisma, socialized charisma, and personalized charisma over a 1-factor solution with CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.088, and SRMR = 0.059.

Table 4.

Means, standard deviations and intercorrelations.

Variable	Mean	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
1. Republican	0.31	0.46	—
2. Race	0.69	0.46	0.14**	—
3. SDRS (T1)	2.44	0.66	−0.09	−0.11*	0.68
4. Attributed charisma (T1)	2.61	1.37	0.56**	0.18**	−0.07	0.95
5. Socialized charisma (T1)	2.41	1.33	0.49**	0.12*	−0.07	0.84**	0.90
6. Personalized charisma (T1)	3.81	1.37	−0.33**	0.02	0.08	−0.40**	−0.35**	0.94
7. COVID-19 crisis (T2)	0.59	0.49	−0.29**	−0.05	0.00	−0.37**	−0.32**	0.21**	—
8. Attributed charisma (T2)	2.51	1.42	0.56**	0.15**	−0.07	0.89**	0.81**	−0.45**	−0.36**	0.97
9. Socialized charisma (T2)	2.42	1.38	0.49**	0.14**	−0.08	0.78**	0.77**	−0.43**	−0.31**	0.86**	0.94
10. Personalized charisma (T2)	3.71	1.41	−0.32**	0.04	0.08	−0.38**	−0.40**	0.56**	0.19**	−0.36**	−0.33**	0.92
11. Narcissism (T1)	4.22	1.22	−0.29**	0.09	0.03	−0.33**	−0.34**	0.75**	0.15**	−0.41**	−0.42**	0.52**	0.95
12. Voted for trump	0.35	0.48	0.60**	0.21**	−0.12*	0.77*	0.70**	−0.43**	−0.44**	0.78**	0.70**	−0.36**	−0.37**

Note: N = 445. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01. Reliabilities appear on the diagonal.

Respondents’ perceptions of charisma during crisis

T-tests revealed that the attributed charisma of Trump differed between Time 1, before presidential debates, ( $x ̅$ = 2.61) and Time 2, after the presidential debates emphasizing the COVID-19 crisis ( $x ̅$ = 2.51, p < 0.01). No differences were observed for personalized and socialized charisma across the two time periods. Because the charisma variables were correlated, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was run with all outcome variables at Time 2 (attributed charisma, socialized charisma, and personalized charisma) by group (COVID-19 crisis as the most important versus not the most important issue) and was significant (Pillai’s Trace = 0.13, F = 22.55, p < 0.001). Thus, charisma differed between COVID-19 crisis groupings. Univariate analyses of variance revealed the means (and estimated marginal means) on charisma were as follows respectively for attributed charisma, socialized charisma, and personalized charisma: 3.12 (2.58), 2.93 (2.54), and 3.38 (3.58), for the group with COVID-19 crisis not identified as the most important issue and 2.09 (2.47), 2.07 (2.34), and 3.93 (3.80), for the group with COVID-19 crisis as the most important issue. Effect sizes (Cohen’s d) associated with the mean comparisons for attributed charisma, socialized charisma, and personalized charisma were 0.77, 0.65, and 0.39, respectively. Thus, effect sizes for the mean differences were medium for attributed and socialized charisma and small for personalized charisma following Cohen (1988), but may be considered large and medium, respectively, based on emerging research (Brydges, 2019).

Respondents’ selection of a U.S. Presidential candidate during crisis

Logistic regression results show that, controlling for pre-debate charisma and COVID-19 crisis importance (which had significant effects on voter choice), post-debate charisma influenced voting for Trump (Table 5, Step 2). Attributed charisma (b = 1.11, p < 0.001) and perceived socialized charisma (b = 0.98, p < 0.001) increased the likelihood of voting for Trump, whereas personalized charisma decreased it (b = −0.19, p < 0.10). Perceived narcissism of Trump moderated the relationship between personalized charisma and voting for Trump (b = 0.20, p < 0.05). Figure 3 shows there was a strong negative relationship under higher ratings of narcissism compared to no relationship under lower ratings (simple slopes: at +1 SD: γ = −0.45, p < 0.001; at −1 SD: γ = 0.03, p = 0.79).

Table 5.

Results of logistic regression analysis for effects of charisma on voter choice.

	Variables	Attributed charisma	Socialized Charisma	Personalized Charisma
Step		Vote	Vote	Vote
Step 1	Republican	1.80** (0.39)	2.13** (0.35)	2.57** (0.31)
	Race	0.89* (0.41)	1.16** (0.38)	1.13** (0.33)
	Social desirability	−0.37 (0.29)	−0.30 (0.26)	−0.16 (0.21)
	Time 1 charisma	1.83** (0.21)	1.38** (0.16)	−0.63** (0.11)
	COVID-19 crisis importance	−1.70** (0.38)	−1.81** (0.35)	−1.81** (0.29)
	−2 log likelihood	194.52	235.51	316.24
	Model χ² improvement	382.01**	341.03**	260.30**
	Nagelkerke R²	0.79	0.74	0.61
Step 2	Time 2 charisma	1.11** (0.29)	0.98** (0.19)	−0.19^† (0.12)
	−2 log likelihood	177.33	208.74	313.47
	Model χ² improvement	17.19**	26.77**	2.77^†
	Nagelkerke R²	0.82	0.77	0.62
Alternate Step 2	Time 2 charisma	1.39 (0.86)	1.59* (0.78)	0.63^† (0.35)
	Narcissism	−0.21 (0.56)	0.02 (0.50)	0.36 (0.28)
	Charisma*Narcissism	−0.11 0 (0.19)	−0.15 (0.17)	−0.20* (0.08)
	−2 log likelihood	171.63	203.44	305.02
	Model χ² improvement	22.89**	32.07**	11.16*
	Nagelkerke R²	0.82	0.78	0.63

Notes: †p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01. Reports unstandardized coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses.

Figure 3.

Moderating effect of narcissism on personalized charisma to vote.

Study 2 discussion

In Study 2, we followed up Study 1’s findings of low presidential charismatic rhetoric during the COVID-19 crisis by investigating perceptions about Trump’s charisma during the latter stages of the 2020 presidential campaign. Our primary aim was to examine the impact of follower perceptions of charisma and narcissism during a national crisis on voter support for the incumbent. In alignment with the findings of Study 1, Study 2 showed a decrease in followers' perceptions of attributed charisma before and after the presidential debates, a decline consistent with the height of the pandemic crisis. Our results are consistent with those of Williams et al. (2009), with crisis importance shaping perceptions of charisma.

We also found fewer respondents voted for Trump when they reported COVID-19 as the most important issue influencing their decision to vote for a U.S. presidential candidate; only 17.8% of the respondents identifying COVID-19 as the most important issue voted for Trump. Thus, the crisis had direct effects on perceived charisma and voter choice. Further, charisma predicted voting for Trump after accounting for the COVID-19 crisis and pre-debate charisma, with significant effects for attributed and socialized charisma and a marginal effect for personalized charisma. Finally, during a crisis, charisma and narcissism affected voting behavior with respondents less likely to vote for Trump when personalized charisma and narcissism were high.

General discussion

Two studies were conducted examining text-based analysis of presidential speeches and follower/voter evaluations/perceptions of the charismatic leadership of an incumbent president facing crises that threatened his social power. Text analysis reveal declining use of charismatic rhetoric as the crisis shifts from one that is a narrow threat to the reputation and status of the leader to one that is a wider threat involving the general population and the leader’s competence in managing the crisis. Empirical analysis suggests declining perceptions of attributed and socialized charisma, increasing perceptions of personalized charisma, and negative effects of perceived narcissism on leader selection.

Use of charismatic rhetoric in defense of social power

In this research, we answer recent calls to investigate how leaders behave under crises that may be perceived as threats (Oc, 2018). Our findings suggest that the argument that leaders may act defensively when their power is threatened may also apply to their use of charismatic rhetoric. Study 1 found that Trump’s charismatic rhetoric became more self-focused rather than group-focused during the two crisis periods as compared to the stability period. Our findings also suggest that the type of crisis may impact leader use of charismatic rhetoric. During the impeachment-2019 crisis Trump used more adversity terms that highlighted hardship rather than any other period in the study. Alternatively, during the COVID-19 crisis, Trump decreased adversity- and action-oriented language in his charismatic rhetoric, downplaying the severity of the COVID-19 crisis in the early stages of the pandemic in order to avoid panic and an economic slowdown, suggesting a desire to maintain power (Anderson and Brion, 2014; Woodward, 2020).

Our findings also help clarify the relationship between crises and charisma by considering how charismatic rhetoric, the main mechanism for charismatic influence (Schroedel et al., 2013), is used across contexts. To the extent that leaders perceive a crisis as a threat to their social power, they may decrease group-focus rhetoric in favor of more self-serving charismatic rhetoric, which is argued to be more prevalent in narcissistic leaders (Williams, 2014). However, when a crisis affects the social group, self-focus rhetoric by the leader is likely counterproductive to the goal of maintaining a power position, as suggested by our findings of lower attributions of charisma and voting behavior in relation to narcissism. The context, and particularly a narcissistic leader’s perception of that context, may matter more for influence processes than previously considered in the charismatic rhetoric literature.

Our case study of Trump’s rhetoric also has practical implications. How leaders respond to a crisis in their communication with the public is of utmost importance for maintaining a leader’s reputation and position. This response is particularly important as societies become more polarized and opinions may differ about what constitutes a crisis. Nevertheless, leader response can turn the crisis into an opportunity to rise to the challenge; or it can lead to a missed opportunity if a leader ignores the severity of the crisis in their charismatic rhetoric. For example, Trump was divisive, dismissive of the COVID-19 crisis, and focused on his own ego which may have cost him reelection (Hart, 2022).

Follower response to crisis perceptions under incumbent leadership

As highlighted in Study 2, follower perceptions of charisma and support for the leader diminished when voters placed primary importance on COVID-19 in deciding which leader to support. It appears that during an unresolved crisis that is felt nationwide, one that directly affects a vast majority of the followers, the incumbency effect might be a disadvantage to the incumbent leader. Perceptions of Trump’s charisma appeared to have declined after the crisis of COVID-19 was emphasized on the presidential debate stage.

The risk that the COVID-19 pandemic posed for the health and economic stability of the nation, and the importance followers placed on this in electing a president, corresponded with decreased perceptions of charisma by followers and led to fewer votes for Trump as the incumbent. While a major crisis has direct effects on voter support, charisma had effects on voter support above and beyond the importance of the COVID-19 crisis, emphasizing the continued need for research that examines the effects of charismatic leadership on outcomes.

The findings of this research reinforce the findings of Cohen et al. (2004), that followers might prefer a leader with a charismatic message, especially under mortality salience conditions when there is a perceived threat to life. While moderating effects of narcissism were only significant for personalized charisma, this suggests that during a threat to the nation, it is especially important to demonstrate positive charismatic leadership to help maintain follower support, even when narcissism is displayed.

Limitations, strengths, and directions for future research

As is the case with all empirical research, our studies have limitations. First, Study 1 investigates the use of charismatic rhetoric by a single U.S. President in response to different crises. However, given the unique nature of the intersection between presidential leadership and the crises faced by different presidents, we believe that a focused investigation into individual leaders may be the most informative way to build the body of knowledge regarding presidential leadership during crises.

Consistent with prior research (e.g., Bligh et al., 2004), another limitation of our approach is the focus on content of leaders’ charismatic rhetoric rather than style of delivery. Some of the effects of delivery style can be controlled by keeping the leader constant across time. Nevertheless, we recognize that delivery may be important, and thus, future research should investigate the effect of non-verbal aspects of charismatic rhetoric used during periods of crisis.

While we were able to collect data in Study 2 on follower responses about leadership perceptions and voting behavior over multiple waves and with sufficient sample size to assuage margin of error concerns, the data was obtained from a single source. Further, the sample represents a broad cross-section of regions representative of the national U.S. population. Future research might also seek to better represent the distribution by party affiliation and other demographic characteristics. So, while the results have limited generalizability, our findings encourage future research to examine leaders with similar narcissistic and authority-focused tendencies who respond to threats with a focus on preserving social power. Evidence about such leaders is emerging for Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Victor Orban in Hungary, and Narendra Modi in India (Nai and Toros, 2020).

Study 1 results indicate that leaders engage in charismatic rhetoric differently during periods of crisis compared to periods of campaign and stability. Central to the arguments of our study is the idea that these crises were personalized by Trump as threats to his social power. Knowing for certain what Trump thought during these periods is impossible, though we see marked changes to his charismatic rhetoric that align with this argument. Consequently, we believe that our study highlights the importance of utilizing power research as a useful lens to understand leadership behaviors and responses to crises. To help further clarify leader motivation, future research might investigate how the explicit pursuit and defense of power influences charismatic rhetoric and follower response among other leadership phenomena.

Study 2 results indicate that a national crisis might have implications for the way that followers view incumbents and has implications for how other incumbent leaders might potentially be viewed in understanding voter decisions at the polls. The way national crises might be relevant to an organizational context will also be an important direction for future research. While many small businesses faced failure during the COVID-19 crisis (Donthu and Gustafsson, 2020), many large organizations have also faced varying degrees of challenges and opportunities, creating contexts to examine how organizational leaders’ charisma and other characteristics such as emotional intelligence, conscientiousness, compassion, and adaptability might impact follower motivation and perceptions of leader effectiveness.

Conclusion

With continued efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, research that provides insights on effective leadership during crises remains timely and of great importance. Insights might be drawn about leader traits and changes in leadership approaches when global or even organizational leaders face crisis situations. We encourage future studies that seek to understand how leaders confront both narrow reputationally-focused crises and broader socially focused national crises with the use of rhetoric as well as the way that followers view and respond to charismatic and narcissistic leadership.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Charismatic rhetoric, perceptions of charisma and narcissism, and voting behavior: Leadership under crisis

Supplemental Material for Charismatic rhetoric, perceptions of charisma and narcissism, and voting behavior: Leadership under crisis by Tais S Barreto, Ethlyn A Williams, Randi. L Sims, Rajnandini Pillai and Kate McCombs by Leadership

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Tais S Barreto

Ethlyn A Williams

Randi L Sims

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author biographies

Tais S. Barreto is Associate Professor of Management at Nova Southeastern University. She holds a Ph.D. from Florida Atlantic University and has published in Journal of International Business Studies and Journal of Business Research (among others).

Ethlyn A. Williams is Associate Professor of Management at Florida Atlantic University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Miami. Her research appears in the Academy of Management Journal and The Leadership Quarterly (among others).

Randi L. Sims is Professor of Management at Nova Southeastern University. Her Ph.D. is from Florida Atlantic University. She has published in Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, International Journal of Stress Management (among others).

Rajnandini Pillai is Professor of Management at the California State University San Marcos. Her doctorate is from the State University of New York. She is Executive Director of the Center for Leadership Innovation and Mentorship Building.

Kate McCombs is Assistant Professor of Management at Samford University. She holds a Ph.D. from Florida Atlantic University. Her research appears in Personality and Individual Differences and Journal of Vocational Behavior Quarterly (among others).

Kevin B. Lowe is the Professor in Leadership at The University of Sydney Business School. He holds a Ph.D. from Florida International University.

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