2. The charismatic person is the person who has certain personal qualities which give him the
ability in leading and convince the people by his believes and made them follow him.
The characteristics of the charisma appear from the dealing with the others by his behavior, his
saying and his relation with people. This charismatic person did not gain these characteristics
from his education, the social or economic or political status but from his personal
characteristics.
The charismatic person could use this habit in two opposite ways in the good and evil, and when
this charismatic person know what he have got from charisma in the persuasion in this time he
began to use it so he could convince the people to follow him to make a good thing for them and
he really want this either he reached or not but his main or finally aim is to help either his people
or his country or anyone around him. In the other hand he also could use this charisma in the
opposite aims where he is looking for his own interest and to achieve his interests he must
deceive those people by convincing them by some illusory promises, then at the end the only
winner from this is the charismatic leader which succeeded in convincing them.
Most of the territory states the independence came when a charismatic person leads the people of
there country to make demonstration and strikes until they reach the independence. So in this
way he will take his country to the freedom. There are lots of examples for this personal like
Mahatma Gandhi, Omar El Mokhtar, Saad Zagloul and Mustafa Kamel. All of those persons had
struggled using there charisma to collect the people around them to gain the independence for
there country.
Most of the dictatorial government had set up on the bases of the charismatic personal and the
love of the people which had been given to this charismatic leader and giving him the absolute
3. power, until he reach his leading place in the government for example Gamal Abd el Nasr ,
Hitler and Mussolini.
In this essay we will compare between the defining of the charismatic leader in the view of
Weber with a person which have got charisma called “Mahatma Gandhi”
Weber had wrote about nine principles for the person to be charismatic one. By following these
principles I concluded that “Mahatma Gandhi” could be a charismatic leader according to
Weber.
The charisma is not a thing that could be trained to gain it, so it couldn’t be a metaphor for a
bureaucratic administrative system because it is totally different from the bureaucracy because it
has no forms to follow or orderly procedures for appointment or dismissal. So, this is what
Gandhi bearer from the charisma because he didn’t impose himself on the people to follow him
by force.
Gandhi had succeeded to collect the people behind him by his way of life by using the
nationality clothes. Also one of the principles of Weber, that the charismatic leader without
having any tools or weapons or governmental power he could be defined that he is a person who
owns the biggest power in the country and he also could fight any army and could win at the end.
Because the charismatic leader when he talks all of the people follows his words like what
Gandhi do when he said that any Indian buy any Britain commodities is traitor, after this few
words and without owning tool to punish anyone who didn’t follow his words all the people
stopped buying the Britain commodities. So this attempt had a big effect to the Britain goods in
India. This also follows one of the principles of Weber which says that the source of the power in
the charismatic leader consist people submission by faith to the extraordinary.
4. Gandhi also succeeded to make a thing which is nearer to the revolution but this revolution was
not over the Indian regime and falling it. But he succeeded in making a regime in the hearts of
the people by encouraging them that they must struggle without violence to gain the
independence of there country, even the view appears that it was easy to do it, but in reality it
was very hard because he found lots of problems in delivering his idea to the Indian people and
to convince the people with facing two huge problems inside the Indians and outside them the
first one was the Britain army and the second one was more bigger than the army which called
“different religion”. Gandhi believed in the Hindus and India was combines between three
different religions Islam, Jewish, Buddhism, Christian and Hindus, but he solved this problem
using what he bears from the charisma when asked if he was a Hindu. His answer was very smart
because he is actually Hindu and with that he may lost the people from the other religions if he
answered that he is a Hindu, in the other hand any answer different from confirming that he is
Hindu he may lost the Hindu people, moreover than this they may kill him because from there
view he must say that he is a Hindu. He answered at the end one of the famous answers which
assures his charisma he said” Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.”
Rather than what he do in his personal life from his clothes which he is spinning it by himself to
give an example for the self-reliance and he could live without the Britain commodities or the
help of the foreign people but this was a personal boycotts for the foreign commodities, he was
calling for it without talking about it because convincing the other is not coming from the talking
only but it could be done silently by doing it by this charismatic leader and when the people see
him they will follow him so this is another way for the charisma when the charismatic leader do
something the people see it is a simple thing the simple people resort for it and this increase the
love of people toward this leader.
5. After doing this simple which is special for his own personal life, he did a very famous thing
which still remember until now, this was the salt march which Gandhi had done in 1930 which
was one of the alternatives for the Britain commodities, in this march a lot of people go with him
to the beach to support him and they know that if they go with him they will jailed but this didn’t
changes them to go with Gandhi as long as they were confirming his believe for the
independence for India. This also was one of the most famous actions which assures that Gandhi
had been a charismatic leader which the people follow him without thinking for the
consequences that may come over tem because of this act.
At the end I think that Gandhi had proceed all of the principles of Weber which he had
mentioned it in his thoughts for the charismatic leader.
6. References:
Professor de Kretser, David. quot;The Inaugural Mahatma Gandhi .quot;
<http://www.governor.vic.gov.au/4A25671B00145208/WebCurrentSpeeches/955016B99FE8A8ECCA2572
0300030703?OpenDocument>.
Fischer, Louis. Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Time. 1958.
