Charismatic Leadership Communication: A Finnish Perspective

This study examines how information workers perceive charismatic communication in Finnish knowledge-intensive organizations. Based on 10 semi-structured interviews across IT firms, government agencies, and financial institutions conducted in 2014–2015, it identifies six dimensions of charismatic communication that emerged inductively through thematic analysis: authority, approachability, character, aspiration, integrity, and intelligence. Findings suggest that charismatic leaders combine confidence with warmth, emotionally engage followers, and adjust their style to different contexts. The research contributes to leadership studies by offering a perception-based understanding of charisma as a multidimensional and situational phenomenon in a Nordic cultural context. While the small, purposefully selected sample limits generalizability, the study provides rich qualitative insights into how charismatic communication manifests in flat, egalitarian organizational cultures that differ markedly from the Anglo-American contexts dominating existing research.