A qualitative analysis of charismatic leadership in creative teams: the case of Turkish TV series directors

TV and media play an important role in our life and it has been stated that TV series are the second most followed program type after news. Apart from their rationality and consistency, directors and teams play a major role in the recognition of the series by the society. It has been contented that the most popular Turkish TV series have been differentiated from all their equals by the charismatic leadership qualities of their directors. It has also been contented that these charismatic leader- directors act as facilitators for their teams to optimize their creativity at work.Although there are a large number of studies related to leadership theories, only two studies related to television directors’ leadership style were found in the literature. For this reason, this research was carried out on three of top ten, well-known directors who had directed or have currently been directing numerous famous movies and televisions series. They were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire depend on Conger and Kanungo's (1994) model which has been acknowledged as one of the most influential studies about charismatic leadership behavior. Pattern matching was used as a technique to explore whether the pattern of reported team leader behavior of television directors matches the theory of charismatic leadership as conceptualized by Conger and Kanungo.Results of the present study revealed that charismatic leadership can be important in explaining the leadership role of sampled Turkish TV series directors in teams.