Covert Abuse and the Power of Charisma

1. Covert Abuse is Slick and Confusing

Covert emotional and psychological abuse is confusing. It often goes undetected. Trying to unravel what is happening is exhausting. You may know that something isn’t quite right but you can’t quite put your finger on it. This is why it’s so important to have accurate and informative language to help deconstruct abusive power. On the surface, things can seem to be normal, even going well. But without notice, you can suddenly be thown under the bus, reaping the harmful effects of covert abuse.

Charisma, power and control can operate under the radar and often go undetected by members who remain on the fringe of the group dynamics. Isolation was my biggest enemy! Throughout the process of trying to make sense of what I was experiencing inside the inner circle of this high control group, I repeatedly came up against a brick wall. It was my belief that if I had questions or disagreements with someone, I should go directly to the source. During the first year (and frankly, multiple times after) I took my concerns directly to the leader. Others I talked to didn’t seem to understand where I was coming from, and had no concept of the power and control dynamic that operated covertly behind the scenes. I realized after the fact, those who were closest to the leader were also influenced by the covert nature of the leaders abusive power. Excuses were made regarding anyones viability to question or confront the wielding control he was given over an entire, well intentioned group of people.

It was a foreign concept to me that someone in a position of leadership, no less someone who was apparently a Christian, would treat people with such disregard and refuse to have open conversations, taking care to listen intently and consider the needs of all parties involved. It was very difficult to make sense of, and even admit that something wasn’t quite right. After all, I wanted to believe the best in people.

In a previous post, I touch on naming and defining the covert tactics of abuse. Some of the most influential tactics used any time I would approach the leader were: Blame-shifting, Deflection, Undermining, Minimization, Disavowal, Gaslighting, Grandiosity, and Entitlement just to name a few. Check out the post “Key Benefits to Naming and Understanding Abuse” for detailed explanations of these terms and more.

2. Leaders and the Power of Charisma

A cult cannot fully be understood without understanding the leader. Noted by psychologists Edward Levine and Charles Shaiova, a cult’s formation, proselytizing methods, and means of influence and control “are determined by certain salient personality characteristics of the cult leader…such individuals are authoritarian personalities who attempt to compensate for their deep, intense feelings of inferiority, insecurity, and hostility by forming cultic groups primarily to attract those whom they can psychologically coerce into and keep in a passive-submissive state, and secondarily use them to increase their status, income [or other gain]”. The imbalance of power in such groups, gives way to all sorts of abuse. Demystifying who this person is and examining the dynamics of power and charisma is essential to the deconstructing and reconstructing of your life in a healthy way.

Charismatic leaders who abuse their power over others, surround themselves with people who will justify and ignore their behaviour and do their bidding for them. Granted there are complex reasons why people cover up the harmful behaviour of the leader, namely, they too are probably being covertly influenced by the abusive behaviour.

Charisma is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as, “an extraordinary power; a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure (as a political leader):a special magnetic charm or appeal”.

3. The Role of Charisma

The charismatic label enables a leader to garner attention and a following by offering hope for a new way of being, promoting incomprehensible beliefs, providing an outlet for unexpressed versions of ourself, and claiming to have finite answers to questions of our human experience.

One important question to ask is, what is charisma? The key word in understanding charisma is POWER. Most often cult leaders display themselves as “god-like” or “set apart” for a unique and special purpose. They have an uncanny ability to entice and influence people with promises to reveal the absolute answers to life’s most pressing questions. Eventually the leader is able to inundate the followers with his own “off-kilter” ideology. Conditions are created to surround and protect him from anyone who dares to question his declaration and claim -especially in the case of religious institutions. By creating a protective buffer around the leader, he is able to prevent people from testing or disproving his claim or “calling”.

Max Weber was a German sociologist in the 1800’s that studied charisma. Weber described a charismatic leader as a person with claims “to legitimacy that lies not only in amassing devotees who engage in hero worship, but in engendering a sense of duty among devotees to deify the charismatic one and promise complete fidelity and commitment to him [and his cause]”.

Charisma in itself is not wrong and doesn’t automatically nurture a cult leader. As Dr. Janja Lalich explains, “charisma is essentially a powerful and awesome social relationship built on a significant power imbalance…the charismatic one has great influence over those who respond to him. Often that response is misinterpreted to be more than it is. The misinterpretation easily results in extreme or irrational reactions on the part of the devotees…charisma is nothing more than a worshipful reaction to an idealized figure in the mind of the smitten. When one [or many] are smitten, a charismatic leader is born.” Once you’ve decided someone is charismatic, you’ve decided that person is special. In fact, you’ve decided that person is “more special” than you or anyone else. Abusive charismatic leaders are proficient manipulators, garnering attention and influence, commanding a room and requiring absolute loyalty and obedience. Any perceived or seemingly unfavourable response to that will be interpreted as a personal and intentional attack on them and the group.

4. What Lies Beneath Toxic Charismatic Power

Under the illusion of charisma, often lies a subdued inability for the leader to accept or even entertain the possibility that others may not see them as they see themselves. The leader has an altered reality of themself based on the grandiosity of their “calling” and the entitlement that comes with it. When questions of loyalty arise, the leader is incapable of rationalizing how someone could question their “divine calling” and uses covert abuse tactics to minimize the concern, avoid self-reflection and perpetuate their own altered reality. It’s common among leaders of abusive power to have enormous amounts of suppressed anger, neatly covered by their outward charisma that incites feelings of trust, awe and admiration from followers.

An example of this is during the early days of my husband being on staff. While in a meeting, the leader abruptly had an uncontrolled fit of anger and whipped a pencil at my husband which hit him just below his eye. The impact of the pencil broke the skin and a piece of lead remained embedded in his cheek. I remember the explanation of this so vividly by my husband when he got home. Being the forgiving and good-natured person he is, he explained that the leader lost his wits about a situation but didn’t mean to personally harm him. These kinds of overt reactions were so foreign to my husband that he was not only hurt, he was stunned! It was clear to me that my husband’s attempt to minimize this, on the surface, seemed like a kind and forgiving gesture in light of an angry outburst. The problem with this is the denial and whitewashing of a deeper issue. The patterns that often follow toxic charismatic power and control of a leader, seep out (covertly)behind closed doors when they feel like they are losing control, or when their power is being questioned. Unfortunately, this was an ongoing pattern, covertly covered up by those in the inner circle of leadership.

During our time in this high control group, but more specifically being in the inner circle, revealed the hidden nature of the one at the helm. I not only heard specific accounts of uncontrollable rage demonstrated towards people close to me who had questions or concerns for the leader, I also experienced this physical and demonstrative anger personally.

Beneath the shiny appearance of charisma, humility and servanthood, lies the covert behaviour of power, control and seething anger. Learning to recognize, understand, and accept what we don’t want to see in someone we thought was a trustworthy leader, can be a useful tool to avoid further abuse by any person, leader or institution.