Is charismatic leadership always bad?

Such a leadership can work only when institutions are strong enough to contain it.

Last Friday, as I read Aakriti Ghimire’s column “Nation-building isn’t a one-man game”, I was reminded of Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s uncharismatic chancellor, who quietly anchored the Wirtschaftswunder (Germany’s post-war developmental miracle)—a stark contrast to his predecessor Adolf Hitler’s charisma-driven disasters. Ghimire was right—Nepal’s democracy remains trapped in a cycle of hero worship, where every crisis produces a new redeemer.