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A fundamental challenge to understanding our evolved psychology is to explain how cooperative or prosocial behaviors are maintained despite the immediate temptation to free-ride. We propose that charismatic leadership and followership can be best understood as a product of this recurrent, fitness-relevant selection pressure for adaptations that effectively promoted and sustained prosocial behaviors within groups. We describe charismatic leadership and followership as a dynamic process in which leaders signal their ability to benefit the group by increasing the perceived likelihood that cooperation will succeed. A charismatic leader is one who is able to attract the attention of other group members and serve as a focal point for aligning and synchronizing prosocial orientations in followers, suppressing sensitivity to cooperative risks, and enhancing the salience of perceived cooperative rewards. We hypothesize …