Wilson comments on the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses never really gathered around their "leaders" who didn't attain what he refers to as "charismatic" or even "semi-charismatic" status in their own time or afterwards.  J. Rutherford, in particular, waged a little spiritual war against what he referred to as "creature worship" that is, giving
undo honor to men, or anything other than God. This was one of the reasons that Rutherford first first noted the unchristian nature of birthdays, in that they gave undo honor
to men.

So while critics have a tendency to put emphasis on the presidents of the Watchtower Society, and their idiosyncricies and foibles, Jehovah's Witnesses in general are  far less interested, and endeavor not to put their emphasis on men, but to focus their hearts on Jesus Christ, who is their true leader. 1 Pet 2:21. It is frequently heard, "imperfect men will always disappoint you," including the "leaders" of any religion, in one way or the other, as we are all in the same imperfect boat, rowing upstream together. God, on the other hand, and Jesus, will never disappoint you.

Wilson's comments,

"Pastor Russell, whose writings established the Watchtower Truth Society, the International Bible Students, or Jehovah's Witnesses as they came to be generally
known, was not particularly revered in his own lifetime, and has been virtually forgotten as the movement has passed under other leadership. His immediate successor
Judge Rutherford, who was certainly given to dramatic pronouncements, hardly attained semi-charismatic stature, and after his death the direction of the movement
passed very much to a committee, of whom the Chairman, Nathan Knorr, has only gradually emerged even as a strongly identified personality."

Religion in Secular Society
A Sociological Comment by Bryan Wilson
Penguin, 1966. p.218,219

The religious roots of Jehovah's Witnesses are with the Adventists, however, in an indirect way. Wilson states, " Jehovah's Witnesses owe their beginnings to that outcrop of preaching," "less directly," than directly.  p.225 This is because Russell's "awakening" to Christianity, which had forgotten, came with his hearing of preaching from adventists and their talk of the end of this system, and the coming millenium, when a young adult.