I’ve been thinking quite a bit this week about Psychometric Testing for leaders, and in particular about the availability of an effective psychometric test for ‘charisma’. Much has been written about the desirability and importance of charisma as a leadership trait. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review ‘ (June 2012) ‘concluded that; “The most effective leaders layer charismatic leadership on top of transactional and instrumental leadership to achieve their goals”.
Yet despite what appears to be a consensus opinion that charisma is a most desirable asset for a business leader (or for that matter a Politician or a TV Presenter), my quick Google search ‘Psychometric Testing for charisma’– which invariably brings pretty well any information that I need immediately to my screen – drew a blank. It would appear (and please somebody correct me if I’m wrong?) that nobody else is applying a scientific set of measurable criteria from which an individual’s ‘charisma rating’ or ‘charismatic potential’ can be evaluated.
What I did find however, fifth entry down nestled between our own home page and the article by Dr Chamorro – Premuzic which I referenced last week, was a very interesting report about a Psychometric Test carried out back in 1997 by Australian psychologist Len Oakes, which focused on the subject of ‘Charismatic Authority’.
Charismatic Authority
Charismatic Authority was first defined in 1922 by sociologist Max Weber as “resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person.” In his writings about charismatic authority, Weber applies the term charisma to “a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or (at least) specifically exceptional powers or qualities. Weber went on to explain that on the basis of these powers or qualities the individual concerned is treated as a leader, and makes the point that Charismatic authority depends heavily on the perceived legitimacy of that authority. For instance, a charismatic leader in a religious context might require an unchallenged belief that the leader has been touched by God, in the sense of a guru or prophet. Should the strength of this belief fade, the power of the charismatic leader can fade quickly. As discussed in last week’s blog ‘Dark Charisma’, Max Weber makes the point that a charismatic leader need not be a positive force.
Len Oakes, the Australian psychologist who wrote his dissertation about charisma in 1997, had eleven charismatic leaders fill in a psychometric test, which he called the adjective checklist. The report explains that he found them as a group ‘quite ordinary’, identifying however that charismatic leaders:
-Exhibited traits of narcissism
-Displayed an extraordinary amount of energy,
-Possessed an inner clarity unhindered by the anxieties and guilt that afflict more ordinary people.
As a strong advocate of the opinion that organisations need, now more than ever, to be prioritizing on developing the charismatic presence of their leaders and high potentials, I was delighted with Dr. Oakes’ findings. The three traits that his psychometric test identified very much support our own view of the internal characteristics of a charismatic individual, as well as our approach. I will, however, admit to initially being a little perplexed by the ‘narcissism word, so I looked it up to find that in psychology, the term is used to describe both normal self – love and unhealthy self – absorption (due to a disturbance in the sense of self). My feeling is that it is probably that level of narcissism, or ego, that would be a primary trigger to whether an individual charismatic leader was seen as a positive, or negative force – Churchill or Hitler, Mandela or Mugabe, Branson or Murdoch etc.
Our own approach to developing charisma starts with the precept that it is already there within every one of us. As Len Oakes first observed over 15 years ago, ‘quite ordinary’ people can significantly increase their charismatic authority by working firstly on their self-esteem, or self-love. Most of us will, at times in our lives, consciously or sub-consciously, harbor insecurities about whether we are ‘good enough’. Our experience is that it is, more than anything else, these self-limiting beliefs that stop the majority of us from reaching our charismatic potential.
When we work with individuals and teams, much of our focus is on how we an use and build energy. We use a variety of techniques including dowsing and Reiki to demonstrate the effect that our thoughts and emotions have on both our own, and the group’s, energetic presence.
In addition to Self-Esteem and High Energy, the three internal attributes that we have identified as being highly developed in charismatic leaders are Vision, Driving Force and Sensory Awareness – echoing Dr. Oakes third attribute of ‘inner clarity unhindered by anxieties and guilt’.
I thought it might be interesting to test our model of charisma against a control group that are in the public eye to see if it might be possible to predict success. So for a bit of fun I decided to score the ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’ contestants against our 5 internal attributes of Charisma which are; Self-Esteem, Sensory Awareness, Vision, Driving Force and Energy as well as two other criteria central to our model – Authenticity and Leadership. Whilst I completely accept that my findings are entirely subjective –and that ideally 360 degree feedback scores should have been included, my prediction of the winners, based upon contestants charismatic leadership scores are as follows:
-Ashley from The Pussycat Dolls
-David Haye
-Hugo or Rosemary
Incidentally according to my calculations, it would appear that there is a high probability that Rylan Clark will go on to achieve more success than the rest of this year’s crop of X Factor contestants….
