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“A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do. Nothing else.”
Mahatma Ghandi
There is now an increasing body of research supporting the opinion that within organisations, developing charismatic leaders is one of the most effective (and cost effective) ways to positively impact upon pretty well everything from team performance, productivity and creative thinking to empowerment, engagement and employee morale.
There is still however, a stereotypical image that a charismatic leader needs to be a confident extrovert with a big personality. This standardized view will probably go on to expect that a leader relying on their charismatic presence will be looking to appeal to our emotions, rather than getting too bogged down with facts and figures. They will be very ‘big picture’, and as such, should generally be viewed with a healthy degree of scepticism. In the world of politics leaders described as ‘charismatic’ are often viewed with cautious suspicion – and I have no doubt that we can all think of plenty of examples of where history has proved that they absolutely should be!
Our definition of charisma is that it is ‘an authentic power that captivates the hearts and minds of others’. This definition differs from the stereotypical view in two key ways, the first of which being that we do not believe that an extrovert ‘big personality’ nature is a pre-requisite to being charismatic. On the contrary, because we believe that the single most important factor that determines an individual’s charisma is the extent that they are able to ‘captivate hearts and minds’, our model very much supports the view that quietly confident, introverted people can be every bit as charismatic as their more self-publicising counterparts.
This view is supported by a recent study reported in Business Week showing that a more reserved style of introverted leaders can actually inspire better performance in followers. Researchers Adam Grant of the Wharton School, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, and David Hofmann at the University of North Carolina found that if the employees are an extroverted, proactive bunch by nature, the team will perform better under the leadership of an introvert than under an extrovert. The study goes on to explain that introverted leaders are more likely to take a team approach to problem-solving and to let talented team members spread their wings.
Within our own experience I am sure that we can all think back to leaders, managers, teachers or mentors who have patiently drawn out our opinions, encouraged our creativity and have genuinely valued and shown appreciation for our contributions to the achievement of a collective goal. These people may not all have met the regulation blueprint of a charismatic leader, but they managed to ‘captivate our hearts and minds’ none-the-less. When we think of charisma, many of the icons of the genre that come to mind do not appear to be extroverts at all, and many, like Mahatma Ghandi, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana and even Robbie Williams, often showed a vulnerability that somewhat disproves the claim that you need to be consistently confident to be charismatic.
The other way in which our definition of charisma differs from the stereotypical view is that we believe that the second factor that determines how much an individual is seen to be charismatic, is the extent to which we perceive them to be ‘authentic’.
In business, as in politics, alarm bells start to ring when a leader’s ‘from the heart’ emotional response seems a bit too coached or contrived. When the words just don’t match with the body-language, and especially when our hard-wired unconscious mind just feels that there is something less than authentic about them, we will experience a negative reaction that we often can’t quite explain logically.
This may well be why we love our sporting heroes to be charismatic in the absolute stereotypical –big, brash, confident, sense of the word! When Muhammad Ali, with absolute unshakeable self-confidence, stared down the camera and stated that he was ‘The Greatest’, we believed him, and we didn’t start looking for any hidden agendas, because there were none. I would go as far as to say that we expect our sporting heroes self-esteem to be developed close to the point of arrogance, otherwise it just doesn’t seem authentic. Unconsciously we question whether they have that all -important ‘will to win’. For me, Andy Murray won more fans for losing to Federer at Wimbledon, and letting us see just how much that loss hurt him, than he did by reversing the result several weeks later at The Olympics.
Conversely, because we have a fundamental belief that politicians are – first and foremost -public servants, for us to see them as authentic, (and therefore charismatic), we need them to show far more humility than our ego driven sporting heroes. Our Political Leaders draw their charismatic appeal not from their displays of confidence or self-esteem, but from their vision, driving force and devotion to their mission or purpose. We believed in Nelson Mandela because he showed us, with his suffering and sacrifice, that he really cared. Nobody could ever doubt that Ghandi wasn’t passionate about the plight of his people, or that Martin Luther King not only had a dream, but that he totally believed in it.
In business, the leaders that we recognize as being truly charismatic have the ability to walk that fine line between letting us see that they possess huge drive to be successful, whilst at the same time, demonstrating an appreciation and understanding of their ethical and social responsibilities. The really interesting thing is that, in business, as in politics and sport, at the point when a charismatic leader ceases to be authentic, at the moment when he or she fails to connect at an emotional level, the charisma is lost, and the spell is broken.
