According to Michael Grinder there are many degrees of charisma. Most of us don’t want to lounge on a Tahitian beach and paint. We want to have enough influence to ensure that our work is meaningful. Others of us are in positions where we directly influence the atmosphere where others thrive in. All of us are affected by our own and other’s style of leadership and relationships.
Why are some people easy to form relationships with, to influence and to work with while others are not?
Max Weber defined charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, super-human, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are not accessible to the ordinary person but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.”
We often think of charisma as a special gift, the je ne sais quoi that makes someone starlike, when actually there are extensive studies that show it’s not so much a gift as a learnable skill.
I’m sure you have come across people that you end up admiring and maybe even following? What traits did they have? These people usually carry a sense of style, flair, and confidence. They are excellent communicators, have certain maturity and character, they tend to be humble and compassionate, they talk the talk and walk the walk, are well aware of people around them, have great listening skills and positive body language. Great, all of the above can be learned because underpinning these skills and behaviours there are successful strategies that we can elicit and replicate with our own adaptations, this is the art of modelling.
So, now that we know what we know about Charisma, let’s look at some of its main elements as we begin our journey towards becoming charismatic leaders/communicators.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN TRAITS OF A CHARISMATIC PERSON?
- Empathy
- Listening Skills
- Eye contact
- Enthusiasm
- Self-Confidence
- Humour
- Curiosity
- The use of Metaphors
How many of the above are you applying on a regular basis?
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