Can You Learn Charisma?

Charisma is sold to us as a divine gift that you're either born with or not. Can you learn to be a more charismatic leader? And if so, how would you do it without succumbing to its dark side? In this episode I give you six practical ways to build your charisma through doing, not pretending. Welcome to the No Bullshit Leadership Podcast. In a world where knowledge has become a commodity, this podcast is designed to give you something more.

Access to the experience of a successful CEO who has already walked the path. So join your host, Martin Moore, who will unlock and bring to life your own leadership experiences and accelerate your journey to leadership excellence. We bandy around the word charisma quite a bit, and even though charisma comes with some negative connotations, most of us wish we had more of it.

Describing the things that make up charisma can be difficult. It's quite an intangible concept, which is why it's so easy to fall back on observable physical attributes. confidence, wardrobe choices, tone of voice. This tells you less about charisma and more about our deeply ingrained assumptions about what a leader is supposed to look like.

A series of studies undertaken over the last 50 years have shown that charisma is way more malleable than previously thought. Not only can it be learned, but we now have a pretty good idea of what the ingredients of charisma are. In this episode, I dispel the charisma myth and I give you the practical guidance that you need to build your charisma, no matter where you feel you are right now, or what your beliefs about charisma were before you pressed play on this episode.

I'll start by cherry picking some of the recent research that I've done. I'll go on to explore the dark side of charisma and I'll give you my six practical tips for increasing your charisma. Let's get into it. M sent me an article a few weeks ago that was written by Charles Duhig, exploring the concept of charisma. Charisma comes from the Greek word meaning divine gift. That in itself gives it an air of being an inherited attribute, as immutable as your height or skin colour.

A lot of research has been undertaken over the last century. It started in the early twentieth century with Max Weber, who largely reinforced the born not made narrative. But in the last 50 years, the research has shown that charisma is much more malleable than previously thought. Not only can it be learned, but there are specific actions you can take to build the various ingredients that make up the charisma recipe. There are three pillars that are broadly agreed upon. Power and War.

For example, when it comes to presence, charismatic people tend to ask more questions. They connect better, they listen more, and they contextualize their conversation. In terms of power, confidence is the key. Not bluff, not bravado, calm, relaxed confidence. Or looking from the other direction, a lack of obvious self doubt. This is a proxy for credibility and competence. Then there's warmth. And this can come from humour, particularly things like making self-effacing jokes.

This type of vulnerability is highly attractive. Humour was always a part of my leadership repertoire, not for any other reason than it's actually part of who I am. But it's quite an effective predictor of traits like creativity and mental agility. You can see how these three pillars link with each other. But it's not so much about clever lines and practical charts. It's more about being attuned to other people, responding to their signals, and demonstrating a level of genuine care for them.

All of this has to be underpinned by high order communication skills. Charismatic people communicate in ways that feel emotional and clear, and whether it's actually the case or not, they create the perception that their behaviors are grounded in value. Interestingly, some of the research findings suggest that charisma only works to a point. Apparently, no more than 60% of all conversations should be charismatic conversations.

Beyond that, the leader supposedly seems less trustworthy and less competent. Look, I find this one pretty hard to make sense of logically to tell you the truth. If the underlying behaviors that make you charismatic are ingrained in you, you can't just switch them on and off. It's who you are.

The research is clearly showing the distinction between performative charisma and genuine charisma. We all know people who use performative charisma as a weapon. The traditional view of charisma says you have to be tall, good looking, and well dressed, with a deep authoritative voice. If that were truly the case, I would be shit out of luck. But even though these attributes might predict who gets selected, they certainly don't predict how well they're going to perform.

In Malcolm Gladwell's classic book He made the observation that even though less than fifteen percent of men in the US are over six feet tall, Almost 60% of Fortune 500 CEOs are over six feet tall. And this effect is exaggerated even more when we look at adult men who are even taller, six foot two or more. Even though they represent only 3.9% of the population, almost one-third of the CEO sample was 6'2 or taller.

Further to this, a Duke University study titled Voice pitch and labor market success of male CEOs found that a drop in voice pitch of 22 Hz equated to a staggering level of career outperformance. Those CEOs were likely to run a company almost half a billion dollars larger in size. To receive on average 187,000 more in annual compensation and enjoy longer tenure in their role.

But even though attractiveness privilege is obviously alive and well, unsurprisingly, attributes like height and voice tone only predict selection, not performance.

Of course this doesn't stop some leaders from trying to grow their charisma by superficial means. But you know this type when you see them. They change their outward appearance in an attempt to produce greater charisma, without changing a single thing about who they are or how they operate. Elizabeth Holmes tried to buy charisma. The Elizabeth Holmes who dropped out of her undergraduate degree at Stanford was very different to the one who founded the biotech company Theranoid.

She adopted the Steve Jobs black polo neck uniform and started talking with a deep, affected voice that supposedly gave her more credibility. Is this how she managed to convince high profile political figures and billionaires to invest in her new blood testing technology, which, as we found out later, was largely vaporware? How else do you convince really smart people to do really dumb shit? I genuinely think this was the charisma of the world.

I dedicated an early no bullshit leadership episode to the collapse of Theranos and to Elizabeth Holmes's fall from grace. It was episode 31, Don't Shoot the Messenger. I'll leave a link to that in the show notes. Regardless of how they come upon it, there's little doubt that charismatic people tend to move a bit more easily in the world.

I remember being at Melbourne Airport many years ago, standing in line to check in for my flight, and just in front of me was Hugh Jackman, the actor. Boy was he Karis Man. Tall, confident, energetic, moving effortlessly as he juggled luggage and children. And the people around him were in awe of. In Jackman's world, this is probably the norm. Because in Hollywood, charisma is the product. But in a corporate context, the smokescreen that charisma creates can be extremely dangerous.

Charisma and charm are the tools of the trade for the corporate psychopath. By all accounts, serial killer Ted Bundy was highly charismatic. And so are some of the executives I worked with during my career. Charismatic people tend to get more attention, and this comes with a halo of it. Because they communicate well and connect with people deeply, this casts a halo across other areas of their performance. It might even lead people to mistake this for competence, expertise, or intellect.

Corporate psychopaths tend to cast their spells really well in an upwards direction. I've seen many a charismatic leader hold their boss spellbound as they bullshitted their way to a promotion. They talk an awesome game. Now I got fooled by the odd charismatic leader earlier on in my career, until I learned how to trust but fairly. I became pretty good at inspecting outputs in a way that confirmed whether the results actually matched the record.

And ultimately, it didn't matter how compelling that rhetoric was. I found a way to pressure test it without being deceived by their morale. I've also seen corporate psychopaths captivate their teams. Now again, this is normally with lies, deception, and empty promises. But you'd be really surprised at how far this can take a leader. It normally comes with a liberal dose of gaslighting, so that each individual feels that any fault must lie with them rather than the charismatic psychopath.

These teams typically don't tend to last too long before they disintegrate. But if they do, it's often because they fall into groupthink and develop a siege mentality. The hardest trick for the corporate psychopath to pull off is convincing people at peer level that they are everything they say they are. Peers tend to be a lot more wary. They aren't preconditioned to swallowing their bullshit, and they see themselves in a more competitive frame.

So this is the big difference. A psychopath can mimic the behaviors that draw you to them. But it's unsustainable, it's deeply destructive, and it gives a bad name to people with genuine charisma who have won it through hard work, solid habits, and good intent. Charisma is a learnable skill. And yes, some people are naturally more charismatic than others. But knowing what the drivers of charisma are, there are six things that you can do right now to build it up. The first thing is be yourself.

This is the critical difference between the corporate psychopath and the person with genuine charisma. If you act in a way that's inconsistent with who you are deep down, that inconsistency is eventually going to become really obvious. And inconveniently, this tends to happen at the most inopportune time. When the pressure is on Or when your guard is down in a social situation.

If you're a leader, you can assume that people are watching you pretty closely. They're just trying to work out whether they can trust you, and they calibrate all of their observations to form a complete picture. are going to show up eventually. If you're not true to your own nature, you'll end up seeming fake and insincere. The second thing to do is connect with others. Empathy is a key. This isn't about feeling sorry for people, that's sympathy. Empathy is about understanding.

It's about being able to see the world through other people's eyes, to feel what it's like to be in their shoes. This enables you to ask questions and have conversations at a completely different level. Of course it feeds into the research findings of presence and warmth. The introverts among you are going to find this quite challenging. But if you just focus on how you can best serve your people, it's going to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and connect with them.

The third thing you can do is don't take yourself too seriously. I occasionally speak about the role that humour can play in leadership. I even did a whole episode on it, referencing some McKinsey research on that subject. It was episode 145, Humour is Underrated. In no bullshit leadership, I probably come across as being fairly serious. I've even been told I'm intense. And let's face it, there's a time for being really serious.

You've got to take business seriously, but you shouldn't take yourself too seriously. I would quite often crack jokes in executive or board meetings. I clearly knew my stuff, but I also figured it was important to show that I was relaxed and I wasn't over-awed by the situation. A number of years ago, after presenting a complex capital investment proposal to the board, I finished with a little bit of humour.

Instead of using the standard line, I'd be happy to answer any questions. I said to them Please, whatever you do, don't ask me any questions. What I've said in the last seven minutes has completely exhausted my knowledge on this subject. Surprisingly charismatic. The fourth thing you can do is stay true to your convictions. Strength of character is something that can't be bought and it can't be faked. And these days, it seems that corporate courage is a really rare commodity.

I think if you show that you'll stand on your principles, even in the face of ridicule or scorn or disagreement, people are going to find that extremely attractive. Most leaders look to self-protection first. Charismatic leaders are prepared to do whatever it takes to pursue better outcomes. They prioritise company first, team second, and self third. And when the leaders above you are weak or decide to follow the path of least resistance, a charismatic leader holds her course.

The fifth thing you can do is bring the energy. Energy is a highly underrated leadership skill. It's also a highly attractive charismatic attribute that can positively influence people's motivation and performance. One of my favourite clients, a CEO running a large manufacturing business just north of Sydney, frequently talks about energy. Do his executives have the energy they need to make change?

Are they likely to be disheartened at the first obstacle? Or are they going to push through and double their efforts? When you bring the energy, your charisma levels skyrocket. And finally, number six, have a bold vision. Who's the most visionary leader you've ever seen? Someone who can clearly picture things that no one else can even begin to imagine.

Look, whatever you say about Elon Musk, he is a visionary. Despite his obvious and undeniable issues, his vision is also undeniable. And this makes him extremely charismatic. When you lift people up and offer to take them somewhere they wouldn't go themselves, when you show your belief in them and in their ability to achieve great things, that has an incredibly galvanizing effect.

Having a bold vision for the future and holding high aspirations for the team will fill your charisma cup until it's overflowing.

All of these things can be built. Charisma can be learned. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from taking any or all of these six steps right now. But like anything else in leadership, it takes focus and discipline. Be yourself, connect with others, don't take yourself too seriously, stay true to your convictions, bring the energy, and have a bold vision.

And while you're building your charisma, you'll find that these are exactly the same things that build your trustworthiness, your credibility, and the influence you can have on your team. If you weren't especially gifted with natural charisma, I'm sure you're going to welcome the dismantling of this charisma myth. Because focusing on these six things will not only build your charisma, it will massively improve your leadership performance. And for me, that sounds like a no-regrets move.

Alright, so that brings us to the end of episode 402. I really hope you enjoyed it, but as I'm sure you know, listening is easy, leading is hard. If you found this episode useful, I'd love it if you would follow or subscribe to the No Bullshit Leadership Podcast on your favourite player. I'm looking forward to next week's episode, The Player Coach Model. Until then, I know you'll take every opportunity you can to be a no bullshit leader.