Executive Podcast #239: Can You Become a Charismatic Leader?

Many think charisma is something you are born with. Charisma is a choice, and you can build charisma when you move your focus away from yourself and toward others. John shares the Charisma Principle which says, people are interested in the person who is interested in them.

Charisma is a combination of personal qualities that enable someone to inspire and influence others. Some of those attributes might be confidence, charm, and the ability to connect with others on an emotional level.

Author Vanessa Van Edwards says the formula for charisma is: warmth + competence. She goes on to say, “Charismatic people signal warmth, trust, likeability, collaboration, but simultaneously, they signal competence, capability, power, efficiency. Charismatic people are both likable and respectable; both warm and credible.”

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Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast. Where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results.

Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Goede, Executive Vice President with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. As we get started, I’d love for you to go and visit MaxwellLeadership.com/podcast. There you can download the learner guide that Perry’s created for today’s lesson, or you can leave a question or a comment for us at that location if you’d like to do that. Well, today’s topic is titled, Can You Become a Charismatic Leader? Many think charisma is something that you were born with. And it’s interesting because I thought that as well.

Perry Holley:

Because we’re both born with it.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, well, not all, but I did think that, right, because I’m more of kind of a consistent level. I’m like, do I have that charisma? And what we’re going to talk about today is that it’s a choice, and you can really build charisma when you focus on others versus yourself. And so John actually shares that the charisma principle, which says people are interested in the person who is interested in them.

Perry Holley:

Yes, yes. Yeah. It’s the charisma principle. Now, is this interested in me as well, is why I brought this was we did a podcast a few weeks ago on John’s new book is out The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication. We did two laws on two back to back weeks, but on the second one we did law number seven, which was the Law of Connection. And that the Law of Connection basically says that leaders know that it’s all about others. It’s not about you. And he says, it’s in the first part of that law. He said, “It is the most important law in the book. That if you’re making it about you, that’s going to be problematic. You need to make everything you communicate about others.” I love this Law of Connection because it’s been a big piece of my development over the last 10 years or so, is that can you protect the connection regardless of the content?

And so John was a connection over content. And if you’ve been married for more than about an hour that you can get sideways by thinking your message, your content is so important that you can hurt the connection. If you’ve been a leader for more than about an hour, that you can hurt a connection, a relationship with someone based on the content of your message.

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Perry Holley:

My content is so important. I need to deliver this to you right now. And I disregard our connection over the content. And so the whole idea here is, can I put the connection over the content? I can still deliver a hard message, but I can do it in a kind way. Can I do things to communicate? And I was really fascinated because John gave four or five reasons, but one of the last reasons was he said that you need to be developing charisma. And I’m like you, I said, “I didn’t know you could develop it. I thought you either had it or you didn’t.” So maybe you could take us to what do we think charisma is and let’s talk about how we develop it.

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Chris Goede:

Yeah, this is great. Yeah. Charisma is really a combination of personal qualities that enable someone to inspire and influence others. Some other attributes, and I tie this to the emotional intelligence, which we’re going to talk a little bit about later, but might be confidence in charming and having courage, the ability to connect with others at that emotional level, the EQ side of things. Author Vanessa Van Edwards says, “The formula for charisma is warmth and competence.”

Perry Holley:

I love that. Warmth and competence.

Chris Goede:

You think about it. Because I don’t often think about people with charisma at times that are very warm. They may be competent, but they might… So I love that she goes on to say that charismatic people signal, warmth, trust, likability, collaboration, but simultaneously they signal competence, capability, power and efficiency. I want to be that guy. I want to be that leader right there.

Perry Holley:

That’s really good.

Chris Goede:

And I think charismatic people are both likable and respectable, both warm and credible.

Perry Holley:

Yes. I was reading her work, if you don’t know Vanessa Van Edwards, it’s a great read on Captivate and Cues is her newest one. But just a lot about how to relate to people and how to put your best self forward. And her work on charisma, I thought has really affected me on that. So all of this tells me that charisma can be developed. And so I’ll throw out a few. It may be five, I’m not sure. We’ll see at the end.

Chris Goede:

I love it.

Perry Holley:

But number one would be, and you hit it a little bit there, was develop self-confidence. You think was develop self-confidence. Well, charismatic people really believe in themselves and their abilities. They’re an optimistic group of folks. They have a growth mindset. Their confidence is not that they know everything, but that they can learn everything. They’re teachable, but they have a confidence that exudes from them because they know that if I don’t have it, I can get it and I can listen and I can learn. They believe they can grow daily. It helps build confidence. What’s your thought on…

Chris Goede:

I think about you when it comes to this in regards to keynotes or speaking from the stage. You just mentioned growth, which I think is key to this with self-confidence. There’s not a topic, I’ve shared this before, I tried to keep up with you for the first 10 days on a reading plan when we met years ago, when I was a young lad. And you’re an avid consumer of content, all content, all types of leadership, authors, styles and the ability to recall thoughts, build self-confidence when you’re speaking to a group of people that it shows up in that the charisma of how you handle a stage because of the confidence you have, because of the growth that you’ve gone through and prepared for years and years of preparation for those moments.

And I hadn’t thought about that too, just said that the growth and the learning builds that self-confidence. I think small wins create confidence, small learning moments create confidence, doesn’t have to be big wins. It’s like, oh man, I learned this today. I can speak to a little bit about that tomorrow and then I can apply it and then I can speak to it a little bit more. And I think that’s interesting because that does give you the charisma that you have when you’re on stage.

Perry Holley:

I appreciate that. Well, somebody said to me, “You seem so confident when you’re up there. Are you not nervous?” I go, “Well, here’s what I know. I am a subject matter expert, but there’s probably smarter people in the room. I do know that there’s probably not anybody more prepared for this talk. I’m getting ready to give than in the room, but I am well-prepared. And I’m also completely okay that I might be wrong. That there’s going to be someone that can point out something I don’t know and that I’m not trying to prove anything I’m really here and go back to the law of connection.”

It’s not about me. I’m trying to help add value to somebody in the room. And I know I’ve prepared, I know this is my space and I may be wrong, but I’m okay with that. And it gives me a level of confidence to say, “Tell me, you can dissent. You can actually argue with me.” And I’ll smile and think, wow. And I’ll see me often take a pen out of my pocket and make a note that I just learned something even while I’m on the stage. Somebody just said something that I hadn’t really thought about and I try to think about a lot. I try to prepare, over prepare, but you can build confidence by, like you said, investing, pouring into yourself, doing the work and realizing that you can not only can share what I’ve learned, but I can learn so I’m teachable.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s good. So growth leads to the preparation, which leads to self-confidence, which shows charisma in a positive way when you go about through that process.

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Chris Goede:

Number two, practice your communication skills. So building off of this, charismatic people listen carefully. They articulate their thoughts clearly, which you guys would, if you heard our outtakes on this podcast, you would question our charisma when it comes to that.

Perry Holley:

Outtakes, are there outtakes?

Chris Goede:

There are outtakes, yeah. Use body language effectively. They show value to others by actively listening to understand and to serve them. There’s the warmth, that connection that you’ve been talking about that helps drive charisma.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, it’s about putting your message, thinking about, you think how charismatic, you said they’re succinct, they say things confidently. Are you prepared for how you’re going to communicate your message, whether you’re speaking to a teenager in your home or a team at your work? Are you practicing your communication skills? And you hit a very interesting, it’s not just how you speak, your body language, what are you showing people? Are you showing that you’re present? Are you available? Are you listening? Lots of things going on around how we communicate with people. So I think when you practice those skills and work on your confidence, you begin to develop. I see where John’s going now is that I can begin to build this charismatic approach to things.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s good.

Perry Holley:

A number three that I liked was, you mentioned that a little earlier about developing my EQ, my emotional intelligence.

Charismatic people seem to have a high level of EQ. It enables you to connect better with people and I think connect more deeply with other people, when you put yourself in their position. We think about how do you develop, so I need to develop my EQ. How do I do that? And for me, it’s really been around self-regulation, that regulating my emotions. John would say, “Are you displaying or delaying your emotions?” I thought, well, if I’m not very charismatic, I’m probably doing a lot of displaying my emotions. Charismatic people would delay and high EQ people would delay their emotions knowing that no matter what you said, no matter what the situation, no matter what the input was, I have a choice to make on how I respond or react to that. And I like the fact that charismatic people are able to self-regulate and not blow back on everybody that says something you don’t like that I’m able to make my choices about how I show up.

Chris Goede:

I’m smiling over here while you’re talking, because I’m thinking about leaders that I have either seen through some of our work with other organizations that weren’t able to regulate. I like that word that’s used or don’t lead consistently on a daily basis. And their team, they don’t have any idea. And so while they may have a lot of energy and they may seem charismatic, they just don’t know what leader they’re going to get that day.

Perry Holley:

That consistency is huge.

Chris Goede:

And the consistency part of that. The other thing too is it reminds me of a study that we talk about periodically where when they study some leaders, they say 85% of the time on a weekly basis, they’re thinking about the EQ side of connecting and leading with people. And so I love how you made that one of these points here in regards to us becoming a charismatic leader.

Well, number four, be clear about your why. Charismatic people have a strong sense of purpose and vision. They’re passionate about their goals to be able to inspire others. I think inspire comes with when you lead charismatically and when you have a clear direction that you are going as a team, maybe as an individual contributor, maybe as a leader of the organization. And your why is really, really strong. It adds to your confidence. I know some leaders that would say, even in some of the worst times, an organization can be going through their why is so resolute. They’re so strong on it that it gives them that charisma to where all of a sudden people around are going, “Yeah, we’re in the boat with you, and the boat’s sinking” just because their why is so strong.

Perry Holley:

I came off a stage a few weeks ago and I’ve been up for eight hours on a intense workshop with senior leaders, which makes an intense workshop for me, and I’m about ready to leave. And a guy says, “How do you do that? How do you do that? You had such energy for all day. How do you do that?” I go, “We had done an exercise on why and purpose, about their purpose, and I thought that exercise.” He goes, “Yeah.” “I’m living mine right now.” And it gives me that energy that generally associated with charisma. You’re attracting others through your own energy. Where’d that come from? Was I tired? Heck yeah, I was tired, but I wasn’t going to back down because this was me fulfilling my purpose in that moment.

Chris Goede:

Love it.

Perry Holley:

I thought, “Oh, wow.” But he noticed. I wanted to say, did you get anything else out of the class or you’re just amazed in my energy level.

Chris Goede:

What’s your number one takeaway? I can’t believe how charismatic Perry was all day.

Perry Holley:

Talking to my wife. You can’t believe this guy. He went all day. Yeah. Yeah. Generally, it’s something we work all day. Number five-

Chris Goede:

We do work longer than eight hour days.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, you told us we only had to work half days, but you didn’t care which 12 hours it was. Appreciate that about you. All right number five was if you’re going to build charisma and you’d be more charismatic, was to be more vulnerable. And charismatic people are authentic and genuine. They’re not afraid of themselves, who they are, what their weaknesses are. They just come across that confidence that we spoke about earlier. Stop trying to appear perfect. Charismatic people do not appear perfect. They share their ups and downs, they share their strengths, their struggles. It builds trust when you do that. And I think that’s a key component of charisma.

Chris Goede:

These five ideas that you brought to us are great. Let’s remember as listeners, as leaders, the why behind why we want to develop charisma. Let’s also remember the fact that this can be learned, but we want to make sure that we become a charismatic leader to our people because we want to inspire and influence others. Everybody deserves to be led well. We want to create powerful positive change inside organizations and teams that we lead. And as we’re working through this, make sure, and we talk about this a lot, there’s a fine line between influence and manipulation and that’s your motive. And make sure that you are leading charismatically because you want the other individuals to succeed, maybe greater than yourself, which would be awesome. Leader’s greatest return. And then for the organization, and then finally for yourself, your motive matters.

Perry Holley:

Well, it reminds me of a lesson that I’ve learned here as a… I’ve been working with this team and that I wish I’d have known when I was 25, was that you’re always making people feel something. Are you aware of what you’re making people feel? John says, “People won’t go along with you if they can’t get along with you.” And I thought, are you a likable person? Are you working to be likable to other people? You’re not going to have charisma or demonstrate positive charismatic tendencies if you are not a likable person.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Perry Holley:

So I’m thinking just that little question about what am I making people feel and I am always making people feel something. Could I do it on purpose? And it generally starts with the lesson I like to teach on mind your face, that you’re generally a different person when you smile and when you greet people and your charisma begins to come out through that positiveness of starting with a smile before you ever open your mouth, people are already making a decision about you. So your charisma enters the room maybe before you as your countenance shows up.

Chris Goede:

That’s so good.

Perry Holley:

So I love that little lesson, and I’m always thinking about that when I’m walking through the airport now I’m smiling, greeting, looking around. I’m thinking, because everybody else looks like they’re going a death march. And I thought, I don’t want to be that. I’m trying to make people feel something positive. I can do it. It’s my choice.

Chris Goede:

As we wrap up, I want to go back and I want to go back to the quote that we read earlier on because I think there is a misperception of the word charisma or a charismatic leader. It makes me think too of the illustration where you’re like, Hey, when you walk into the room as a leader or someone with influence, we define leadership as influence. We all have influence with people. When you leave the room, there’s two things that’ll happen. They either go, “Man, that leader was the smartest individual in the room.” Or they’ll go, “Man, I feel like I’m smarter now because that leader’s in the room.”

A lot of us I think have this misperception that a charismatic leader is that first one, loud, boisterous, going to tell you what I’m thinking, this, that, and they walk out. Versus I now have learned through this conversation today, and even just digging into a little bit of this in John’s content to where I go, maybe a charismatic leader is really the one that leaves that room. And they go, “I think I’m smarter because of that conversation.”

Perry Holley:

That’s good.

Chris Goede:

And that experience with that leader. And so it goes back to the quote that you have in our notes here, where it says from Vanessa Van Edwards, where charismatic people signal, warmth, trust, likability, collaboration, but simultaneously they signal competence, capability, power, and efficiency. That’s our goal as leaders.

Perry Holley:

Fantastic. Thank you, Chris. Just a reminder, if you want to get the learner guide or leave a question or a comment, you can do [email protected] slash podcast. We love hearing from you and we’re very grateful you’d spend this time with us today. That’s all from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.