Background on Charisma
Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It is a classic human tendency to describe anything we do not fully understand in magical or mystical terms.

The ancient Greeks observed that some people, generally their leaders, had what they perceived to be a “mysterious quality” that enthralled others and made them want to follow them. Because they didn’t understand what this quality was, and because they couldn’t quite pin it down, they decided that it must be a “magical” or “God- given gift”. They even created a special word for this mysterious
attribute. They called it kharisma – “a divinely conferred gift or power” (www.dictionary.com).

That word from ancient Greece has found its way, largely unchanged, into many modern languages. In all of those languages you’ll find definitions of charisma similar to the one the Greeks used several thousand years ago. In one modern dictionary charisma is defined as “a gift or power believed to be divinely bestowed.”

If you look at some of the other dictionary definitions of charisma, however, it becomes obvious that there is more than a passing connection between charisma and employee engagement. Look at the definitions of employee engagement and charisma below.

The observation of the closeness of these two definitions was the genesis of this book.
Employee engagement defined
“... a heightened emotional connection that an employee feels for his or her organization, that influences him or her to exert greater discretionary effort to his or her work.” (Definition from “The Conference Board”)
Charisma defined
“... A special quality of leadership that captures the popular imagination and inspires allegiance and devotion.” (Definition from www.yourdictionary.com)

The Importance of Leadership Charisma
What became abundantly clear was the direct connection between a leader’s charisma and business results. Employee engagement drives business results; charismatic leaders bring people onboard, driving employee engagement. So focusing on becoming a more charismatic leader is a clear way toward obtaining superior results from people.
Director of Research at the Rofley Park Institute, Jo Hennessy, put it perfectly:
“Charismatic leaders can gather people behind them. They’re inspiring and strong and, if they’re able to engage staff, the results will follow.”

You Can Be a Charismatic Leader
The reason that most people confer magical status on charisma is that they mistakenly think of it as an attribute that an individual possesses – and nothing could be further from the truth.
Charisma is not an attribute, but a perception one person has of another whose personality he or she finds appealing. No one can be charismatic on his or her own.
It takes two people – one to observe what he or she describes as charisma, and another to behave in a manner that the observer perceives as being charismatic.

Charisma is truly like beauty – in the eye of the beholder. If I find you charismatic, then, for me at least, you are.

Charisma is simply the combination of the impact of a wide variety of behaviors that people observe practiced, consciously or unconsciously, by those they term charismatic. Ask ten people to explain why they find someone charismatic and you’ll probably get ten different answers. Some will talk about the person’s ability to speak in an inspiring manner. Others will describe his or her genuine friendliness. Still more will talk about the interest he or she shows in other people’s well-being. And others will mention many more things.
And they would all be right – charisma is whatever others observe it to be. Charisma is a term applied to us when someone likes the combination of how we behave, the actions we take, the face we present to the world, the words we use, our body language and myriad other things. All of these contribute to a greater or lesser degree to our perceived charisma. So charisma is not a particular quality that a person either possesses or doesn’t possess; and it’s based on behaviors, so it’s definitely not something that is innate.
When you think of charisma in this manner then it becomes clear why some people are perceived as charismatic in one setting but not another. Someone who has developed superior oratory, presentation and performance skills may come across as a charismatic speaker when addressing a group of hundreds of people, but be singularly uncharismatic immediately afterward when talking one to one with members of the audience – because of a lack of one-on-one social and communication skills. Similarly, someone may be charismatic for one group of people who finds his or her behaviors appealing and not be at all charismatic to a group that does not.
Everything we do contributes to or detracts from our charisma. Those who are charismatic simply display more of the behaviors that promote a “charismatic response” in those others who matter to them. Some people do this quite effortlessly – there is something in their genes or in their upbringing that makes this the most natural thing in the world; the rest of us must learn how. And learn we can.
The good news is that, because charisma is based on behavior, it can be measured – and it can be cultivated. Anyone can decide to become more charismatic and, simply by assimilating the behaviors that will be deemed charismatic by his or her target audience, that person can raise his or her perceived charisma in pretty much any situation.
This is especially good news for business leaders, for whom charisma is an absolutely indispensable element of success in modern business. If you wish to, you can become a genuinely charismatic leader.

The most dangerous leadership myth ... asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
— Warren Bennis, Leadership Scholar