My friends tease me, saying that I’m such an obnoxious jerk, but
amazingly, everybody seems to love me. Somebody said it’s because I have
charisma — like a rock star/movie star quality. Honestly, I don’t think that
highly of myself. I’m interesting-looking, outgoing, funny and relatively
talented in what I do. What is charisma exactly, and can people create it? — Weirdly
Beloved Woman
There are certain people
throughout history that you just know had charisma. Moses, for example: “Hey,
fellow Jews, just follow right behind me as I take a jog into the sea.”
Charisma is the Pied Piper
of personality traits — a mix of personal magnetism, likability and powerful
presence that leads people to flock to and follow a person who has it. This can
have creepy and even deadly results when the charismatic person is a cult
leader, but evolutionary researchers Allen Grabo and Mark van Vugt believe that
charisma evolved to be a cooperation booster. Their research suggests it is a
“credible signal of a person’s ability” to inspire a group of people to unite
behind him or her so they can collectively solve some problem that would stump
them individually.
Looks are an element of
charisma. Being tall, good-looking, and physically stronger than your peers, as
well as appearing healthy, are correlated with charisma, note Grabo and van
Vugt. That said, though it’s helpful to be a ringer for Gisele Bundchen, you
can more closely resemble a hamburger bun in a bikini and still be mad
charismatic. Accordingly, the researchers observe that “anecdotal evidence”
suggests that having “particularly unique” features — “such as Abraham
Lincoln’s elongated face or Rasputin’s piercing eyes” — may amp up charisma
“as a result of their attention-grabbing ability.”
The good news — for
anyone who lacks height, hots or eyes that burn a hole in people — is that how
a person acts appears to be the main driver of charisma. And though some people
are naturally (that is, genetically) equipped to be more charismatic through
their set of personality traits, there are charismatic behaviors that anybody
can learn and practice (or, perhaps in your case, engage in more often).
The behaviors that drive
charisma are those that reflect a combination of “high power and high warmth,”
explains business coach Olivia Fox Cabane in her research-based book The
Most people probably
believe that charisma comes simply out of speaking powerfully — Martin Luther
King-ing it rather than mumbling their message. Actually, listening powerfully
— tapping into how somebody’s feeling, engaging with it emotionally and
empathizing — is essential to having charisma. Connecting in this way drives
what people experience as warmth, which Cabane sums up as “goodwill” — the
sense that another person cares about them and their well-being.
And sorry, but you can’t
just fake the look of someone who’s listening (nod, nod, nod, eye contact, eye
contact) while you’re all up in your to-do list or formulating the brilliant
thing you’re going to say next. You’ll think you’re hiding your
inattentiveness, but little bits of your body language will always sell you
out.
Charismatic body language
comes out of the antithesis of nervousness — being comfortable in your skin,
having a sort of high-powered calm. That’s reflected in slower speech (rather
than squirrel-like chit-chattering), the confidence to take pauses while
speaking, and breathing from your diaphragm instead of taking shallow gulps of
air. (For the basics on speaking more powerfully, read speech therapist and
pathologist Morton Cooper’s Change Your
Voice, Change Your Life.)
Slower, expansive body
movements are another mark of the charismatic, in contrast with the
herky-jerkyness of the perpetually uneasy — those who always seem on the verge
of making a run for it. However, there’s a caveat to all of this walking and
talking advice: If you’re insecure and self-loathing, you can’t just plaster
some alpha-girl body language on top of that. Not credibly, anyway. You’ve got
to put in the work to fix your foundation. (See my “science-help” book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with
Guts and Confidence.)
Finally,
consider that it takes a strong person to be open about their weaknesses and
failures. Counterintuitive, I know. But people don’t relate to greatness. They
relate to other people who show how human and imperfect they are. Cabane
explains that “drawing attention to your vulnerabilities” ultimately enhances
your power. In other words, instead of always working hard to look good, you’ll
amp up your charisma by making intermittent efforts to look bad — like by
confessing, “I’m socially awkward. Always have been. I’m really bad at leaving
conversations at parties — to the point where
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2018.
