The Hidden Cost of Dull Leadership

Back when corporate struggles  really put managers in harm’s way

Once upon a time, kings personally commanded their armies in war. The price of dull leadership on the battlefield was death, banishment and even the abolition of entire nation states.

In 1346 King Philip VI of France lost his sacred battle flag, the Oriflamme, at the Battle of Crécy and unleashed a century of war with England. The death of the Portuguese king Sebastian while campaigning in North Africa in 1578, caused the Spanish to take over his country for 60 years. Among English kings, Charles I lost his head in 1649; his son James II lost his throne in 1688. George II lost America without leaving London.

In our own age, leadership of those modern armies we know as corporations seems a far less dangerous business. Few CEOs die in this calling and the rolling of heads is symbolic – unless you happen to be a low-ranking vice president after a takeover. Those in the C suite can expect a golden parachute, three months’ ‘gardening leave’ – and a resumption of calls from the headhunters.

But the truth is dull leadership has always been and continues to be the most dangerous and costly element of all human endeavour – including in corporate life.

Dull leadership is the inability of managers to communicate future plans and needs in clear and compelling terms that motivate and inspire the workforce and other stakeholders. It is the costliest of all factors dragging down the modern enterprise.

Dull leadership is about trying to fix your weaknesses in public – rather than focusing on your strengths in front of your troops.

Just like an infection that breaks down the body’s defences to degenerative disease, dull leadership opens the path for all the ills that bring eventual defeat on the corporate battlefield. Low staff engagement. Alienated customers. Demotivated channel partners. Ageing brands. Tired sales teams. Cynical shareholders. Reinvigorated competitors.

Now wonder leadership is the Holy Grail of business studies and business publishing.

Effective leadership is the power to influence others  (employees, stakeholders, customers, competitors, enemies) to accept and then force themselves to do things they would not otherwise do, expressed wholly through communication. Effective leaders who tell stories of tomorrow, engage and inspire others to follow them into future they have the power to shape.

Yet since 1934, we have searched for leadership in quite different places and described it in different terms. It was then that Alfred P. Sloan, President of General Motors, founded what was to become the world’s first business school. This in turn launched an armada of MBA courses devoted to such technical aspects of leadership as planning, forecasting, cost-control, budgeting and allocation of human and other resources.

It’s an inconvenient truth that while these professional skills have in the past done admirable service for an elite warrior class, the rate of attrition for corporate footsoldiers is largely unaffected by management prowess. The dynamic that makes companies grow, acquire, split, divest and then die often results from a completely different definition of leadership.

It’s almost as noteworthy that many of role models in modern corporate life tend to be the iconoclasts with highly developed communications prowess, rather than logistical or administrative mavens.

The Virgin Group led by Richard Branson, for example, has made a brand virtue out of its founder’s ability to project forward scenarios – even in space travel. A whole TED Talk-trained generation of Menlo Park entrepreneurs depends upon charismatic communication to pitch counter-intuitive business models.

In short, “talking the walk” is back, despite what that established icon of business publishing Jim ‘Good to Great’ Collins wrote about ‘The Death of the Charismatic Leader’  way, way back in 1997.

Let’s do a test. If we were to transpose the accepted arsenal of modern MBA tools onto the battlefields of France during the Hundred Years War, who would they serve best? Would it be the King leading his army from the front by the windmill, or the Quartermaster minding the horses and baggage waggons safely at the rear, ensuring the long-bowmen doing the actual fighting got a steady supply of arrows?

Now let’s try the other way around. What was the single most important leadership used by the English king who won the Battle of Agincourt in 1415? Lovers of Shakespeare’s play Henry Vth will know it was inspiring rhetoric. Raw leadership in the face of impossible odds is all about mastery of communication for influence. No wonder the British 1944 film version became a powerful wartime motivational tool.

Fast forward to 2015. It’s no surprise, either, that more fashionable MBA schools have begun moving away from a pure focus on financial management to stress on the importance of softer, more subjective communication attributes. Communicate Charisma couldn’t agree more about the importance of this.

Yet we’re heading exactly in the opposite direction. We believe that to understand personal communications skills, they first need to be visualized. Only then is it possible to map, measure and manage this crucial leadership function. In other words, we’re applying the hard rigour of MBA thinking to the “soft stuff” of communication.

The reason is very simple. We believe the only way to optimize this crucial leadership function – and at the same time significantly reduce the very real risk of dull leadership – is to follow in the commonsense footsteps of the great-grandfather of business thinking, Peter Drucker:

“Effective executives build on strengths – their own strengths, the strengths of their superiors, colleagues, and subordinates; and on the strengths in the situation, that on what they can do. They do not build on weaknesses. They do not start out with the things they cannot do.”

So when it comes to communication, how exactly does the “effective executive” find out what his strengths and his weaknesses are? He – or she – can map and measure these skills using the online self-assessment methodology pioneered by Communicate Charisma.

Equipped with a confidential map and its detailed guidance about the executive’s communicate persona, he or she can embark on a journey of self-development toward greater strength and authenticity, supported by the interactive training workshops we provide.

We’re not saying every leader has a big battle to fight in the open: rapport, not rallying the troops, could be your forte. Often, your most important conquests will be made in the intimacy of a boardroom, or aboard a private jet. We don’t work with any kings, or even generals. But if you do need to mobilize and inspire a corporate-sized army, Communicate Charisma can show where your strongest suit lies.

It’s no coincidence, perhaps, that the graphic representation for Communicate Charisma recalls an era when powerful leadership symbols were used by leaders in real harm’s way, to guide and protect their forces. Our own graphic language and logo is inspired by the Oriflamme, the banner carried by Charlemagne and French kings. Hence the history lesson.

Yet Communicate Charisma is a very modern tool bringing empirical rigour and sound business sense to the science of leadership communications. Our mission is to help influential communicators avoid the dangerous pitfalls of dull leadership.

At Communicate Charisma we teach people how to become more engaging and effective communicators. In our Charisma Dimensions workshops, we use practical exercises coupled with our bespoke self-awareness tools to allow participants to understand and experience the impact of individual personality traits on how we are perceived by others. Together, we use these insights to develop a more effective and authentic personal style, and so raise our power of influence and communications mastery.

Find out more about our workshops.

The Steak, the Sizzle – and the “Ooh-La-La.”

What is it that confers on some people the capacity to influence others, ensuring that their willpower or idea will prevail – often in the unlikeliest circumstances?

Ali Baba’s Jack Ma was rejected by schools, by local universities, by the Chinese police, even by Kentucky Fried Chicken, and later by Harvard University, before his well-deserved moment of fame and fortune arrived.

Such people aren’t always the best at framing or winning arguments; they may not be the best trained at business schools; might not be the most original, or even the most charming or sympathetic. Yet they end up transforming the way other people think and influencing outcomes in their favour. This is how some people “make the weather,” in the process manufacturing their own luck. It’s also called success.

There is a feedback mechanism at work here, for it is only when we, the listeners, confer certain favours upon such lucky people, that they gain power over us. The attribute these people have is called charisma. It is visible both among individuals and among institutions and companies – where it is defined as ‘Brand Strength.’

There is nothing in the technical specifications of the iPhone smartphone that a Samsung handset cannot do equally well – yet the Apple product has iconic status. In the world of off-road travel, the same still holds true with Land Rover vehicles of British origin, as compared to their Japanese counterparts.

It has brand oomph, but can a Range Rover do anything a Toyota jeep can’t?

In the world of finance, it’s a commonplace that investors don’t just want ‘Steak’ – the empirical proof of economic outperformance. They want ‘Sizzle’ too, in the shape of a narrative with exciting prospects of future growth. For a tiny handful of companies, there’s something that goes way beyond Steak or Sizzle – let’s call it the “Ooh-La-La” of investing.

Amazon’s Bezos: the allure of a trillion dollar startup

Amazon acquired it when Jeff Bezos labelled his company a “permanent start-up,” advising widows and orphans not to buy stock because the investment ride would be too exciting for them. Ali-Baba acquired it with Jack Ma began explaining his vision of a global marketplace based on public trust, and demonstrating his extraordinary resilience, which included surviving 10 rejections by Harvard.

Ali Baba’s Jack Ma: “you trusted me with US$27 billion.”

These “top of pyramid” examples of “Corporate Charisma” in action, show how both individuals and their companies exert an extraordinary effect over customers, markets and investors. The principle that underlies such successes might seem wholly unattainable for the rest of us. Yet the truth is that the founders of Amazon, Ali Baba and others simply applied their “Ooh-La-La” over a 20-year period to transform the prospects for their businesses. The result is history.

New examples keep popping up all the time. The latest figure to demonstrate t.he disruptive power of charisma in communication is the new Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.

Greece’s New David confronts EU’s financial Goliath.

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras and his newly-victorious Syriza party may set the broad tone for the emerging ‘David and Goliath’ narrative of tiny, indebted and undisciplined Greece standing up to the grim-faced money men of the European Commission. But the real negotiation and the opinion formation rest entirely upon the shoulders of Yanis Varoufakis – the new Bruce Willis on the international news circuit.

With an astonishingly assured performance for a man in office less than a week, Varoufakis used a live TV broadcast on the BBC to set out in layman’s terms his country’s plight, to show his mastery of the situation, and to expose the BBC anchor’s arrogance and incompetence – all with charm and consideration. His stunning media performances leverage Greece’s nimble strength against the ungainly might of the financial system’s Troika. If Malcolm Gladwell is right with  his “large vs. small” theories, then tiny, undisciplined Greece could soon deliver a shock to Goliath-like and  seemingly immobile Angela Merkel of Germany.

These are just a few examples of what we already know: the race is not always to the swiftest with an Excel spreadsheet, the brightest with the Business Model Canvas, or the most adept in delivering PowerPoint presentations. Something else defines success.

The truth is that management – and indeed the social progress from infancy to retirement we call life – is mostly about effective communication and influencing others. Above all, it is about the ability to tell “The History of the Future” – to envision a desired set of over-the-horizon outcomes, and then to explain how these will be achieved, step-by-step. And then get other people to deliver these outcomes.

Those who can tell “The History of the Future” in chunks that are sufficiently engaging and achievable, will persuade those around them to go out and build the future outlined by a person they will start calling their leader.

“Future Guidance” isn’t just a technical term used by CFOs to give brokers’ analysts an alluring peek of the next quarter’s numbers in language that’s permitted by stock market regulators. Future Guidance is what the leadership storytelling of Jack Ma and Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook is all about. Future Guidance is charisma-in-action.

Apple’s Tim Cook: not Steve Jobs but his Forward Guidance is quite good enough

But, to deliver Future Guidance, you need “Ooh-La-La.” It’s tempting to think that these skills are reserved for a few superstars like Bezos and there is nothing we can do about it.

But we can do quite a lot, actually. Just as star athletes are really individuals like us who have developed and trained their physique and coordination to an extraordinary degree, so “charismatic” leaders are simply people who have developed this special kind of musculature. Some are lucky. Most have worked hard.

Usain Bolt: Just like us, but with bigger muscles and more charisma.

In the same way that most of us go to the fitness academy to retain a basic level of health yet are unlikely to train to a level much higher than that which stops us having heart attacks or getting diabetes, so our communication skills can get stuck at a level of proficiency that allows us to “muddle through” despite an accumulation of bad habits in daily interactions.

Yet we can choose to change all this. Mapping, measuring and managing those communication attributes we possess is the way to reveal the hidden “Ooh-La-La” factor that each person possesses.

Communicate Charisma has developed a methodology to democratize access to charisma and to allow individuals to embark on a personal journey of development. Each individual’s charisma assets are shown in intuitive, easy-to-grasp visual formats.

Engaging leader profile

If you’ve read this far, we hope you’ll be curious enough to explore our site and find out how we do it – and how you can express interest in joining a Communicate Charisma One Day Workshop.

At Communicate Charisma we teach people how to become more engaging and effective communicators. In our Charisma Dimensions workshops, we use practical exercises coupled with our bespoke self-awareness tools to allow participants to understand and experience the impact of individual personality traits on how we are perceived by others. Together, we use these insights to develop a more effective and authentic personal style, and so raise our power of influence and communications mastery.

Find out more about our workshops.

 

 

Charisma: Let’s Make it Better

This post was originally published  by sister website http://www.communicatecharisma.com. You can find out more about the methodology and the only  self-assessment profile by accessing that site.

Back in 1982, when VHS videocassettes were being sold in bulky boxed sets, you could have constructed a new Great Wall of China out of all the Jane Fonda home exercise videos sold that year. But though many millions sweated it out solo on the rug in front of the TV, many more opted to join a gym to get fit in company.

Lonely workout in front of the TV?

In just about any realm of human activity, “making it better” isn’t just a matter of working out what’s wrong and then finding the means to fix it individually. As social beings we have a deep hunger for interaction, feedback and approval. And nowhere more than in the field of communication, where ‘no man is an island.’ Some things you simply can’t fix with a selfie.

You can’t manufacture charisma without others to help out.

Which is why coming to terms with the ways we affect other people, so gaining the self-knowledge to boost our influence, simply can’t be done solo. You can only see what communication style is working and what isn’t, by understanding how other people really experience you.

If you want to find out whether you have Charisma – defined as “compelling attractiveness of charm that can inspire devotion in others” – then you need the feedback mechanism that only people can provide. They’ll tell you whether or not you’re generating that instant rapport that inspires trust, confidence or acceptance.

Better together: feedback and interaction takes us further.

Communicate Charisma acknowledges our social needs and collaborative nature by taking the group training route to “making it better.” First, our tools and techniques permit you to map, visualize and then enhance power we have to influence others, by making best use of each person’s authentic character assets.

We do this through an interactive workshop experience. This is a safe, confidential environment to help business leaders measure, become more conscious of, and test out new ways to let their communicative persona work its influence on other people.

The workshops are designed for:

• Business leaders and senior managers regularly interacting with audiences great and small, such as shareholders, media, clients, policymakers or opinion leaders.
• Developers, marketers and leaders of social enterprise seeking increased impact in their business negotiations with stakeholders and communities.
• All present and future thought leaders who value effective communication as a route to career enhancement.

The workshop is where we share a methodology that allows you to map, measure and manage your own charisma assets – and at the same time become more conscious of the ways other people try to influence you. Being able to visualize the matrix of energies at work whenever we communicate, calls for a clear methodology. But this not a ‘Method’ in the sense used by actors painstakingly building up their onstage charisma.

Workshop with World Presidents’ Organization

Our workshop experience is just one part of a simple, three-part process designed for busy business people who need to raise their game in the workplace, or wherever they interact with people. “Make it better” is a natural self-development goal, and this is how we can help:

1.     The Map: We first identify the ingredients that make up your communication style; both the way you project yourself in different types of encounter, and the inbuilt essence or energy that’s unique to you. You make a start at discovering this before you join the workshop, by completing an online self-assessment survey. This generates both a short summary and a detailed 18 page report of your charisma profile. The latter is only delivered to you at the workshop.

2.     The Matrix: During the workshop we walk participants through both parts of the Communicate Charisma conceptual matrix. First the Two-Dimensional Charisma Projection Profile composed of four sectors. Then the Seven-Dimensional Charisma Essence Profile resembling a circular clockface. Using structured role-play, participants gain direct experience of what it’s like both to try influencing others from each of these standpoints – and being on the receiving end. You’ll learn how to “inhabit” each of the behavioural zones in the two Profiles, as you and workshop colleagues give and receive constructive feedback.

3.     The Measurement: During the final part of the workshop participants begin completing their Personal Development Plan (PDP). This is a self-led, self-accountable programme to help you implement the insights gained both from workshop feedback and study of your Self-assessment Report. The PDP is a take-home guidebook for a 3 month personal journey defined by four questions: “Where am I now? Where do I want to get to? How do I get there? How will I know I’ve arrived?” The PDP helps you plan the route between “resolution” and “outcomes” by tracking how you get on at your selected upcoming events. It measures the changes you set yourself.

This approach is designed to improve communications effectiveness by harnessing your own unique qualities – rather than repeating a learned formula. We’ll show how your charisma can make things better by shaping a truly authentic communication style that fits you best.

We believe useful workshops need to be experiential. Busy people need to lean forward and try out new stuff – not just sit back and hear how it’s done. So participants are encouraged to dive right in.

Performance and feedback helps ‘make it better’

This training course will enable you to:

• Understand what’s needed for creating instant rapport with people, breaking down barriers and winning trust.
• Understand how to adapt your style of communication to situations and audience needs.
• Identify and optimise the character assets you can use for effective communication.
• Select the ‘communication terrain’ that best suits your personality type.
• Avoid communication styles outside your comfort zone that may trigger negative responses.
• Understand the hidden techniques others are using to try and influence you.
• Plan and develop strategies to ensure people understand your message and embrace your calls to action.
• Build a communication skills plan to ensure continuous personal improvement.

Specifically, we will practice what it’s like to “inhabit” each the zones or dimensions in the Charisma matrix from which both the projection profile and the essence profile are composed. As well as seeing and giving feedback to others when they consciously adopt these modes, workshop participants get a chance to try out them out for ourselves.

So in the two-dimensional projection map, participants experience the difference between communication styles based on persuasion, and those based on empathy. Similarly, the high-energy communication styles commonly adopted for large groups, are mostly quite different from more intimate behaviours we use with small groups.

Experiential learning to “inhabit” different charisma dimensions

In the circular seven-dimensional charisma essence map, we work around the separate dimensions: exploring Self-Assurance, Drive, Vision, Collaboration, Empathy, Beliefs, and Values.

Where does your charisma essence reside?

The Communicate Charisma Workshop also includes the following topic areas:

• Defining charisma and the way it is used all around you.
• The role of personal charisma in effective communication.
• How great communicators influence audiences great and small.
• How to adapt your behaviour to emphasize strengths and manage your challenges.
• Learning how people experience us directly, through interactive workshop activity.
• Understanding your personal Charisma profile and locking in continuous learning through Personal Development Plan.

At Communicate Charisma we teach people how to become more engaging and effective communicators. In our Charisma Dimensions workshops, we use practical exercises coupled with our bespoke self-awareness tools to allow participants to understand and experience the impact of individual personality traits on how we are perceived by others. Together, we use these insights to develop a more effective and authentic personal style, and so raise our power of influence and communications mastery.

Find out more about our workshops.

Magnificent Maleficent: or communicating with the Avatar

The breadth and range of human nature is such that no person can hope to successfully influence everyone to whom he or she reaches out. For some, the effect may be too forceful or dogmatic; for others too timid, aloof or lacking in charm.

Nevertheless we all have strategies – built up unconsciously over decades – for projecting a communicative persona or behaviour that helps us to get at least some of what we want from life. We do this by using a distinctive style we know will win the trust and perhaps even the admiration of as many as possible of those surrounding us.

But could we widen our appeal and so influence more people? The answer is yes – if we could uncover our inner capacity to project beyond those known and familiar frontiers of behaviour. Public figures do this all the time,  adding depth, range and respect to our perception of them by reaching out for some inner opposite.

In a role-reversal from her on-screen persona of Walt Disney’s Malificent, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie is a noted United Nations Special Envoy for refugees, visiting the world’s most miserable trouble-spots*. Stephen Fry, a genial chat show-host, raconteur and accomplished TV presenter, also campaigns actively for LGBT sexual rights.

Could this woman save children, not hate them?

For regular mortals, self-improvement manuals talk of boosting impact by “pushing the envelope,” learning to “swing out” or “punching above your weight.” But without the means to visualize or map these new areas, such efforts often turn out either fruitless, or can look artificial and insincere.

Communicate Charisma has developed a methodology to map, measure and visualize the ways we project our communicative persona. This identifies where we can expand areas of influence in ways that are consistent with our own nature. You can find out more at http://www.communicatecharisma.com, where you’ll find more blogs like this one.

We have designed a simple self-assessment test that generates two graphic presentations making up a unique personality profile. The circular seven dimensional Charisma Essence Profile shows the assets and energies we bring to each interaction.

Charisma Projection Profile for an Evangelist

Meanwhile, a two-dimensional grid showing the Charisma Projection Profile demonstrates the style we use to influence those around us – and it’s the focus of this article. Each zone of this grid encapsulates a fundamental behaviour we have condensed into a familiar “avatar” or personality type.

Communicate Charisma’s clockface of nine Avatars

A glance at the Projection Profile will show why certain behaviour styles or avatars are unlikely to influence those tending to favour the opposite or “shadow” of that type. For instance, those adopting a projection style that’s strongly based on the Charmer avatar, may struggle to influence those accustomed to the arguments of the Persuader. And vice versa.

The centre ground is the terrain of the Mediator (serving as a channel connecting differing views or styles). Although the Mediator might appear to project a neutral “all things to all men” style, the more powerful emotions of respect and admiration are mostly triggered when listeners identify something of themselves in a charismatic speaker. This may call for passion and partisanship.

Let’s take a tour of each of the nine avatars identified in the 2D Projection Profile. This will help to show how individuals exercise their influence. And where each distinctive type can expand charismatic range by understanding their avatar and reaching out toward its shadow.

Nine personality type Avatars and their shadows

Don’t forget that while each of these nine zones around the “clockface” represents a pure personality type, any Charisma Projection Profile resulting from a Communicate Charisma test will show an ellipse covering more than one zone. So any individual type blends several elements.

And we’ve illustrated  this with  representative maps suggesting how the Angelina Jolie and Stephen Fry  might look. We’d love for  both of them to take the Communicate Charisma self-assessment test!

People often ask how we can help boost their charisma. Understanding and working with this grid is one part of the conscious process we use to “make it better.”

The Evangelist.

Strengths: The Evangelist is persuasive in projecting a popular vision for crowds, urging them to acknowledge his or her perspective, making this a classic leadership style.

Limitations: This approach can look thick-skinned and heedless of others, with a tendency to monopolize the stage. Egotists may care less about reaching out, and more about winning personal recognition.

Relationship Patterns: The Evangelist prioritizes Vision over Empathy, and Drive over Collaboration. The Evangelist’s compulsion to lead creates some blind spots, for mesmerizing people isn’t the only way to win followers and build influence.

Avatar and Shadow: The Evangelist loves centre stage; yet the softer, more intuitive skills of the Coach must also find expression if potential for influence is to be fulfilled.

Paths to Integration: Evangelists who understand sensitivity is not a challenge area but an added strength, will moderate what often sounds a strident tone, and widen their catchment area of influence.

Roles: Brand Management, Sales & Marketing, CEO.

Angelina Jolie: her campaign persona is far more than a pretty face

The Persuader

Strengths: The Persuader exercises forceful influence on audiences great or small, because he or she has the self-assurance to win over believers and transform outcomes by force of personality.

Limitations: With a focus on argument, this can seem like insensitive or egotistical point-scoring, especially if the speaker depends on empty rhetoric.

Relationship Patterns: The Persuader prioritizes Vision over Beliefs over and Drive over Empathy. Yet a more relaxed and accepting stance could win over more followers.

Avatar and Shadow: The Persuader is seldom “off duty.” Yet the Charmer’s way of sharing Values rather than always trying to change them, is what gives added power to win hearts.

Paths to Integration: Persuaders able to see acceptance and sharing not as a challenge area, but as a source of strength, will unlock their power of Empathy.

Roles: Sales & Marketing, Legal Training. IR

The Recruiter

Strengths: The Recruiter zooms in on individual needs or aspirations, customising his or her appeal to each listener. This helps build a sense of confederacy or affinity.

Limitations: This unashamedly persuasive style and its emphasis on intimacy will be seen by some as “sales and marketing talk.”

Relationship Patterns: The Recruiter prioritizes Self-Assurance over Collaboration and Values over Empathy. Yet we’re most likely to experience a change of heart when others set aside their ego, to put themselves in our place.

Avatar and Shadow: The Recruiter’s need for building inclusive teams may betray a neglect for freedom of choice – precisely the principle the Facilitator uses to win over those resistant to forcefulness.

Paths to Integration: The strength to show vulnerability can be the most persuasive and authentic of all voices, sweeping away barriers to Empathy.

Roles: HR, Executive Selection.

The Campaigner

Strengths: The Campaigner is a powerful catalyst to change the way large groups make decisions. Preaching benefits to help shift perceptions, makes this an effective sales or marketing style.

Limitations: A tactical yet very flexible approach to changing minds can be seen as opportunist, while this approach may get little traction in intimate situations.

Relationship Patterns: The Campaigner prioritizes group skills of Collaboration and Empathy over individual Values and Self-Assurance. That means personal needs can be overlooked, for many resist attempts to make up their own mind for them.

Avatar and Shadow: The Campaigner works by building on common ground and shared opinions. Yet many minds will change only in response to the individualist and open approach of the Negotiator.

Paths to Integration: The ability to touch every individual in a crowd by opening a direct personal channel, distinguishes the leader from the manager.

Roles: Marketing, Learning and Development. OD. Corporate events.

The Mediator

Strengths: The Mediator is alert to feedback and chameleon-like in searching for common ground with others. This polyvalent communicator constantly tracks how well the message is being received and accepted.

Limitations: This diplomatic type can seem insincere or slippery if caught out trying to be “all things to all men.”

Relationship Patterns: A Mediator untouched by other avatars is rare. Profiles covering the central space will blend with one or more personality types around the ‘clockface,’ creating a more distinctive voice.

Avatar and Shadow: The Mediator is a channel connecting opposing views, placing consensus above his or her needs. This may recruit the ‘reasonable middle’, but won’t sway the more partisan. So every Mediator also has a distinctive streak.

Paths to Integration: As in life, avatars use the Mediator’s non-committal central terrain to reach out toward their opposites, and so expand their range of influences.

Roles: Senior management, Counsel.

The Negotiator

Strengths: The Negotiator’s patience and sensitivity builds loyal support because it offers a sense of companionship. This generates an affinity that influences outcomes and wins faithful allies.

Limitations: While persistence and personalised focus works well individually, larger groups may ignore the effect as lacking impact.

Relationship Patterns: The Negotiator fosters collusion by prioritizing Values and Self-Assurance over Vision and Collaboration. But this ‘petit comité’ approach ignores our collective hunger for shared endeavours.

Avatar and Shadow: The Negotiator prizes intimacy and even secrecy. This ‘divide and rule’ approach can stir opposition when interlocutors are really seeking collective solutions typically offered by the Campaigner.

Paths to Integration: While the expert Negotiator makes us feel individual and special, our tribal affinity drives a powerful need for social belonging.

Roles: Legal, Finance, Labour Relations.

The Facilitator

Strengths: The Facilitator’s power to put others at their ease by appreciating their side of the story, stirs people to change their behaviour. This person builds rapport through gregarious style and effortless performance.

Limitations: This style can appear manipulative if it used merely to entice or flatter. And small groups my find this ‘big screen’ style unimpressive or insincere away from the podium.

Relationship Patterns: The Facilitator fosters Empathy over Vision, and Collaboration over Values. This may appear opportunist to those with a commitment to firm principles or long-term goals.

Avatar and Shadow: The Facilitator uses interpersonal skills to energize the group without seeking to dominate it. Such discretion may not satisfy those requiring firmer, more overt guidance offered from the Evangelist type.

Paths to Integration: While the Facilitator energizes the group and builds momentum, every successful journey needs a clear destination and planned stages.

Roles: Communications, HR.

Stephen Fry: polymath TV host and presenter – plus active campaigner

The Charmer

Strengths: The Charmer has the emotional intelligence to melt down resistance and lower barriers of mistrust. By mobilising emotions, he or she becomes hard to resist.

Limitations: Audiences requiring empirical proof will not be convinced by this smooth approach, which can seem a superficial attempt to mobilise the emotions of listeners.

Relationship Patterns: The Charmer’s forte is Empathy and Collaboration, rather than Drive or Values, as feeling good is his or her key to unlocking influence. Without empirical basis, this can be coolly received.

Avatar and Shadow: The Charmer adopts unconventional rules of engagement to disarm resistance, often without visible effort or any recourse to the logic or arguments used by the Persuader.

Paths to Integration: First impressions may glitter, yet seldom outshine solid arguments. Without these, the Charmer’s route to influence can seem risky.

Roles: Sales & marketing, Non-exec positions

The Coach

Strengths: The Coach creates a harmonious atmosphere using tailor-made emotional appeals that make sound intuitive sense. The blend of intimacy and emotional intelligence can overturn resistance based on logic.

Limitations: Larger groups may find this ‘petit comité’ approach unimpressive and its low profile lacking in style.

Relationship Patterns: The Coach favours Values and Beliefs over Self-Assurance and Drive, valuing the individual’s internal growth over received group wisdom. The impulse for personal growth can tire those accustomed to living by rules.

Avatar and Shadow: The Coach fearlessly deploys personality to reach the heart of the matter, without regard for status or hierarchy. This may be too demanding for those expecting ready-made solutions handed out by the Evangelist.

Paths to Integration: Any Coach exciting a spirit of personal enquiry, while combining this with a clear collective vision of the future, enjoys great influence.

Roles: Non Exec, Training and Development, Mentor or internal coach.

 

 

 

 

 

The True Voice of Charisma

We all know effective leaders make use of charisma to raise their influence.

But exactly how does charisma work? It’s a famous truism that more than half the power of human communication is independent of message or content, yet the expert agreement stops there.

Are charismatic leaders deliberately using non-verbal or body language? Are they consciously  influencing us through subtle variation of their voice tone? Or does a truer,  authentic charisma style ensure that a speaker’s personality shines through his or her narrative?

Charisma is the “extraordinary quality” we sense in others, according to the sociologist Max Weber. Yet unless we sense the effect is authentic and holistic, we’re unlikely to feel compelled to follow such a person or accept their charismatic authority.

Understanding the way we project charisma brings us an important step closer to mapping and measuring the essence of charisma, which is the focus of Communicate Charisma and its unique methodology.

The central insights of Communicate Charisma are based on humanist psychology and share common ancestry with long-established personality typing methods such as MBTI, which work for the famous and non-famous alike. You can read an article about this by clicking here.

In previous artcles we’ve tested the proposition that charisma is about body language. The  adoption of standardized “power poses”, such as arms akimbo, or thrusting one foot forward as advocated by experts such as Harvard Business School’s Amy Cuddy, suggest that ‘charisma leadership tactics’ may fail the authenticity test.  You can read another article about such learned charisma behaviours by clicking here.

Now it’s time to subject to analysis the proposition that charisma is experienced through voice tone.

New research seeks to show that listeners experience charisma  through the tone and frequency of political leaders’ voices. It also shows that small changes can dramatically affect the way people are experienced by listeners, at least in the laboratory. The research comes from the University of California.

Rosario Signorello, a post-doctoral expert on phonetics, voice quality and laryngeal biomechanics from UCLA’s Bureau of Glottal Affairs, has been researching the charisma effect of Italian, French,  and Portuguese speaking politicians.

You can read news reports about the research by clicking here, and clicking here. You can see an earlier version of his paper, which was previously delivered to a conference in Amsterdam in 212. It can be downloaded via the www.academia.edu website or by clicking here.

Signorello presented his paper to the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) in October 2014. Entitled “The Science of Charismatic Voices,” the research proposes that whether leaders are perceived as authoritarian or benevolent may depend  on the frequency characteristics of their voices.

Voice power: the secret of charisma?

Signorello used 260 student volunteers to listen to speeches of leaders from Italy, France and Brazil that had been “delexicalized” or decontextualized so content would not influence their judgement. Volunteers matched the voices with 67 adjectives such as dishonest, scary, dynamic, and fair.

What he found was that leaders can manipulate voice quality to convey different types of charisma. Italians, for instance, associate authoritarian leadership with gruff, low-frequency voices that simultaneously have a wide range of vocal pitch. France, meanwhile, associate higher-pitched voices with more competent leadership. François Hollande and  Nicolas Sarkozy both have higher pitched voices.

In Brazil, the famously gravelly voice of trade union leader-turned President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, helped him secure two successful terms of leadership. Coincidence or not, Lula and his chosen successor Dilma Rousseff (recently re-elected for a second presidential term) have both suffered from bouts of throat cancer.

Italy’s northern strongman: Umberto Bossi

Signorello’s research show listener perceptions can change as voice characteristics change. Signorello cites the case of Italian politician Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League and a fierce critic of what he called “Roma ladrona” (thieving Rome.) Southerners and immigrants were also tongue-lashed during his charismatic, raucous and fiery speeches. In 2004 Bossi suffered a stroke (AVC) that impaired his voice. Signorello’s research showed listener perception of Bossi before and after his stroke changed dramatically.

The’s research used two scoring sets: one is the effect volunteers sensed, and the other tonal  characteristics of voice. Effect ranged between authoritarian/dominant, or more benevolent and competent. The other scale ranged between – wider or narrow range of pitch control, and lower or higher fundamental frequency (FO).

To make these conclusions clearer, we’ve superimposed the changed perception of Bossi’s charisma tracked by Signorelli’s volunteers, onto Communicate Charisma’s own Two Dimension visualisation of how charisma is projected.

Anyone who completes a Communicate Charisma online self-assessment will receive both a two dimension (2D) and a seven dimension (7D) graphic of their own charisma. Furthermore, each person contributes an assessment of a famous communicator, so contributing to our growing archive of public profiles.

Our 2D model is based on intuitive, easy-to-follow assessment of communication style. Does a leader influence most using persuasion, or using empathy? Does he or she achieve more powerful effects over large groups, or exercise more intimate appeal?

Figure 1. shows how the charisma projection profile (defined by the orange ellipse) can vary significantly between individuals, as a result of different keyword choices in their self-assessment.

Broadly speaking, the Communicate Charisma methodology shows that individuals whose ellipse occupies the top left corner of the 2D grid use a more authoritarian and dominant style based on persuasion. Those with ellipses located bottom right, will use a more intimate and benevolent style based on empathy, as illustrated in Fig 2.

Umberto Bossi never completed a Communicate Charisma online self-assessment. But  based on   analysis of hundreds of our 2D maps, we postulate he’d be yet one more politician occupying the top-left hand corner. Likewise, the way listeners perceived him after his AVC is very characteristic of  a figure occupying the right-hand field of our 2D chart.

To be clear: we’re making a comparison between the real findings of Signorelli’s research on Bossi, and the likely composite assessment of many individuals completing Communicate Charisma’s famous communicator online assessments of Bossi both before and after his AVC. Yet our comparison remains a very valid exercise for showing how charisma really works.

In his research Signorelli characterised Bossi’s effect on listeners as authoritarian and dominant. Fig 5 shows the perception, while Fig 6 shows combination of  vocal  characteristics that created that perception. Before his stroke (AVC) Bossi had a low average of fundamental frequency, with a wide pitch range and normal modulation of the pitch contour.

Figure 7 tracks the change that took place making  the Italian politician be seen as “a benevolent and competent leader, which is very different from the authoritarian perception” according to Signorelli.  Fig 8 shows shift in vocal terms.

What’s clear is that although the UCLA research is based on acoustic parameters and not on personality projection as is the case of the Communicate Charisma word-based self assessment, there seems to be a significant corroboration.

Nevertheless does the vocal route tell the whole story of charisma? We believe that true charisma is made up of a wider and deeper range of physcological attributes than can be captured simply through voice mechanics. Voice tone is part of the story  — yet very far from all of it.

Communicate Charisma’s 2D projection map is based on a series of personality types that form the basis of ‘avatars’ that show different charisma types in action. Fig 9 shows how four quadrants of the 2D grid translate into core personality types commonly seen in political figures.

In the case of Bossi’s own transformation through the AVC and resulting voice change, the results were irreversible. But truly charismatic leaders have the capability to match persona and to the needs of their audiences by changing vocal tone. A case in point is the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I never interviewed her, but journalist colleagues who did told me of the husky, sexy tone of voice she adopted during individual encounters that was totally different from her usual strident voice on the conference platform of in the House of Commons.

Margaret Thatcher: surprisingly alluring

Plotting human influence around four personality types would also be an over-simplification. So Communicate Charisma’s methodology uses a more nuanced spread of “avatars” across the 2D grid (without mentioning the total of 144 variants our method produces when the 7D map is included). Fig 10 shows the arrangement of personality types upon which self-assessment results are overlaid.

In the case of Bossi before and after his AVC (or Margaret Thatcher when giving a media interview), the transformation in perception is shown in Fig 11 and Fig 12 by the migration of the blue ellipse.

All those who complete an online self-assessment are first invited to give their opinion of a famous communicator. The resulting data supports Communicate Charisma’s project to map and measure the charisma assets of public figures as a means of helping ordinary individuals to unlock their own power of responsible influence.

Figure 13 shows the composite picture of how three great public figures are seen by visitors to our website www.communicatecharisma.com.

As you’ll see, there is substantial variation in the way Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Barack Obama are perceived.

It would be a fascinating experiment to see if UCLA’s group could conduct another test using tape recordings of these three English language speakers, to see if these findings are confirmed!

If, like me, you wonder whether a now-forgotten  regional politician like Umberto Bossi ever had enough charisma to attract a study from UCLA, there’s a second question: how far did it get him? Not far:  After helping prop up Silvio Berlusconi’s scandal-plagued administration in Rome, he was finally disgraced in a 2012 corruption scandal.

For this column, the votes are in: charisma may be projected in part using vocal tone or body language, but its true essence is greater than the sum of these elements. For that we must unlock authentic personality.

At Communicate Charisma we teach people how to become more engaging and effective communicators. In our Charisma Dimensions workshops, we use practical exercises coupled with our bespoke self-awareness tools to allow participants to understand and experience the impact of individual personality traits on how we are perceived by others. Together, we use these insights to develop a more effective and authentic personal style, and so raise our power of influence and communications mastery.

Find out more about our workshops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fifty Shades of Engagament

Engagement among employees and teams is the fashionable ‘new grey’ of management communications.

Human Resource departments have seen to it that employee engagement scores form part of many company Annual Reports – meaning senior managers are now driven to improve scores year-on-year.

It’s all about igniting the individual motivation of employees so they will play an active and willing role in delivering the strategy, which makes personal good sense to each individual. This group experience of engagement certainly sounds sexy and alluring enough to come in at least fifty shades.

Engagement isn’t just a user experience. From a manager’s perspective, the active component of kicking off this process means being engaging. And that, alas, can betray a shockingly dull monochrome.

50 shades of grey – just dull grey?

So how to make it better?

For leaders finding their teams post low engagement scores, manuals often recommend investing in an outsize toolkit of “leadership techniques and strategies” offering a straight line back to the not-so secret wisdom of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. You’ll learn how to jab the air with a forefinger, lift your voice into false interrogatives, single out audience members with a steely glare, or stand with arms akimbo, all the while sparking off rhetorical questions like a Catherine wheel.

Aliens might be fooled, but the rest of us know true engagement simply doesn’t work like that.

Employees want personality, not ‘leadership techniques.’

Translating company goals into individual motivation by appealing to enlightened self-interest can’t be achieved through “one size fits all” techniques that don’t take each manager’s unique personality into account.

We won’t go the extra mile for a manager until he or she has shown us both authenticity and personality. Generally, that means showing empathy and speaking from the heart, every bit as much as describing clear goals we can rally around.

So being engaging is personality. And, just like the colour grey, personality has many shades. To unlock the secret of how to become more engaging, we first need to define and map with much greater precision how engaging people really operate.

There are plenty of personality typing classifications that may help explain who we are in a static context – but not necessarily how we affect others in dynamic fashion.

Experience teaches us that some people have learned how use their personalities to lower our barriers of distrust, win the benefit of the doubt and get us on their side whatever the content of their discourse. Such engaging people aren’t always like us – or even necessarily likable. Yet they are influencers.

Getting Under the Radar

By temperament, we might favour the humour of the late Robin Williams, Ricky Gervais, or Mr Bean. But, skimming the radio dial on a tedious car journey, we may also feel a dreadful fascination in listening to right-wing talkshow host Rush Limbaugh (even with ratings down he still has 10 million listeners), or European nationalist political oddballs like France’s Marine Le Pen or Britain’s UKIP leader Nigel Farage. How on earth did they manage to sneak under our radar?

Dreadful fascination: “shock jock” Rush Limbaugh

Like them or not, these people all share mastery of a single attribute that results in them being more engaging, characterised by the influence of personality in communication. It spans content, message, tone, and non-verbal communication too. This is charisma.

Charisma is how we experience the personality of someone able to quickly win over our attention, trust, even admiration. Charisma short-circuits the rational, cognitive process of “show me why I should believe in you and your plan.”

Of course, we can learn to use charisma to raise our own power of influence on others. For example, managers responsible for motivating their teams will become more engaging through effective use of their charisma assets.

So we believe charisma is the key to still-unresolved mystery of making a more exact science of being engaging in the workplace. And Communicate Charisma has found a way of showing you what charisma looks like in a simple visual snapshot or “X-ray.”

We’ve deliberately made in much more colourful than those shades of grey. You can find out more about our unique methodology on our website: www.communicatecharisma.com.

Charisma profiles of Great Communicators

We can show you the charisma of Nelson Mandela (you can read our portrait of him by clicking here), Barack Obama, or Martin Luther King (you can read our analysis by clicking here). We can show you what a truly engaging manager’s charisma skill-set looks like. And because we can show you what your own charisma looks like, you can see what attributes to stress in order to become more engaging.

We can show you the DNA of charisma and how we’re related to well-known systems of personality typing (You can read about this by clicking here).  So, what does an engaging manager look like on the Communicate Charisma X-ray?

A common definition of successful engagement is that every individual wants a stake in shared success, and feels he/she has received a meaningful call to action. To communicate in such diverse fashion, an engaging manager should communicate across a broad range of emotional frequencies, allowing many different people to experience his or her personality.

The Communicate Charisma graphic enables us to see just how much energy a person brings to each of the seven dimensions of charisma, but also across how broad or narrow a range of circumstances they might apply that energy. For instance, it’s great to have lots of empathy. But if at a funeral you were only able to use the very same tone of voice to address the widow you’d used the day before when asking the captain of your neighbourhood football team to let you join, your condolences might fall flat.

Here’s the Charisma Essence profile of truly engaging manager and former EVP of a global multinational. Exceptionally, he has broad range capabilities in no less than four of the seven dimensions. You can see these as the broader wedges in each of the lettered segments below.

Engaging leader profile

This manager’s energy level in any single charisma dimension is not high enough to suggest he’s single-minded or obsessive, while overall the circular chart suggests has exceptionally broad-based powers of engaging others. Proof of this comes in the commentary on his Collaboration type: “you know how to give your team a say – not just a task to fulfil.”

Broad range shows engaging manager attributes

Unlock Your Charisma

Further analysis of the chart above shows how Communicate Charisma has addressed the question of “how to make it better” in two ways.

Firstly by providing clear visual tools to map, measure and manage exactly which personality assets you bring to any conversation. The problem with words like ‘engagement’ and ‘charisma,’ is that while we’re all quite familiar with their general meaning, we don’t have a forensic understanding or a visual means of plotting these effects.

Problem solved with Communicate Charisma’s, easy-to-use graphics showing the unique combination of “Charisma Essence” and “Charisma Projection” for any individual who takes a simple online self-assessment test. This generates a personal report that provides a baseline for every communicator’s journey toward wider and deeper self-knowledge.

Secondly, by practice and continuous improvement. Because charisma is the way others experience us, we need feedback mechanisms to monitor how other people are responding to our personal communication style. Because group assessment and sharing triggers this learning process, Communicate Charisma’s workshops provide a safe yet challenging forum for self-discovery. As follow-up, participants design and then execute their Personal Development Plan for ongoing development of charisma assets in their own time.

If it’s your responsibility to promote greater employee engagement, then it’s up to you to make a start by becoming more engaging. So  Communicate Charisma could just be for you. After all, people think in colour, not in grey.

At Communicate Charisma we teach people how to become more engaging and effective communicators. In our Charisma Dimensions workshops, we use practical exercises coupled with our bespoke self-awareness tools to allow participants to understand and experience the impact of individual personality traits on how we are perceived by others. Together, we use these insights to develop a more effective and authentic personal style, and so raise our power of influence and communications mastery.

Find out more about our workshops.

 

Playing Follow my (more charismatic) Leader

Transformational Leadership has been widely studied by executives in large organizations for decades. And today it’s relevant to those with responsibility for enterprises of every size and shape – and indeed to every individual.

Because we believe leadership is primarily exercised using communication, we explore how charisma can empower transformations great or small. And how those with charisma can actually set popular expectations – rather than just meeting and exceeding the expectations others have of them.

Great Coaching helps US become a soccer power

Strip away the management jargon and transformational leadership is really just what your grandmother was practicing, if she ever she taught you how to bake better cakes, or to sew a neater patchwork quilt. Likewise, the coach of every national soccer team that made it past the group stage at the 2014 Brazil World Cup, proved himself a devotee of the three-step skills rule:

First: Standardize and build absolute consistency in your chosen field. (Cakes that are never burned, never undercooked; passes that connect to players every single time.)

Second: Get better and better at what you do, till continuous improvement has delivered every last watt/gram/centimetre of efficiency. (Quilts that take less time, use less material; a shot on goal from every set piece).

Finally: Deliver breakthrough improvements through real innovation and disruptive change. (End-to-end creative play that wrong-foots the goalie and leaves the opposition standing. After perfecting cakes, why not try croissants?)

At each step, the leader will need to recruit followers by lowering their barriers of mistrust or disbelief. That’s where charismatic communication comes in.

In the business world, there’s no better example of this than the astonishing growth of online retailer Amazon. Back in 1995, founder Jeff Bezos built an online bookstore that delivered books cheaply and reliably, without his customers having their credit card details stolen.

By 1998 Amazon was piling on incremental improvements with advanced delivery options plus ever lower prices and interactive customer reviews; sites that spanned the globe, and by widening its range through Marketplace to today’s astonishing 230 million product lines.

By 2006, Amazon was in full innovation phase, launching cloud computing services, set-top boxes, the Kindle eBook, and ideas like the PrimeAir package delivery drone. Advanced CRM means customers just don’t pick and choose products –their preferences are picked and chosen by Amazon. Now comes the game-changing Fire Phone that, says the Economist, “will turn the whole world into a shop window” – only delivered through Amazon.

Three steps to global mastery: Amazon’s rise since 1994

At every stage, founder Jeff Bezos (now wealthy enough to be a space entrepreneur of the side) creating followers by setting expectations. Look back over the old business news TV clips of 15 years ago and you’ll find Jeff Bezos repeating over and over: “Don’t buy Amazon stock if you want dividends or a safe ride. We’re building a valuable company – but it will take time.”

No wonder then, that The Economist’s cover article on Amazon shows – perhaps only half jokingly – an astronaut delivering a parcel on the moon.

“To Infinity and Beyond” with Amazon

Of course, there’s much more to both Amazon’s success and the transformational leadership concept than a simple three-step rule. Above all it identifies the next evolutionary step that comes after mastery of practical efficiency in the field of transactional leadership, or hierarchy in the field of traditional leadership.

These three leadership models were first defined by the German sociologist Max Weber in 1947. Crucially, Weber identified the transformational leader as using communication skills to set expectations and bring about change by articulating creative and visionary expectations.

Weber didn’t just emphasize that transformational leadership was a communication function. He specifically identified the ‘charismatic leadership’ qualities that set aside exceptional leaders as having to do with  the power to motivate or engage  followers through their  vision.

James MacGregor Burns, a Pulitzer prize-winning biographer of President Roosevelt and management guru, took the Weber concept further by showing how transformational leaders build influence that in turn generates respect, admiration and trust among their followers, sometimes causing them to emulate the leaders’ behaviors. These attributes of charisma were explored by sociologists such as the Wharton School’s Robert J. House (no relation).

In his 1978 book Leadership, Burns explored how transformational leaders used their relationship skills to accomplish common goals through motivation. This type of skill involves mobilizing, inspiring, exalting, and uplifting, rather than using power for its own sake. While transactional leadership depends on give and take, Burns described transformational leadership as a process where “leaders and followers help each other to advance to a higher level of morale and motivation.”

Mobilising, Inspiring Profile #1

Mobilising, Inspiring Profile #2

 

In his 2004 Book Transformational Leadership Stephen Hacker probes a little deeper into what actually makes such a manager and what attributes accompany each character facet.

First comes enterprise mastery – or being “good at what we do.” This calls for analytical skills and drive or energy. Here the focus is inward and will likely focus on standardization (the first of the three steps).

Next comes interpersonal mastery – or being “good together and in the world.” Here the focus is outward and involves community and meaningful interactions. Often this involves the process of continuous improvement of process or actions (the second of the three steps).

Finally, comes self-mastery – or being “good at changing ourselves and the world.” Here the focus is on transformation itself –bringing ideas and change into the world. The crucial attributes for bringing such change into being both focus on communication. These are to be both creative and visionary. This, of course, is the third step.

As you can see, these thinkers established much of the groundwork upon which today’s discipline of Emotional Intelligence, created by Daniel Goleman, is based. Goleman’s recent emphasis on empathy as a leadership attribute goes straight back to Weber’s pioneering thought. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Goleman said that empathy and the ability to understand the emotional make-up of other people was a sine qua non of great leadership.

Crucially, Weber identified the transformational leader as using communication skills to set expectations and bring about change by articulating creative and visionary potential. He identified these as ‘charismatic leadership’ qualities.

It’s no coincidence that, just like Max Weber, Communicate Charisma works to visualize, map and measure this key leadership attribute. The charts you see accompanying the portraits of Nelson Mandela (above) and Martin Luther King (below)  depict the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ charisma portraits created by you online using our own system.

Think about any really effective leader you care to name, and you’ll see that his or her power to make a difference didn’t come from the ability to make the trains run on time, or to build a consistently better mousetrap. It comes from having the power to communicate potential for deep change of the kind that Jeff Bezos delivered through Kindle, or a dozen other innovations that have left both Apple and Google (no slouches themselves) gasping.

Vision Profile # 1

Vision profile #2

Transformational leaders don’t deliver change by meeting or exceeding expectations – they do it be setting expectations. And every time, that’s done through effective communication. Not simply knowing “what to say” (the message), or even “how to say it” (the narrative), but knowing “who to be” (persona).

In coming weeks we’ll look further into the attributes of Transformational Leadership. And we’ll explore a piece of good news: Everyone has some charismatic power of influence. Perhaps your persona manifests itself best through empathy; perhaps it’s through collaboration – or any one of the Seven Dimensions of Charisma we have identified and built into our methodology.

It’s just a matter of uncovering and then getting to know your forte as a communicator and influencer. And Communicate Charisma may be able to help with that.