Charisma is a word that is almost impossible to define but can be noticeable in someone within seconds. Dating back to its roots of being used in a religious context, the top leaders of societies such as Jesus and Moses had an outstanding ability to fascinate and inspire others. German sociologist Max Weber built off of this by stating that the relationship between the leader’s qualities and the follower’s devotion to the leader and the cause is more important than anything. Riggio’s six characteristics associated with charisma are enthusiastic, driven, eloquent, visionary, self-confident, and responsive to others. It is important to know that even if someone has five of these characteristics they are not going to be a great leader without the sixth. However, charismatic leader can be stopped very easily, according to Riggio. He asserts that this happens when the leader is too arrogant and has a lack of concern or responsiveness. It is interesting to hear this because someone who may have been a great leader will never be one.
More recent theories focus on the personal qualities of charismatic individuals, instead of leaders. They state that charismatic individuals have very developed communication skills, emotional expressivity, a lot of energy, eloquence, and self-confidence. Due to these attributes, they make very good first impressions. Also, the combination of their plethora of energy and emotional expressiveness leads to them being seen as more physically attractive. The most interesting part about personal charisma to me is that it does not necessarily lead to charismatic leadership. I agree with Riggio that for a charismatic person to turn into a charismatic leader, a situation must arise for them to be needed, such as a crisis or a call for change.
The most fascinating and important part of the reading was about the study done by Richard Avery and his colleagues and the project done at the University of California, Riverside. At UC Riverside, they enhanced the verbal and nonverbal skills of partakers through training in an attempt to increase personal charisma. The result of Avery’s study showed that “leadership is about ⅔ made and ⅓ born.” Equally as important, the ratings of participants before and after their training at UC Riverside showed that they were “more animated, more influential and persuasive, more effective communicators.” On top of that, the trained individuals said they felt more social self-confidence and got wonderful feedback from family and friends. These results lead to an extremely important question: why are there not more leadership development programs? I see an extreme increase in the amount of these programs around the world, which will result in more charismatic leaders.
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