Janet stands at the podium, looking tentatively at her senior colleagues assembled to hear her explain the new project and take queries from them. Rob reluctantly walks into a meeting after a failed product launch to address a dispirited team that desperately needs his direction. Our third member, Wills, addresses the shareholders assembled in an auditorium but that spark is missing from the speech. All three are brilliant managers, but somewhat unsure of themselves and their capabilities when it comes to communicating a clear, visionary, and inspirational message that captivates an audience.
What they probably lack is charisma, not confidence. While it isn’t wrong to think that some people are born charismatic extroverts – naturally expressive and charming – there are others who master a set of learnable skills and deploy them tactfully to enhance their people skills, be more admired, and appear more ‘leader-like’ in the eyes of others. These skills are termed ‘Charismatic Leadership Tactics’ (CLTs), and they are highly effective in tapping into the hopes and sentiments of followers, inspiring them to set and achieve higher goals.
Charisma, essentially, is rooted in values and feelings. The nature and influence of charisma, explained Aristotle, was born of the alchemy of logos, ethos, and pathos. Simply put, with these three elements a leader strikes a chord with followers tapping into their hopes and ideals, inspiring confidence in his and their capabilities, and driving them to achieve great tasks. “To persuade others you must use powerful and reasoned rhetoric, establish personal and moral credibility, and then rouse followers’ emotions and passions.”
History shows how charisma can be a valuable asset – in business or in public life. Yet, not many leaders use it, or probably know how to do it, as it isn’t structured or predefined like transactional (carrot and stick) or instrumental (task-based) leadership. While domain expertise, operational excellence, strategy-setting competency score high on the list of leadership traits, being able to layer these with charisma is no less critical.
Research identifies that, by and large, there are about a dozen CLTs, verbal and nonverbal. The tactics have record of proven results – from winning presidential races in the US to making high- impact life-changing oration. 65% people trained in the CLTs were found to receive above-average rating as leaders, in contrast with the 35% of those not trained. Interestingly, even our everyday conversations can benefit with their meaningful application. Charisma in Greek means a special gift, and one who uses it appropriately is considered gifted.
How about mastering the CLTs?
Connect, compare, contrast: In a bid to drive home a powerful message, a charismatic leader’s speech would propel his listeners to recall or relate to what they already know or willingly acknowledge – and they do that powerfully by using similes, metaphors, analogies, anecdotes or stark contrasts. In his “I have a dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr., for instance, compared the US Constitution to a “a promissory note” that guaranteed the unalienable rights of life and liberty to all people but remarked that America had instead given its black citizens “a bad check”. Now, who wouldn’t know the implications of a bad check! The point is driven home and the message is internalized. A manager, directing his team onto an urgent uphill task that is ultimately rewarding likened it to a long-awaited pregnancy, “… the difference is that we have four months instead of nine months to prepare.”
Stories, anecdotes, and reference to incidents can be highly engaging, besides being reassuring and motivating. As for referring to high impact contrasts, they establish one’s position by pitting it against the opposite. Who would forget John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”?
Engage and Distill: Charismatic leaders use rhetorical questions to their advantage. A question may be pleasantly intriguing or have an answer that is obvious. But that is the very point! Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, used three rhetorical questions to explain what led her to start the social responsibility movement. She said it was “really simple: How do you make business kinder? How do you embed it in the community? How do you make community a social purpose for business?” It works in private conversations too, with a manager delivering a pep talk to an underperforming member and then asking, “So, where do you want to go from here? Will it be back to your office feeling sorry for yourself, or do you want to show what you are capable of achieving?”
Three-part lists is again a powerful persuasion tool as three suggests a well-structured pattern, gives the impression of completeness, and is easy to remember. The point below made by a manager to his team will corroborate this, “We have the best product in the market. We have the best team. Yet we did not make the sales target. Let us turn this around with a three-point strategy.”
Show Integrity, Authority, and Passion: A statement that expresses moral conviction or reflects the sentiments of a group establishes a leader’s credibility, aligning the listeners voluntarily with him. Similarly, exhibiting passion in setting high goals and demonstrating confidence in making them appear achievable is also a crucial CLT. In 1998, at a time when Sharp went downhill with cathode ray tubes dominating the TV market and LCD technology was considered commercially unviable, (then) CEO Katsuhiko Machida energized his employees by stating, “By 2005, all TVs we sell in Japan will be LCD models.” Thereafter, his walk lived up to his talk, wherein he deployed his best team to realize the vision and strategic goal, firing them with the same passion as his.
The Language that is Observed: Expertise in especially three nonverbal cues – expressions of voice, body, and face – are most culturally sensitive, yet they do not come naturally to all. What may be perceived as too passionate in one culture or continent may seem muted elsewhere.
Nonetheless, compared to the verbal CLTs, they are easier to both perform (by speakers) and process (by recipients). Speaking in an animated voice – varying the tone and volume to display emotions or to hammer a point, reinforcing messages through facial expressions and gestures, and punctuating with meaningful pauses are highly effective modes to connect with listeners, making them observe the speaker’s passion and commitment.
Magic lies not in employing all the tactics, but in using a judicious combination of these. Planning, preparation, and practice matter as in all initiatives, large or small. The trick is to embellish a content-rich speech with CLTs that complement it and the speaker is most comfortable with, so that they appear natural and unrehearsed. Surely CLTs will not turn a leader into a Churchill or a Martin Luther King Jr., but they can make him appear more charismatic and effective in the eyes of people that follow him. That it itself is no mean feat!
