He’s got the Fire in his belly! She has a presence about herself. I get Butterflies fluttering in the stomach each time I meet them.
I am the first to exclaim and will be the first to say that about people. Some organizations have it, stoke it, develop it and others struggle. Eventually it is all a point of view. Where you are, where you have been and how you got there will pave the way. This is as true of people as it is of organizations and how they perceive people.
People are by far the most amazing and interesting entities. Who has charisma and who does not is much more a function of where they have been (the company they have kept) and how they got there (gusto) than just their past and pro forma performance. Jim Collins in his book good to great talks about how charisma can be a dangerous thing, his example of Winston Churchill’s management of information during the second big war is a perfect example of the dangers of charisma but at on the same note a leader without charisma is like a light house without a light.
I do feel the need for a certain exhilaration every once in a while! Not the kind of high from a shot of tequila but a true rush from the talk of accomplishments. High level of performance often feeds the fire, but I am my own judge! I do need the external unbiased assessment but that only helps to reinforce or course correct my personal assessment, not drive me to be Charismatic!
Annual meetings are often an amazing place for stock price talk. The external assessment of the performance is often mistaken for success, but I want to high light the recent turbulences and corporate scandals where organizations saw some hay days… at the heights of their stock prices their leaders took respite in fake earnings. Performance is not a substitute for charisma! Performance is luster while charisma is ability to reflect light.
