In other words, I’m not buying the WSJ author’s argument in his short piece. He seems to be saying that because charisma can fail in the long run, it’s illusory.

Book, you also describe charisma as leadership skills, and tie it to instinctive knowledge (of motiviation) and innate sense (of timing):

This coach’s leadership ability, therefore, comes, not from external signals, but from his own contribution to the kids’ experience. And as to that, the ability ties into his instinctive knowledge about how to to press the kids as hard as possible, but to know when to back off, so that they can achieve goals they hadn’t imagined, without being destroyed by too much pressure. He also shows an innate sense of the place both humor and discipline have in driving people to succeed.

I personally think that charisma comes before a “contribution to the kids’ experience”, not after. In other words, it’s not earned. And it can’t be faked via learned relationship skills. It’s not based upon success – though its usefulness can disappear upon failure. I think that charisma is orthogonal to experiential results, not based upon it. Charisma is one of those attributes, like height, that grease the skids, that give one a leg up, in first impressions. It seems to depress (or psychologically suppress?) that initial, guarded skepticism we all have.

These arguments “against charisma” reminds me too much of B.F. Skinner’s nasty and very limiting determinism. What Shakespeare said seems to apply: “There is more in heaven and earth, Horatio, then is dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Charisma is a mystery – at least to me – solely because we still have such limited understanding of human relationship psychology. But I think it exists even though I can’t fit it into my current philosophy.

I’m not dissing the worth or effects of learned skills. In fact, for those of us lacking that charismatic effect, this provides great hope. Charisma is a huge initial advantage, but long-term proven results tends to win over most of the people eventually. This is perhaps the one benefit of our very long election season!

Charisma is essentially that patina of awe and respect people give to a leader. True leadership doesn’t even require charisma, true leadership just makes it out of thin air.