That intangible magic
Bookworm on May 06 2008 at 10:38 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
My daughter and a large group of her friends are on a swim team with three coaches. All three coaches work the children hard, all do a good job, all three are strict,and all use a fair amount of humor to motivate the kids. The kids dislike one, tolerate another, and worship the third. As I explained to Mr. Bookworm this morning, when I was talking to him about the swim team, this third coach has some intangible leadership quality that can only be chalked up to charisma.
I thought of that this morning when I read this WSJ article that tries to explain what charisma is in the political context. Certainly charisma has been much on people’s minds as Obama has been sold as the charismatic candidate.
The Obama experience usefully demonstrates that much of charisma is hype, and that when facts overwhelm hype, the charisma can vanish, both as the audience begins to have a more realistic view of the politician and as the politician, dismayed by a lack of audience fervor, begins to get petty. In other words, as the article points out at length, charisma is tied to perception, which in turn is tied to success — if you’re already perceived as a leader, absent some fatal stumble, that perception will ensure a receptive audience.
The thing is that, with this coach and the kids, there is no perception and no hype, at least not from the kids’ point of view. The kids got put in the pool and were told, by fiat, that three coaches were their appointed leaders. Of these three, they have anointed one as the special coach, the one whose lead they’ll follow.
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.
This coach’s skills could, of course, be situationally unique. That is, while he may have an intuitive understanding of children, he might be incredibly ham-handed when it comes to dealing with adults. What inspires the 10 year old set might exasperate or offend the 30 something crowd. It’s hard to know. All I can say is that, whatever charisma is, when I see this guy at the pool, I know he has it.
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2 Responses to “That intangible magic”
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Leading by example, confidence, never letting them see you sweat, providing encouragement and taking a personal interest in each individual team member, all are part of leadership.
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.
Putting the three coaches in control of a swim team is similar to three new people entering a crowded room. The one who has charisma will change the social patterns and position patterns in the room very quickly.
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!