“Charisma is invisible energy with visible effects†- author Marianne Williamson.
As the UK prepares to swap prime ministers, the ephemeral quality of “charisma†is again being discussed as a trait required by a demanding public.
“Good communication skillsâ€, “personableâ€, “auraâ€, “gravitasâ€, “vibes†- all these attributes can be seen as offshoots of charisma. Figures as diverse as Jesus, Alexander the Great, Princess Diana, Donald Trump, Margaret Thatcher and Jurgen Klopp have been said to have it.
Schools require leaders to influence the behaviours of sometimes thousands of people, ranging from three-year-olds learning their first phoneme to grizzled teachers with 40 years of experience. Clearly, charisma matters. But what is it?
Charisma in leadership
Charisma, as a leadership trait, may seem indefinable and opaque, but it emanated from a rich research base built broadly around the work of three names: Carlyle, Weber and Tucker.
First, . A Scottish historian in the 19th century, Carlyle believed history was shaped entirely by people who could shape events through a near-divine force of personality and will, and that leadership could not be learned but was instead a near-religious “gift†bestowed upon a select few.
Carlyle categorised historical leaders into different “typesâ€; for example, “the prophet†and “the poetâ€. When we view his work with modern eyes, we can see the seedling of what we now consider charisma in it.
Modern school leadership courses would be anathema to Carlyle, who did not believe leadership skills were learned traits but instead inherent gifts, and that the charismatic leader affected followers in quasi-religious ways. He wouldn’t do an NPQH, put it that way…
‘Love, devotion and enthusiasm’
Next, German sociologist , perhaps the father of modern leadership theory. Weber took Carlyle’s work and began to devolve it from discussing just kings and queens to look at how power is gained and wielded across organisations.
Keeping many of Carlyle’s ideas, Weber believed the charismatic leader was followed out of “love, devotion, enthusiasm†and “leadership based upon a transcendent call by a divine being in which both the person called and his followers believe†(Tucker, 1968, ).
Weber codified charismatic leaders as operating beyond logic, saying they were often breakers of tradition who could emotionally, not just rationally, connect with followers.
Weber also noted the fatal flaw in the charismatic leader; that because their influence was not technically rational nor easy to comprehend, when the charismatic leader left their position the gap was impossible to fill.
Going against the system
Finally, we come to political scientist Robert Tucker in the late 1960s. Tucker built on Weber’s work but was clearer on how charismatic leaders drive change and movement - by going against bureaucratic systems, rational rules and traditional authority.
Tucker identified something almost anarchic in charismatic leaders, and this disruption was usually essential for the management of change.
In a school in England, I once saw a whole-school focus on oracy fail badly when led by a perfectly competent, technically rational leader who lacked charisma, and the same initiative become transformational when led by a charismatic leader.
It wasn’t the message - it was the messenger and the intangible effect that messenger had on others. The content she was delivering was simply inherited from the previous individual, but the alchemy produced when a charismatic drives change meant the result was completely different.
Tucker writes: “To speak of charismatic leaders, then, is to speak of charismatic movements; the two phenomena are inseparable.â€
From Tucker’s work in the late 1960s, leadership theory exploded from the academic world into airport bookshelves, podcast discussions and a huge array of leadership training and courses.
Can you learn charisma?
To be a school leader today, some knowledge of theories of leadership is a requirement, as is the ability to talk fluently about different leadership styles. Yet rarely is the charismatic leader directly referenced.
Its closest cousin is the “transformational leaderâ€, who has aspects of charismatic leadership but lacks the intangible, near mystical connections with “followers†that thinkers claim the charismatic can engender.
So, can a school leader “learn†charisma? According to a new raft of thinkers and gurus, yes. How we speak, listen, talk and even move has now been packaged into learning how to be charismatic.
In the modern spirit of attempting to shortcut everything and reduce it to its most reductive form, the internet is awash with and gurus who “teach†charisma. Listening deeply, laughing loudly, speaking clearly and being present with others are just some of their tips.
Though useful to a point, these tips - by focusing on just the mechanics of communication - risk making charisma appear purely manipulative, rather than something that emanates from a sense of authenticity and conviction that is harder to bottle into a 30-second reel.
If we follow the work of Carlyle, Weber and Tucker, this reduction of charisma to a set of easily learned speaking and listening tricks only understands a fraction of what a truly charismatic leader can do, which is to influence without logic, and sometimes in spite of it.
Charisma defies measurement, but there is something uniquely human in knowing it when we encounter it.
Andy Bayfield is assistant principal at St Mary’s International School in Tokyo, Japan
