Charisma is, simply put, "compelling attractiveness or charm". Put another way, it can be defined as the ability to draw people to you...being someone that others want to be around. This is an important quality, and one that can give a leader a leg up in the ability to create a sphere of influence. But too often it is automatically equated with leadership itself, which is a faulty and often dangerous assumption.
When I evaluate leadership, I look at these six factors:
1. Influence. Leaders cultivate a sphere of influence. After all, a leader without followers is no leader at all.
2. Drive. Some might call this initiative. Put simply, a leader leads. This implies a destination...a leader has to lead somewhere. Great leaders are intentional and active, not accidental or passive. Some call this vision, but it's more than just having vision; it's a willingness to impart vision and catalyze people to want to journey to that place.
3. Competence. A leader should have some skill or giftedness or wisdom or insight that can be used to do something special with the people he/she leads.
4. Sacrifice. Some call this a "servant's heart". But being a servant almost always requires self-sacrifice for the sake of those you lead. Selfish leaders often end up doing more harm to their followers than good.
5. Balance. A great leader knows how to balance time, priorities, and energy, including having a good sense of margin and consistent and healthy boundaries.
6. Integrity. Please hear this: integrity does not mean "someone who never messes up." This word is too often used to imply that, and it's frustrating. Integrity, to me, is comprised of these three factors (these are not exhaustive, of course, but in my experience are three helpful gauges of integrity):
- Transparency: someone who is willing to be real and honest, and to take ownership of his/her failures and shortcomings.
- Stewardship: someone who demonstrates healthy stewardship (not just financial; in every area...time, priorities, boundaries, etc. See #5).
- Modeling: leads by example. You cannot lead someone somewhere that you have not been.
A couple of years ago a friend was with some people on a trip, and when he came back, he was talking about one of the other guys that had gone with him. I'll call him Joe. He said, "Joe's really a leader." I asked what he meant, and he explained that Joe's really got a lot of charisma. But I started to think about Joe, and evaluating him as a leader. I considered his sphere of influence: nonexistent. I considered what he does with the few people that he hangs around with: very little. And I considered what particular competencies he has to do something special even if he has a sphere of influence: minimal. I don't know Joe well enough to evaluate his balance or integrity. But already this assumption that charisma equals leadership starts falling apart.
Charisma is nice, but I'd say it's sort of a bonus. It's not the be-all and end-all that some often make it. In fact, some of the most effective leaders I've ever been around are not people that I would consider charismatic at all. But moving down this list of characteristics that I use to evaluate leaders, the very best of them get almost all of them right.
The larger insight is this: we "approve" or "dismiss" certain people for all kinds of reasons, many of which are, in the end, foolish. We should pay more attention to the real values that matter than we do to the superficial, deceptive factors that can fool is into over- or under- estimating someone.
