Do you know a person who looks really well, speaks really well and is so good that you and others really like, trust, and admire him/her? You don’t just agree with their ideas, you also ‘want’ to agree with them. You don’t exactly know why, but you just want to. You want to support them, join their team, and just want to be around them because they radiate confidence, charm and positivity. This is what charismatic people are like. Charisma is a set of personality qualities that gives you the power to attract and influence others by the way you speak, what you speak and how you look while speaking.
The word charisma originated from the Greek word ‘charis,’ which means ‘grace’ or ‘gift.’
As previously said, Charisma is not a single quality but a group of behaviours and traits that can make a person more successful than those who are much smarter and with higher IQs. That’s because charisma has the power to make a person much more attractive than people who are just intelligent. Here ‘attractive’ doesn’t just refer to the person being physically attractive but in an overall sense including, intelligence, confidence, kindness, and joy.
The quality of charisma can be very useful in fields where the skill to influence, teach and show direction is a need. A charismatic person usually does immensely well in the field of politics, acting, sports coaching, and teaching.
A charismatic person is a trustworthy, interesting, and likeable individual with a very positive and respected impression in everyone’s heart. They are also very assertive, warm, and inspiring because of which people enjoy listening to them. Even though others like listening to them, they make sure that they are listening when others speak as this makes other people feel respected.
Charisma can be considered a referent power as it can give a man able to control and influence others. This means it can also be easily misused. Narcissists and psychopaths.
In a study published in the Journal of Research in Personality, scientists tried to find out what makes a ‘successful psychopath’ different from its other counterparts. 150 participants were asked to complete a battery of surveys which also included an assessment called the Psychopathic Success Inventory. The assessment intended to measure how often the participants managed to get away with their socially unaccepted behaviour and their professional success like their salary, achievements etc.
The scientists observed that the participants who scored high on psychopathic traits also scored high in charismatic qualities of leadership. it was also observed that those with a high score in psychopathy also scored high in the ability to influence others. The scientists concluded that highly charismatic people with psychopathic traits were able to dodge any punishment for their deviant behaviours more than others. You don’t necessarily have to be born with a charismatic personality. There are certainly those who possess the traits to attract, be trustworthy and influence other people, but even those who weren’t can learn the skills to be charismatic.
One looking forward to building a charismatic personality should focus on the following areas:
Assertiveness is a very important quality to becoming a charismatic person. It refers to being confident in one’s ideas and opinions without being aggressive and defensive. A major component of assertiveness is being confident. You can build confidence by gaining skills and knowledge to become an expert in your work and simultaneously building small goals and achieving them.
Body language is another crucial component of a charismatic personality. being able to talk with not just your words but open body movements and hand gestures makes you look, authenticating, confident, and genuinely interested in the conversation. It also continuously keeps the listeners’ attention locked on you because by using body language you are giving more cues for them to pick.
Being appreciative refers to praising others for their real qualities. remember that being charismatic does not just mean being influential but equally likeable. When you shower people with praise that makes them feel good and see their good qualities, They will want to be and talk with you to feel good about themselves and explore their qualities which earlier they could not notice.
Emotional intelligence, you can think of it as a super sense that lets you pick more than what others see in their environment. It refers to the ability to perceive manage use and handle one’s own and other’s emotions. By picking how the other person is feeling you can better understand what the other person needs or what are the appropriate actions you should take at that moment. It also helps you build deep relations and connections and connections with others. An emotionally intelligent person can also control their emotions and prevent any damage to their impression or connection they have built with others especially when one is stressed and tired, and not really in the mood to talk.
Charisma can help you achieve professional and social success. Being able to connect with people and convince them to support you without actually doing so is an extremely useful power. You need to make sure that it is only put to good use and for the betterment of all without causing any harm to anyone.
