Throughout human history, it has been believed that the world is divided into those who rule and those who are ruled. Today they think differently. Everyone can become a leader, and leadership is just a skill that can be developed. Both are wrong. Leadership, which is talked about so much, does not exist at all. Leadership and power are the outer effects of more subtle and hidden forces that control our psychology and our actions.
Radislav Gandapas is the most famous leadership specialist in Russia, the author of 8 books and 14 films on leadership and public speaking, an award-winning business coach in Russia, the only one in the country three times recognized as the best in the profession based on the results of the year.
If we analyze the stories and biographies of leaders of various calibers, we will see that leadership and power, as a rule, have three bases. The first and most obvious is the formal status. Once a person is appointed as a top manager, commander, prime minister or archbishop, he automatically gains power over other people. At the everyday level, this is enough for power: from childhood we get used to the fact that people in office, those who are endowed with formal attributes, have power.
The second basis of power is competence. Even in imperial China, almost two thousand years ago, many applicants for government positions were required to take exams. Today, at least in theory, competence is recognized in many countries as a principle of civil service: you grow above yourself, learn to solve increasingly complex problems, and for this you are rewarded with a promotion.
That is why the myth arose that it is enough to be a competent person, get a good education, get into a good place for a good position - and success awaits you. In fact, both status and competence are too shaky foundations for power and success. They leave the leader's power in the hands of other people and external circumstances that may be stronger than his knowledge and skills. But there is a third basis of power, which, combined with sufficient formal status and sufficient competence, makes this power unshakable. It allows a leader to maintain his position even when his status is under attack and his competence is in doubt. This third ingredient is charisma.
It is a key element in the construction of power and leadership in both politics and business. Is it possible to become a charismatic leader? The answer is obvious: yes. Innate charisma, charisma as a gift of fate or blood, is a myth. Leaders are not a special race or a special subspecies of people.
Charisma is always realized in a certain context, in a specific social group. The charismatic leader's image and communication pattern must be consistent with the group's culture, values, and style. But we must remember that a charismatic leader is always a destroyer of foundations, including moral ones. It proposes new morals, new values, new corporate or social rules. And if these rules can be imposed on a group of people, the leader’s power becomes very strong.
Define your goals
The goal must be set by the charismatic himself. It's no secret that people who clearly express and write down their goals are much more effective than people who are afraid to make commitments to themselves and the world, and they earn much more. A charismatic leader sets and declares his goals from the very beginning. If there is no super task, there will be no charisma. A charismatic leader can, like Alexander the Great, be sure that he is doomed to greatness from birth. He may connect his future with the goals of his cult, order, corporation and believe that the greatness of the organization is identical to his greatness. Or maybe just trust in your intuition and that you are doing the right thing. But he is always guided by a genuine, real, felt, and not a fictitious goal. This is the intention that he feels within himself.
Political leader through the eyes of Machiavelli
In the work “The Prince” by Niccolò Machiavelli (an Italian philosopher), the requirements for a person who wants to become a successful politician were described in detail. The qualities of a leader in his view look like this:
- Avoid hatred.
- Win people over by instilling trust.
- Create the appearance of virtue in front of the people, regardless of actions.
- Act quickly and firmly if the situation requires it.
- Change your management style based on the situation.
Strive for inner freedom and independence
Charismatics not only see the world in their own way, but also free themselves from many of the restrictions that other people obediently accept. A charismatic leader allows himself to invent his own goals, ways of thinking and acting, rather than accepting those imposed by society. Quite often, charismatic leaders are idea generators. What usually prevents people from coming up with new ideas is not a lack of intelligence or professional experience, but an internal prohibition against challenging the status quo.
For a charismatic person, thanks to his inner freedom, this prohibition is easier to overcome. Therefore, charismatic individuals are often able to foresee the future. Or, at least, they consider themselves visionaries, whose brains easily cope with large-scale pictures of the future; they believe that they can see ahead not just a day or two, but several years or several decades.
Flexibility
It should be noted that all these types of leadership and management are not perfect. Therefore, the most successful person is called a “flexible leader.” He is able to combine different types of management, guided by the situation. If it is necessary to introduce an authoritarian or democratic style, a flexible leader chooses the most suitable option. This helps achieve the greatest efficiency. And the need for insight and going beyond standard boundaries leads to the choice of a transformational style.
Guided by the proposed specification, it is easy to determine the personal style or type of your leader in the workplace. Knowing the basic characteristics, you can develop the necessary qualities. In this case, you just need to compare the personal characteristics of behavior and the types of leadership described in the article.
Ignore public morality
People who have achieved inner freedom are more likely to succeed in life, since the path to success is not only about overcoming external obstacles. This often involves overcoming internal barriers. One of these barriers is public morality. This does not mean that a charismatic leader lacks morality. However, the morality of charismatics is not so much imposed by society and the environment, but is born as an internal motivation of the leader and is linked to his internal motives. Charismatics are skeptical about generally accepted principles and commandments.
Take up public speaking skills
A good leader cannot be a bad speaker. His charisma certainly shows in his communication. During the speech, the speaker gains power over the audience: he makes them experience certain feelings, even pushes them to take the necessary actions.
Don't be afraid to awaken negative emotions: charismatics can be tough, uncompromising speakers, not prone to particular correctness. These are not polite presentations that include space for thanking everyone who passed by while working on the slides.
The leader’s speech hits you in the gut, makes you dizzy, and undermines existing ideas. It can be scandalous and offensive to someone. This is a performance that puts listeners in a situation of conflict with reality. But it is always a performance that is remembered and repeated.
Features of the emergence of leadership and group hierarchy
Leaders, by virtue of their central position, play an important role in shaping the group's goals, worldview, organization of structure and general activities of group members.
The second side of the leader-group interaction is considered here, since it is the structure, position and goals of the group that determine the circumstances of leadership and the goals it serves.
In most cases, influence in a group tends to be concentrated in the hands of one or a few people, but not evenly distributed among all group members. This is most obvious as the group stabilizes over time in the external environment.
As numbers grow, functions increase, and group goals are established, a hierarchy develops in terms of degree of influence among group members. At the top of the hierarchical ladder is the main leader, in the middle are the leaders of the second and third levels, and at the lower levels are the followers. In small, cohesive groups, both intermediate leaders and followers typically represent the essential characteristics of the top leader at their respective levels. However, this does not apply to large and complex groups, where objective conditions exist for the emergence of many leaders.
The need for an influential leader is especially relevant for a group when there is an obstacle to achieving the group's goals or something threatens the group from the outside, i.e. when there is a difficult, critical situation. This applies equally to difficult combat situations, natural disasters (for example, a group of climbers and a landslide in the mountains) and the vicissitudes of institutional reorganization.
In such cases, group members always lack an agreed upon understanding of what steps should be taken to achieve goals or prevent danger. If a person's personal qualities (courage, skill, knowledge, self-confidence, etc.) allow him to provide the goal or security of the group, then he is more likely to become a leader of the group. The degree of danger or difficulty in overcoming an obstacle that a group faces determines not only the emergence of leadership, but also the extent and form of its spread. In the most critical situations, leadership is concentrated, concentrated in one hand.
Historical analysis of the emergence of dictators shows that they appear precisely in critical situations when an immediate change of government is necessary. Power-hungry political opportunists artificially create perceived emergencies to seize control of all government functions, and prolong imagined crises to maintain that control.
An environment favorable for the emergence of a new leader can arise not only under the influence of an external threat, but also as a result of conflict within the group. At some point, the leaders of the conflicting subgroups will assume an equilibrium position with respect to the supreme leader; if the group does not disintegrate, then the leaders of the subgroups will be replaced by a supreme leader (but the old supreme leader may remain supreme).
Crockett of the University of Michigan (USA) experimentally demonstrated that division into groups creates fertile ground for usurping the roles of old leaders and promoting new ones. He studied 72 groups in government and industrial organizations, which led him to the following conclusion: “Groups whose members have different opinions about the goals of the group and the means of achieving them are much more likely to appoint opinion leaders than groups that do not disagree about the definition of goals.” and funds."
Find a special hobby
The leader’s hobbies add a lot to charisma. But they add it only if these are strange, unusual hobbies that few people can think of. It is no coincidence that people with great ambitions, coming to a new place of work, consider it their duty to convey to everyone around them a list of their unusual hobbies. They strive to immediately cement in the minds of their colleagues what unusual people fate brings them together.
Charismatic hobbies may include a passion for an unusual, unique sport, especially if this sport is associated with risk.
Let's look back
History shows that behind almost every leader there was not one support representative, but a whole group. Let's remember three striking examples of informal leaders, the so-called gray cardinals.
Francois Leclerc du Tremblay
Better known as Father Joseph or the Gray Cardinal, so nicknamed for the color of his cassock, he is a monk of the Capuchin Order, actually a cardinal only in the last year of his life.
Father Joseph was the constant companion of the true Red Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis Richelieu (better known as Richelieu), carried out the Cardinal's secret orders, resolved important issues related to political background, espionage connections, influencing the conduct of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). It is obvious that Richelieu had reasons to trust the monk, because the figure of Father Joseph is historically recognized as an example of a righteous Catholic and patriot.
By the way, the famous painting by Charles Edouard Delo is notable for its depiction of these two figures. Its title (“ Richelieu and his cats ”) also emphasizes a certain mystery of the image of Father Joseph, who did not have any important title, but at the same time, as can be seen from the picture, was literally Richelieu’s right hand:
Heinrich Johann Friedrich Ostermann
Russian “version” – Andrei Ivanovich Osterman (1686-1747).
Not only France was famous for the presence of gray cardinals. The Russian Empire was also no exception. Osterman managed to maintain prominent positions under three Russian tsars - Peter I, Catherine I, Anna Ioanovna. And the path of young Henry began in Germany, where he was born, but was forced to flee first to the Netherlands and then to Russia, because... killed his opponent in a duel.
Possessing knowledge of several languages, Osterman passed for a cunning, wise, dangerous man who was fluent in the art of pretending and lying. At the same time, abstracting from his personal characteristics, we note that it was this person who became an important diplomatic link in the preparation of the Peace of Nystadt, which marked the end of the Northern War (1700-1721). Osterman was also one of the authors of the 1726 Treaty of Vienna between Russia and the Holy Roman Empire.
The end of the politician was not so pleasant, because... Elizaveta Petrovna, once his enemy and rival, sent him into exile, where Osterman ended his journey.
Mikhail Andreevich Suslov
The gray cardinal of the Soviet period in the history of our state. Mikhail Andreevich Suslov also carried out his activities under three leaders of the USSR - J.V. Stalin, N.S. Khrushchev and L.I. Brezhnev.
After joining the CPSU in 1921, the young man’s career developed rapidly - he began to be responsible for the most important front of work during the Soviet era - the ideological sphere. Already under Nikita Sergeevich, it is believed that it was Suslov who insisted on sending national troops to Hungary. Under Leonid Ilyich, the sphere of authority of politics expanded, because he was responsible for education, culture, and censorship. Suslov was known as a conservative and dogmatist; persecution of the intelligentsia, arrests of dissidents, exile of famous writers and scientists are associated with his name.
It is obvious that, being a close associate of such different and strong leaders of a powerful state, Mikhail Suslov possessed a number of special qualities - cunning, depth of thinking, pragmatism, and at the same time he always remained in the shadows, as befits a true eminence gray.
As you can see, throughout history, even the brightest formal leaders have faced the problem of the emergence of an informal leader, but thanks to the right strategy of behavior on both sides, they managed to come to mutual benefit and enlist each other's support.
The moral of these examples is: don't get rid of informal leaders. The only real signal for this step is that the informal leader begins to fight. In this case, you need to say goodbye to him, no matter what the cost. In other cases, you need to look for compromises and choose the strategy of a real leader [I. Ryzov, 2020].
Don't forget about outward modesty
The influence of a charismatic is a subtle game with the bowls of imaginary scales. On one bowl is everything that the leader bestowed on his fans or his people. On the other is everything he took for himself.
For a charismatic leader, it is important that there is always an imbalance on these scales. So that the giving cup - at least in the public imagination - greatly outweighs. This means that this cup needs to be constantly loaded: to demonstrate concern for people, to present specific deeds and actions aimed at their benefit. And the second cup - to take - should be almost empty.
You should not demonstrate wealth and privilege: the leader’s followers are embarrassed by any hint that the main thing for him is not the mission, but the solution of personal problems.
Also, avoid the everyday: charisma breaks down when people hear about their leader arguing with his wife over dirty dishes or arguing with another manager about who will have the driver's car that day. Charismatics tend to hide their personal lives, home, family, and isolate all aspects of their being and personality from their followers.
Basic Concepts
There are 6 concepts of charismatic leadership.
- The first is that led people attribute certain abilities to the leader in the process of assessing the situation, initiation into strategy, through the formation of extraordinary decisions and demonstrating opportunities to become an example.
- Consists in the separation of personalized and socialized forms of charismatic government. The first form is characterized by intemperance, a strong desire to seize power and its unauthorized use, and the pursuit of one’s own selfish goals. The second form is characterized by the desire to instill one’s concepts and train followers.
- It lies in the perception by followers of the leader in the image of a father, when there is a demonstration of heroism, stability and foresight. Typically, followers who find themselves in a difficult situation, highly suggestible, and emotionally unstable become more susceptible. This state of affairs can dramatically change the leader's self-perception and increase his desire to dominate his followers.
- Considers the behavioral characteristics of followers and the leader at the time of crisis. Followers, being in a critical situation, strive even more for the leader, perceiving him as family. The leader receives even more power.
- Represents charismatic leadership as a kind of engine of progress in a certain circle of people. Sometimes this form of government helps preserve cultural values or adopt new ones when a stalemate arises and followers cannot stop being ambivalent about it.
- The final concept is that charisma is a characteristic of the relationship between a leader and his followers.
