How everyone can use CHARISMA to be a better leader

When it comes to being a great leader all of us could achieve that aim if we could just tap into our CHARISMA. Here I’m not talking our ability to charm people, although not a guarantee of leadership it can be of great help.

No, here I am talking about tapping into those personal qualities that help determine our level of leadership capability and potential achievement.

Using CHARISMA to be a better leader

Challenging

Great leaders are always challenging. They challenge themselves, the status quo, and then their teams to attain new levels of performance and achieve bigger and better goals. Challenging is not the same as demanding. Yes it places new demands on your teams, but it is done in a supportive, and motiving way that seeks to engage your teams.

Humble

In Good to Great Jim Collins said the number one quality that separates level 5 from level 4 leaders is humility. That ability to see the importance of others in the achievement of success and to know it’s not all about you. This helps people to feel that they work with you and not for you, which helps make a stronger connection.

Authentic

Trust is the cornerstone of leadership and nothing helps breed that as much as authenticity. Leaders who are consistent in their actions and who don’t just talk the talk but also walk it are always well appreciated, as well as trusted.

Respectful

Respect is what I call reciprocal quality. It’s one of those qualities where the more respect we show the more respect we will receive. Respect is very powerful because when we respect people we show that we appreciate them, that we value them, and this is something that all people crave, in fact, it’s one of our primary basic needs. Teams that feel respected will feel more involved and this increases their commitment.

Inspiring

There are many ways we can inspire our team, through our actions and interactions with them, or simply by setting bold goals and showing them how they can be achieved. Everyone wants to be part of a successful team and if you can show your teams how they can be successful then this is going to help them become inspired and want to go on that journey with you.

Simple

When you can keeps this simple and communicate them in a simple way this helps boost people’s understanding, and the more they understand the easier it is to engage and the more they can achieve.

Complexity kills execution it’s a simple as that, so the simpler you can keep things, the better and bigger the results will be.

Magnanimous

One of my favourite quotes is “A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit” from Arnold Glasgow. This is something I completely agree with, as leaders you need to share the credit with your team, I mean let’s face it they did the bulk of the work and so deserve it. When you share credit your teams will want to work with you again, and it will boost your reputation and make you a very attractive leader to work for. The opposite is also true, take all the credit and pretty soon you will find no one will want to work with you again.

Accountable

If you want your teams to take accountability, then you need to be a role model for them to follow. You need to make and meet your commitments, you need to accept your role in any failure and not look to point fingers and apportion blame. You need to take ownership of the outcomes and be willing to be held to account for its success or failure. Too many leaders want the position, but not the accountability. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that, with great position comes great accountability. Great leaders know and accept this.

When you look at all these qualities you will see that none of them require a degree or Ph.D. in leadership.

Everyone and anyone can display these qualities and we all can work to improve our CHARISMA and become, if not great, better leaders.