The dark side of charisma (Transcript)

Please note the following transcript may not exactly match the final audio, as minor edits or adjustments could be made during production.

ADAM: So kids, I just saw that the word of the year for 2023 is Rizz. What is Rizz? 

Daughter: Well, it comes from the word charisma. Rizz..charisma. It’s when someone is good at flirting.

ADAM: WHO HAS RIZZ? 

Daughter: TIMONTHY CHAMALET, TOM HOLLAND [laughs]

Son: Travis kelce! 

Daughter: Oh, that’s a good one. If someone interviewed him and they were to say does travis kelce have riz? They would say totally. 

Yeah! 

At work, charisma is more than a trend. It has long been a trait that we prize, and that many of us try to emulate.

We look to charismatic leaders for vision, for inspiration, for innovation.

We admire them as role models.

In politics, you might think of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, Barack and Michelle Obama, or John F. Kennedy.

Clip: from JFK’s swearing-in ceremony

In business, examples range from Steve Jobs to Oprah. 

Oprah clip:  graduation speech [got permission from her team]

And in entertainment, you can’t talk about charisma without mentioning Beyonce and Taylor Swift.

Taylor: clip [I got permission from the tiktok creator]

But when charisma is in the wrong hands, or gets used in the wrong way, it can turn toxic—for people and workplaces. 

We saw it at Theranos, WeWork and again at FTX. Visionary founders used their charisma to take advantage of employees, customers, and investors.

Instead of glorifying charisma, we need to recognize it as a double-edged sword, and figure out how to avoid the sharper edge.

THEME MUSIC UP

I’m Adam Grant, and this is WorkLife, my podcast with the TED Audio Collective. I’m an organizational psychologist. I study how to make work not suck.

In this show, we explore how to unlock the potential in people and workplaces. 

Today: The dark side of charismatic leadership, and how to recognize and overcome it.

MUX OUT

SEG A (understanding the dark side of charisma - insights: the charisma traps)

Charisma is a Greek word that means gift. 

When we talk about charismatic leaders, we’re usually describing people with a special gift to attract and charm others to follow their visions and values.

Yes, charisma comes more naturally to some people than others. But research reveals that charisma ultimately rests on a set of behaviors that can be taught and learned.

Experiments show that when people are randomly assigned to practice a series of verbal and nonverbal techniques, they’re rated as more charismatic afterward. 

It’s been demonstrated with managers–and with students.

And the behaviors aren’t rocket science. 

They include articulating an inspiring vision, appealing to higher principles, telling moving stories, speaking in vivid metaphors, and presenting with an animated tone, gestures, and facial expressions too.

Charismatic leaders excel at motivating people.

Liz Wiseman: I love charismatic leaders as much as anyone. I love to listen to them. They’re fun to watch perform.

Early in her career, Liz Wiseman was one of those charismatic leaders. And it didn’t go quite as she hoped.

Liz Wiseman: There was a time when I was  and an executive at Oracle There and I found myself leading an organization that, I just didn't have a lot of passion for and I think I made up with it through a lot of charisma and in some ways kind of rousing conversations and speeches to the team // and I remember I got a 360 assessment and one of the anonymous comments was, we need a leader with less charisma and more substance.

Adam: Sounds like charisma was a smoke screen.

Liz Wiseman: It was the smoke screen and I absolutely saw how it was not only damaging my organization, it was hindering my own development. // I had to get off the charisma track.

Charisma seems like an asset, but if you’re not careful, it can become a liability. 

[MUX]

Research suggests that leaders and followers often fall into three charisma traps.

The first trap is what Liz experienced: charisma can get in the way of substance. It becomes a crutch. 

Instead of preparing, you know you can get away with winging it. 

You focus on the big picture and wind up neglecting all the small but important details. Empirically, highly charismatic leaders tend to be heavy on vision but light on execution. 

And as the saying goes, vision without execution is hallucination.

Liz Wiseman: I was bringing a lot of energy and trying to, \\ motivate the organization, maybe talk big, um, rather than really dig into the hard issues // 

Liz decided to shift her career to some hard issues. She launched a research project to study leadership. And she wrote the book on how not to be the wrong kind of charismatic leader. 

Today, she’s an executive advisor to clients who often need to rein in their charisma.

Liz Wiseman: there was a CEO of a tech company. This is a gaming company and he just was a big thinker. Big energy was a spokesperson, kind of the face of this organization out to the market. // But he continued to play that same role inside the organization and you can imagine how the programmers. And the developers of all these games, how confused they were because he was constantly like, Hey, we've got this new feature. We're going to do this and we're going to do this. And it's amazing. // 

And the chief technology officer for this company, he told me, he said // a good 80 percent of my job is just settling the organization back down and telling people // don't worry. don't stop working on what you're doing and shift focus there because he was whipping the organization into this frenzy of what's possible and dis-focusing the organization. 

The second charisma trap is creating a cult of personality. Charisma makes it easy for people to get attached to the leader instead of the mission. 

In one study at a bank, employees who worked for charismatic leaders were more likely to identify with the bank… but also more likely to identify with their leaders personally.

And the more they identified with their leaders, the more dependent they became on them… and the more difficult they found it to do their job without them. 

If you’ve run into that challenge with a charismatic leader, Liz suggests analyzing how you feel when you’re around them—versus when you’re not…

Liz Wiseman: like you feel this temporary infusion of energy and passion. // but then you wake up the next morning, and that energy level is gone, l// it ends up leaving people kind of enervated rather than energized. And it leaves people dependent.

Adam- Local: given that charisma is so clearly a double edged sword, why do we glorify it? Why do we only focus on the upsides?

Liz Wiseman: I think we're attracted to charismatic leaders in the same way that I'm attracted to cotton candy. I love cotton candy when I'm in a stadium and the guy with the big bags of pink and yellow and blue cotton candy comes around the stadium. I want that, I'm noshing on that and then I start to feel bad. And you know, these leaders create this kind of sugar high. Which just isn't sustainable. It's in some ways the junk food version of good leadership.

Another warning sign is that people focus on pleasing the boss rather than advancing the cause. That leaves them vulnerable to manipulation.

[MUX]

That brings us to the third charisma trap: a lack of critical thinking. 

Evidence suggests that when leaders are charismatic, employees are less likely to challenge them. 

Stirring speeches from inspiring speakers rarely get the scrutiny they deserve. When we fall under their spell, we often stop thinking critically. It’s called the awestruck effect, but I like to think of it as the dumbstruck effect. 

Liz Wiseman: We can become enamored with them and their ideas to the point we stop asking questions.

Over time, as loyalty intensifies, charismatic leaders who are unscrupulous or misguided can lead their people to abandon rationality and blindly embrace ideas they wouldn't normally support.

And this doesn’t just happen with employees…investors are captivated too and are more likely to gamble on companies with charismatic leaders at the helm… especially if those firms struggling and prospects for a turnaround are dim. 

There’s even evidence that charismatic leadership increases the odds that people will lie and cheat in a twisted effort to support the leader or the organization.

So how do you know if you’re under the influence of the dark side of charisma? Pay attention to these warning signs…

[mux] 

1. People never disagree with the leader—privately or publicly. That’s a sign that they’re drinking the Kool-Aid. 

2. A leader is asking you to violate your values. Instead of standing by your principles, you’re expected to conform to theirs. 

3. You can’t think of anything that would cause you to withdraw your support of the leader. No leader deserves unconditional love.

Charisma isn't inherently good or bad. It’s not a panacea– it’s a tool. 

The effects depend on how we use it. 

So if you’re a leader or manager hoping to harness charisma for good, how do you make sure there’s as much substance as style?

More on that, after the break.

AD BREAK

SEG B (figuring out how to get the benefits without the costs) 

HAZEL: I wanted to be a famous actress when I was 16 and then I saw how hard it was going to be. So I decided I'd be a famous businesswoman instead…I think charismatic leaders can sometimes take up too much space and too much oxygen, and I know I'm guilty of that.

Hazel Jackson is the founder and CEO of Biz Group, a corporate training company based in Dubai. 

She radiates charisma— I could even feel her energy over Zoom. She tells memorable stories with vivid metaphors. And she has a dynamic presence.

HAZEL:I do like being on stage, I do like lighting up other people and persuading them. They can do things better than they're currently doing right now. 

For years, Hazel was the loudest and fastest voice in the room. She developed a reputation for being a little…

HAZEL: Chaotic. Um,  Well intended. Enthusiastic. Keep up or fall away. But certainly, I never knew how to slow down, and // I thought my job was to do most of the thinking.

But Hazel started seeing signs that her energy might be hurting more than it was helping. She remembers coming back from a conference full of ideas to share with her team. 

HAZEL: And literally I will show up and throw up, um, with all of the things that we could do, um, to make the company better. and you just end up overwhelming everybody to the point that nobody wants to do any of the ideas that you brought back. //

And so that energy, that passion, that desire to share in the wrong context…  It's disastrous.

ADAM: How do you tell that people are overwhelmed by it? 

HAZEL: blank, kind of like rabbits in headlights. So, it becomes a one way conversation // when you get that blank stare as a leader or that silence, when you were hoping to get enthusiasm, you get bigger and //, and they get even smaller.

ADAM: So what did you do about it?

HAZEL: I picked up the phone and I rang Liz Wiseman.

[MUX] 

In her research, Liz had noticed a pattern among charismatic leaders. Many had bad habits of diminishing others.

Liz Wiseman: a lot of really smart, talented, capable leaders who were so focused on their own intelligence and ideas that they were underutilizing people around them. They became diminishers to the intelligence and capability of others. 

If you’re a leader, Liz identified some clues that your charisma might be stifling people.

You might be the idea fountain who’s always on, and ends up overwhelming and shutting down others. 

Liz Wiseman: they love a creative environment, and so they toss out ideas. // and what tends to happen is that people get idea-lazy around people who are idea-rich. Simply because. // we don't have to bring it, the leader's bringing it.

Just like Hazel!

Or you might be the irrepressible optimist, who seems to believe in impossible things and ends up burning people out… or wasting their time. 

Or you could be the pacesetter, who turns others into spectators.

Liz Wiseman: This is a leader who gets out ahead of their team and they're showing people what good looks like. // But the problem is once the leader gets out ahead of their team by, I don't know, a car length or two. People don't tend to speed up and catch up to match that. people aren't with us. They're watching us.

These misuses of charisma might sound all too familiar if you’ve had a boss who displays them. But when you’re in charge, you may not be aware that you’re diminishing others.

Liz Wiseman: Most of the diminishing that's happening in the workplace is coming from the accidental diminisher. //

like they're energetic, but everyone else is kind of left with that post cotton candy sugar rush low. // Versus the multiplier who ends up using their energy in a way that energizes other people.

A multiplier. 

That’s what Liz calls the opposite of a diminisher. 

A multiplier is a leader who amplifies the capabilities and contributions of others.

Liz Wiseman: // // They get other people thinking. They ask hard questions.. They give you an intellectual puzzle that ends up energizing you..

When Hazel read Liz’s book, Multipliers, she recognized herself in it, and she wanted to change.

HAZEL: I said, this is the first time I've read a book where I get it but I need way more help than you've given me in the pages.

ADAM: Has your charisma ever made you an accidental diminisher?

HAZEL: Oh, all that I do makes me an accidental diminisher. I'd hired smart people, but I wasn't allowing them to be smart. And it wasn't to do with them. It was to do with me.

Hazel wasn’t a bad leader. She had successfully run an organization for decades! But she wasn’t getting the most out of her team because her charisma was getting in the way. 

So Liz started coaching Hazel to manage her charisma more effectively, to shift from diminishing to multiplying. 

At a recent coaching session, Hazel was preparing for her team's big annual strategy meeting. 

HAZEL: I don't want to look like I've abdicated responsibility. And at the same time. I don't want everybody every five minutes turning to me to look as though to say, what does Hazel think? How do I strike the balance?

Liz’s guidance on a challenge like this — or any effort to change the harmful kind of charisma into the helpful kind — follows three key practices. 

And these practices aren’t just for those trying to rein in their charisma. They actually align with established principles of good management for everyone.

[MUX]

Step 1: set expectations. Explain to your team that you’re making a change. Especially if they’re used to you dominating the room.

LIZ: and in some ways, that's what your team expects. So,// you probably need to let your team know that you're going to break that pattern. //

In our research across multiple organizations, Constantinos Coutifaris and I found that when leaders acknowledge their limitations out loud, it builds psychological safety for their teams to speak up. 

So Hazel admitted her shortcomings, and told her team directly how she was trying to make space for them.

HAZEL: I can say // hey guys my tendency, as you know, is to get quite enthusiastic, maybe to get over enthusiastic and to share my opinion, perhaps a little bit too much. And so this is the way that I'm going to try and manage that today. //

That led to Step 2: shine the spotlight on the supporting cast. 

Liz encouraged Hazel to be willing to play the supporting actor role in meetings— and let others own the leading role. 

HAZEL: So at this example of this strategy meeting, // I've been doing them for 30 years in my company. I can think of many examples where I left completely drained because I did all the thinking. And guess whose strategy it is. It's my strategy, so I have to execute it. That's the opposite of what I'm trying to create with this conversation, is I want it to be something that's co-created. // or even it's owned by them, and I'm here to support. 

A growing body of evidence suggests that listening and question-asking are undervalued leadership skills. 

HAZEL: I have learned to ask more questions, absolutely,// don't think I have to turn down my charisma // as long as I create space for others for theirs to dial up.  

One author coined a lovely phrase to capture it: “inverse charisma.”

Instead of being the sole source of charisma, the goal is to evoke charisma in others. 

By asking thoughtful questions and paying close attention to the responses, you stimulate new insights and energy in your team.

LIZ: There are a couple like really emphatic points in a meeting, and there are places where it's important for a leader to play big, and one of those is at the beginning, and another one of those is at the end of the meeting, // and you know, set the context and framing and then to hold back. 

Which is, hey, you know what? // I'm going to kind of kick us off with some thinking. I'm going to wrap us up. I'm probably going to be stoking the conversation with a few questions. I//. But other than that, I'm going to sort of sit on my hands.  

It’s called strategic silence: deliberately being quiet when speaking up might be counterproductive.

Hazel: // I felt I needed to solve the puzzle and give everybody the path. And so // what I needed to do was not complete the puzzle, actually write a really big question,// let them go down their own routes of coming to the solution of the path. //

Psychologists have long found that if people don’t have a say in the goal or the path, they’re less likely to buy into it. Participation builds commitment. 

Involving people in shaping the path is especially important when the stakes are high and the leader doesn’t have all the expertise.

HAZEL: I think this concept of, as leaders, we do have a lot of the answers,  because we've been thinking about the problem longer. We have to give people the chance and the time and the opportunity to think about it in the same way. And they probably have the answers, even better answers than me.

Liz has a practical way for leaders to avoid hogging the spotlight. She calls it the poker chip challenge.

If you’re the leader, you’re allotted a specific number of chips in a meeting. 

[sfx - lots of chips]

Each chip represents a comment or contribution. [sfx - less chips] 

You know you have limited airtime. So instead of dominating the conversation, you start becoming more selective in your input.

[sfx - one chip at a time]

That doesn’t mean Hazel is going to stop contributing ideas. 

But she has learned to filter them more.

That brings us to Step 3: don’t be a fountain of more ideas than you can execute. Research shows that effective leaders are careful to balance imagination with implementation. That means maintaining a healthy ratio of dreaming to doing.

HAZEL: What I learned was to either create a holding tank and say, okay, I'm going to drip feed ideas at certain times, or I would label this as me in idea fountain mode. I am now going to share a whole load of ideas. I'm not expecting you to do them all. I'm not expecting you to like them all. I want you to listen and share where you think we should explore further. 

So because sometimes as the boss or the founder, everyone assumes that every idea needs to be actioned. And all you're actually doing is sharing.

ADAM: I feel like you're, you're coining a whole vocabulary for this. Like, if you have a tendency to show up and throw up, you need to build a holding tank and drip feed your ideas. [add book chapter tape here with her laughs]  

//

MUX

It’s easy to stereotype charisma as an essential ingredient for leadership.

But I’ve come to believe that the most underrated leadership skill might be management. 

A bold, inspiring vision goes nowhere without the essential, unflashy stuff — setting clear expectations, involving people in decisions, and showing care. 

To become a great leader, you don’t have to start with charisma. 

You can start by being a good manager.

[MUX OUT]

Fwd promo status 

CREDITS 

This episode was produced by Courtney Guarino and Constanza Gallardo. Our team includes Daphne Chen, Dan O'Donnell, Gretta Cohn, Grace Rubenstein, Daniella Balarezo, Ban Ban Cheng, Michelle Quint, Alejandra Salazar and Roxanne Hai-Lash. Our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our show is mixed by Ben Chesneau [shay-no]. Original music by Hahnsdale Hsu and Allison Layton Brown.

Ad stories produced by Pineapple Street Studios. 

For their research, appreciation to the following scholars and their colleagues: Jay Conger on charisma, John Antonakis on teaching charisma, the late Boas Shamir on dependency, Rob Kaiser and Ella Miron-Spektor on balancing vision and execution, Yanhan Zhu on suppressing follower voice, Jochen Menges on the awestruck effect, David Effelsberg on unethical behavior, Rakesh Khurana on searching for a corporate savior, Avi Kluger on listening, Wendy Moffat on inverse charisma, Michael Parke on strategic silence, Victor Vroom on participation, and Tim Judge and Ron Piccolo on transformational and transactional leadership.

And thanks to Brenna Lynn Small for sharing her Taylor Swift video. 

EASTER EGG:

Adam: like if i wanted to have more riz, what can I do? 

Daughter: more charisma. 

daughter:Well you would have to be younger. Yeah that too. 

Son: Yeah you are too old! 

Adam:[laughs] I can't do that. What else? 

Daughter: You should practice on mom.