Certainly, in a leader’s skill set, Charisma is an indispensable component.
Understanding charisma mechanically is the goal of this poster.
Based on face validity, we have all experienced that we interact at different levels – being selective about how deeply we share with whom. As you can see on the triangle at the bottom, Cliché is the shallowest of the levels (i.e. “Hey how’s it going?” “Hey what’s happening? Isn’t the weather great?” “Absolutely!”)
Facts About Others might include “Did you hear what happened to –,” “Did you know that so and so went on a trip to –”
Facts About Yourself become more personal (i.e.“I was born in Ohio” “I was born in — I had a family of five,” “You know my dad worked at the coal mine.”)
Facts About Your Thoughts And Feelings sound like “Here’s what I think about that.” “Here’s how I feel about that.”
Each one gets increasingly revealing. So, as we move the man at the right and the woman at the left (assuming they want to get to know each other better) they move incrementally towards the middle, starting at the cliché level. That’s the safest level.
Obviously, if the man passes the lady in the hall and says to her, “How’s it going?” and she ignores him, that’s probably where the relationship is going to stop. Either party can stop the movement towards the middle at any time. It takes two to move towards the middle.
But let’s say she says, “Fine! How’s it going with you?” Then the next time they see each other it’s in the break room. and they pass and they say, “Hey did you hear that _____________?” and they talk about something that they’d both read in the newspaper.
Pretty soon they’re saying, “Where are you from . . . around here?” and then the next thing you know they’re talking about where they were born. They’re talking about the number of people in their family.
If both are in agreement they continue to move up that pyramid until they’re talking about their thoughts, they’re talking about their feelings, and hopefully they meet in the middle, in that deepest part of revealing/sharing themselves.
That’s where they’re going to be most vulnerable because that’s where the opportunity for rejection is the highest.
Leaders who understand this work this pyramid effortlessly and many have an unconscious competence about it (see the Levels Of Competence poster). However, if you do not connect easily with people, you’ll want to know mechanically how it works so that you can at least begin to work this process by rote.
What happens if you don’t follow this? What happens if you either don’t stop when the other person indicates “Stop,” or you reveal too quickly – jumping over some of these stages getting right to your thoughts, right to your feelings and hear people respond “TMI” – “Too much information.”
There’s a pattern here, an ebb, a flow. There’s a gradual coming together or you may find yourself putting 90% of the work into the relationship and the other person puts in only 10%. Surely, we’ve all been in relationships where you wondered if they’d ever call you if you didn’t call them. That’s not a place we want to be.
So, Charisma means I know how to connect with another person effortlessly, smoothly and seamlessly – allowing them choices in my ability to connect with them.
Categories: Influence, Sociability
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