The Leadership Gene: The Challenges of Charisma in Institutions Pat Gunn 26 July 2009 This essay is released into the public domain Charisma is a combined set of traits in a person that cause others to be naturally attracted to them. In the presence of a highly charismatic person, people feel an emotional draw and natural empathy for them that sits outside the norm for human relationships. Charisma may depend on a certain level of physical attractiveness, but other factors are involved - personality, style of interaction, and diction all relate. People with charisma in today's society are often involved with politics, acting, or other leadership-centric roles (e.g. clergy, corporate heads). In times past, they were often founders of religions or religious sects or nobles, that charisma often being described as an inherent greatness by those that witnessed it. Their placement in these positions is not always (or usually) because they are the best for such a position - while in most circumstances those grossly and obviously unsuitable will usually either be removed or remove themselves from such positions, the merely adequate, because others naturally like them, will find their path to such positions paved. Charisma plays a complex role in institutions and movements; the shared human tendency to be so influenced by whatever traits comprise charisma should be regarded as a flaw to be both wary of and utilise in a movement. Effective leaders throughout history, with rare exception, have been highly charismatic. It is difficult to attract the attention of the masses without powerful, charismatic leaders. We might presume them to utilise mechanisms that organised our tribes before we were human - physical charisma, an impression of strength, integrity, and decisiveness inspire confidence in people (regardless of if/how these are appropriate for a given task). A movement, regardless of its intent and faced with the need for support from large numbers of (today's or those in the past) people, must make use of charismatic leadership if it is to have a good chance at effecting change. Flaws in charismatic leaders and in their attachment to the people pose a risk to the demos. First, because charismatic leaders are seen (always mistakenly) to embody the values they purportedly represent, sufficient personal failing that grossly shames them effectively shames that movement. Given that they are not typically strongly selected on bases other than charisma, the risk of this is usually high. Likewise, their actual commitment to their movement may not be strong (or their particular notion of it may be highly unorthodox) and lead to misperception should they perform actions that directly harm the demos. Second, their relationship with society is easily exaggerated and exploited to avoid more difficult political decisions - the development of a cult of personality may happen spontaneously from grassroots (and it is still unhealthy in that form), but it more easily is intentionally and gently (or strongly) formed by the organisation in order to better compete with other organisations (or factions within itself), which is a continual temptation but always to be condemned. Outside of the marginalisation of better factors in decisionmaking and positions, this limits the flexibility of the organisation to react to circumstances and change past decisions - part of the nature of charisma is that it relies on decisiveness, and changes of position, even when they make sense for a pragmatic reason or are based on continued development in philosophy (or compromise on such factors) undermine the ability to make use of charismatic focus. Charismatic focus is a risk for all kinds of government, particularly when leadership is difficult to replace but otherwise as well. Systems with elements that are either autocratic or insulated from the direct will of the demos (e.g. life appointments) are particularly endangered by charismatic leadership, as the natural rise and fall of charismatic leaders based on their failings is hampered, and the capabilities of their position are more easily used to endure or obscure events over which a more vulnerable leader would be removed. Modern liberal democracies have a limited insulation from charismatic leadership through division of power - for example in the United States the highest levels of judiciary are appointed for life and are not directly accountable to the people, acting as a check against the more directly elected head of the Executive. Likewise, in the British system, the House of Lords and the Monarch have social and a limited or reserve ability to embarass or check the actions of parliament (which represents the demos). While division of power may serve other purposes, its ability to limit the capability of our flaw of being easily swayed by charisma (and thus bringing a longer-term view on the philosophies being enacted through government) is very significant, and structures to enable this should be put into place after any movement has made sufficient formal change to enable it to reach its goals. Correcting this flaw in human nature, to the extent that is possible, both helps slow the pace of change in a society and allows a statistically higher calibre of leadership. By raising the demos' level of awareness of the nature of persuasion and the function of charisma, combined with a careful encouragement of cynicism and other personality/cultural traits to be skeptical of charismatics, the people may be partially innoculated against this tendency. Development of this programme, just like development of other worthwhile character development programmes (like resisting advertising), would have to be carefully done - without raising the level of political discourse and educating people to correct other socio-personality flaws, this would easily lead to a corrosive cynicism that would make any "big picture" course corrections impossible. If, for example, people grow used to a certain standard of living that relies on resources or an economic level that is no longer sustainable, a sufficiently cynic and unwise society would resist any long-term changes that would fix the situation and might instead rely on international lending to continue the status quo until the situation reached crisis levels (or alternatively might not have the patience to see any such solution work). Nontheless, "closing the door" on charisma and achieving a situation where the most suitable people are placed in positions of leadership (and other relevant positions) should be considered one of the tasks of a movement after it has made the broad structural changes needed to achieve its ends.