Charisma Is Listening: Lead by Making Others Feel Important

A note to young leaders. On charisma.
Many people mistakenly believe charisma is the ability to dazzle and thus draw attention and admiration to yourself.

The opposite is true. Charisma is the ability to make those in your company feel they are interesting or important. (But to do that, they have to first feel that you are someone interesting or important.)
For this reason, charismatic people are great listeners.

The late, great John Caldon – former Deputy MD of Macquarie – was at pains to remind me not to fall in love with the sound of my own voice.
“If you are in a three way conversation, Adam, the conversation flow cannot be 60-20-20, where you do 60% of the talking. Aim for 40-30-
30. Then make sure you’re the 30 and that your 30 is really worth listening to.”
Talk less, listen more