Charisma is learnable, and misleading
Researchers have tested this many times, in different places, over many years, and they keep finding the same result. This one is safe to trust.
Researchers wondered whether charisma, the quality that makes someone seem like a natural leader, is an innate gift or a learnable skill. So they tried to teach it. They identified about a dozen specific, trainable techniques, things like using metaphors and stories, speaking in three-part lists, setting high expectations, and using confident body language and voice. Then they trained people in these tactics and had observers rate them. The trained speakers were rated dramatically more charismatic and more leader-like than before, and more than untrained controls. Charisma, it turned out, is largely a set of behaviours that can be taught and rehearsed. Separately, other research shows that evaluators rate charismatic people as more competent, even in roles where charisma has nothing to do with performance.
Charisma is a skill that can be learned and performed, which means it is a poor guide to how good someone actually is at the underlying work. The person who lights up the room may have simply practiced the techniques that light up rooms, and you are wired to read that glow as competence even when the two are unrelated. This matters intensely in hiring, where the charismatic candidate consistently gets rated higher on everything, regardless of the evidence. Separate the performance from the substance: watch what the person can actually do, scored on its own, because charisma is measuring your reaction, not their ability.
Charisma says a dozen learnable tactics make someone rated dramatically more leader-like, and evaluators read that glow as competence even where charisma is irrelevant. The pratfall effect says a competent person who spills coffee on themselves is rated more likeable, not less, because the flaw reads as real. Polish wins in one and a flaw wins in the other, and both are measuring the same thing: your reaction, not their ability. The pratfall only helps someone already seen as competent, and charisma manufactures that impression from nothing. Neither tells you what the person can do. Score the work on its own, and treat both the shine and the endearing stumble as facts about you.
Charisma says a dozen learnable tactics get someone rated dramatically more competent, even for roles where charisma is irrelevant. Avis says openly admitting to being number two made the rest of the pitch believable and gained ground on the leader. Polish wins one and a confessed weakness wins the other. What separates them is what the audience is being asked to do. An evaluator rating a person reads the glow as competence and does not notice. A customer choosing between claims that all say best has stopped believing any of them, so the one that names a limit is the only one with a reason to be trusted. So when you are the one presenting, the admission works. When you are the one judging, the shine is telling you about your own reaction, and the entry that warns you about it is the first one.
Source: Antonakis, Fenley and Liechti, 2011, Academy of Management Learning and Education.
Malcolm Gladwell, 2019
How badly we misread people we do not know, and how confidently we do it anyway.
Draw your own card. It does not take long, and it rewards taking your time.