How can you learn to be more charismatic?

Over at the excellent BPS Research Digest there’s a great review of research on charisma.

Is it something that can be learned? Yes:

Managers who underwent training saw their charisma ratings significantly grow, relative to those who didn’t.

What are the techniques that make someone more charismatic?

1. Framing through metaphor.
2. Stories and anecdotes.
3. Demonstrating moral conviction.
4. Sharing the sentiments of the collective.
5. Setting high expectations.
6. Communicating confidence.
7. Using rhetorical devices such as contrasts, lists, and rhetorical questions together with non-verbal tactics such as body gesture, facial expression, and animated voice tone.

But be careful; as always with something as subtle as charisma, training and practice are important in order to achieve proper execution:

The authors emphasise there are no quick fixes – the training involved a real commitment of time – and that inexperienced overuse of CLTs can lead to self-parody, with pantomime hand gesture and excruciating metaphor. But as the study demonstrates, charisma is at least partly the result of adopting tactics that are transferable and learnable.

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