Be more influential with your charisma using these 3 simple concepts.

Charisma, of course, is a bit mysterious, secretive and elusive. You may think you have to be born with it and that you “either have it or you don’t.” Good news: it’s not that bad. You can just learn to harness personal charisma when working and interacting with people. Charisma is a skill for enhancing your personal ability to influence in an enjoyable way.

Charisma is an interesting topic as a tool for increasing your personal effectiveness. It does not matter so much whether you are a manager/employee or what personal goals you have. Charisma helps you get things done and engage or convince people.

Basis of your charisma: presence, positive power and cordiality.

Research has been done on charisma (Cabane, 2014). This shows that charisma can be divided into three concrete behaviors that can be learned and applied in daily practice. These are presence, (positive) power and cordiality. The trick is to deftly combine the three behaviors to increase your personal appeal in a positive way.

Why your real presence matters

You’ve probably had a conversation where you felt the other person wasn’t quite there.

What kind of feeling did that give you? A little annoying wasn’t it?

Personally, I feel that it happens quite often, that your interlocutor is not fully present. It’s certainly a challenge to be fully present for the other person in addition to your own thoughts and commitments. To say the least, the smart-phone has also not directly contributed positively to the quality of the conversation. Being truly present has become even more difficult because of this technology.

The concept of being present is essentially not that difficult. Getting it done in daily practice is a challenge, though. You can’t “just pretend.” Your interlocutor will catch on very quickly that your “warm” interest is in fact fake.

To have a quality conversation, you choose to be fully present in that conversation. It takes a lot of willpower to focus all your attention on your interlocutor. The interesting thing is that the more you practice this, the easier it becomes.

4 practical exercises to increase your presence

1. Bringing yourself into the ‘here and now’

Being present starts with yourself and the thoughts you have. If you notice that you are wandering during the conversation (other thoughts, the next appointment) you can do some small exercises that bring you directly into the here and now. They are exercises of 2 or 3 seconds that you can do in your mind.

1. Literally feel how you sit in the chair, the interface between your body and the chair
2. Bring your attention to your breathing
3. You bring your attention to your feet and put both feet squarely on the ground

They are small exercises that are not difficult. They help you get the focus on the here and now.

2. Looking at someone

People who make frequent eye contact with others have more influence on others. As a result, they are attributed a variety of positive traits such as competent, sincere, stable and honest (Cabane, 2014). Good eye contact also contributes to the quality of conversation.

It creates a sense of intimacy in the conversation. The other person is more positive about your contribution to the interaction and feels more connected. Truly rewarding.

Note: In general, having eye contact will work well. It may work against you if your interlocutor is a little less supportive of your opinion and you try to convince him or her of your opinion.

3. Nod politely to show that you are listening

Besides making eye contact, there is another easy way to reinforce your presence. This can be done with body language. For example, by nodding your head. Be careful though: if you move your head like a yes-man, it becomes a bit unreal. If you really listen, you will know exactly when to nod.

What also works very well is asking clarifying questions. For example:

• What exactly do you mean when you say that?
• Do I understand you correctly …..
• What do you like best about that?
• What was the most difficult thing for you?

People actually always like and enjoy answering these kinds of questions. You are a fine colleague by acting in this way.

4. Wait very briefly to respond

Of course, your real attention is completely gone if during your interlocutor’s speech you’re already thinking about what you are going to say in response. So it’s better to wait a while with your response.

This is not always easy because you also want to put forward your own point or examples. How many times has it happened to yourself that you tell someone something and that person takes over your story by starting to tell their own?

No fun there, right? So be present in the conversation by listening to what the other person has to say and only respond when the other person has spoken. This is how you strengthen your social capacity.

Tip: When someone has spoken, first show non-verbally that you understand, for example by nodding in agreement, or waiting for 2 seconds with a friendly face. Then respond.

Your presence

To what extent you are present in the conversation is an important aspect of personal charisma. At its core, you can easily practice and reinforce this. It is your personal choice to do so. With that, this part of charisma is not a DNA issue but simply learnable. Good luck!