Zenger | Folkman

It’s a mystery that has puzzled academics for years. Why do some leaders possess the “it” quality, while others do not? What is this mysterious “it” quality? Are people just born with it, or can it be learned? For many, this “it” quality is termed "charisma." At Zenger Folkman, our research has concluded that “charisma” is straightforward: the ability to motivate and inspire others to high performance.

Can Charisma Be Learned?

Charisma, or what we term Inspiring Leadership, is a skill that can be learned and is not mutually exclusive to a select few. Rather, inspiring leadership comes through using and understand a set of simple tools and infusing those tools with the proper emotion for any given situation. In short, inspiring leadership is the study of how to use emotion effectively to achieve great results.

The Single Most Important Competency

Our research has concluded that what employees want most from a leader to be inspired and motivated to high performance. Sadly, these are the very attributes most leaders lack. Thankfully, we at Zenger Folkman have developed a new and unique development program that simply and succinctly teaches the principles of becoming a more inspiring leader. Better still, this development plan can be implemented by any organization to drive truly extraordinary results.