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Charisma has always been impossible to define. You either have it or you don’t. Many leadership qualities can be learnt – confidence, conviction, communication, resilience, strength, integrity – but not charisma. My Colin White Memorial lecture in 2011 focused on the nature of leadership and concluded that the range of different ‘theories’ of leadership fuels the debate on what constitutes leadership. Their emergence requires us to ask why leadership has been defined in different ways at different times and why different theories gain popularity at different times? This may say more about us and our changing social values. Leadership cannot be understood in isolation from the wider social and organisational circumstances. It is one part of a big organisational picture. Inevitably, the search for the Holy Grail of leadership will continue!
Meanwhile, the elusive charisma, like a secret and magical ingredient, remains the most common description given by people to describe leadership. The Holy Grail?
