Here’s a
sample:
“It is dangerous to be sincere
unless you also are stupid.”
That was among George Bernard Shaw’s Maxims
for Revolutionists, back in 1903. Didn’t realize they were quite that vinegary
back then, did we?
And my favorite:
“The
secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
The genius this time was Jean Giraudoux, a gifted French variant of Shaw
who also seems a bit more cynical than we might have expected, this time in the
1930s.
Check out your own vision of
the sincere person. While you chuckle at the cynical side, you do know some
decent people who are like this: Serious, humble, humorless, mildly simplistic?
Or believable, trustworthy, admirable, perhaps awesome?
You look down on them or you look up to them, but you trust them. You know
sincerity when you see it. Or do you?
That summons up the vision of the con man. Or woman. “Con” is short for “confidence.”
These are people whose manner and apparent professional success and personal
history inspire confidence in their listeners, a mistaken conviction that
they should be trusted. You give them a lot of money, or you commit to them in
some other serious way.
And you lose everything. Whether they skip town or go to jail, you’re out
whatever you invested. And you’ve suffered permanent scars. If sincerity
couldn’t be faked, this wouldn’t happen – but it does happen. A lot.
Charisma operates in the same arena of human relationships, but it easily trumps
sincerity. You can know someone is unreliable, or even a phony – but if he/she
creates that irresistible attraction, you don’t care. You want to be around
the person.
There may be a biological component in the phenomenon along with the
psychological, and we guess this particular characteristic isn’t an acquired
thing. If you have it, you didn’t earn it. If you don’t have it, you just plain
don’t.
The question is irrelevant to the rest of us. We want to please whoever
it is who emanates the magic pheromone. Remember the unquestioned leaders of
the high school “cliques.”?
Believe it or not, this is a problem for the favored one. As a matter of fact, it
may be hard for the charismatic person to remain sincere and empathetic over time, however
much so that person might have been to start with. When you have charisma, you
face a sea of adoring faces wherever you turn. It’s hard to concentrate on doing
things well when doing things well patently matters not a fig to everyone
around you. They just want to be in your presence.
This precious gift, which I think is random and not even genetic,
provides a huge opportunity for leadership. Our personal experience proves this
out. Many of the people we admire and have been willing to follow arouse personal affection in us that causes us to want to do what those people want.
Some of them have turned out to justify our commitment. They produced
outstanding successes. Others haven’t, and we may or not blame them for the
shortfall. But we probably recall them with some affection no matter what.
Anyone required to lead needs to understand this matter.
If you are gifted with the indefinable attraction that gathers people to
you, weigh your responsibility carefully. Do your homework. Know how easily you
can become a fondly-remembered failure. Fight arrogance.
Before you become really successful, you’ll have to become good. Many of
you do. Takes work, and you commit to it. What wonders you can achieve!
The rest of us, the vast majority nakedly dependent upon our ordinary
personalities and our efforts, should waste no time envying the lucky ones.
They have their own burdens to bear, and while they are working their way
through that we can surge into leadership. We do so as we look to our homework, devote ourselves to the tasks at hand and persistently turn out permanent,
tangible results.
In the end, the common currency of leadership is trust, that belief you
inspire in people that you will indeed get them where they want to go, if they
will give you what you ask of them.
You’ve got to be as convincing as the con man and the honest charismatic,
but as hardworking as it takes. There is nothing more powerful than an earned history to inspire sustained
confidence and longtime followership.
On a level playing field, confident competence has the hammer, however it
came about. Can’t be more sincere than that.
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