Cult of Personality
Written by Lee Schneider, founder of DocuCinema
I went to yoga the other night. The room was filled with so many acolytes their yoga mats were about a micron apart. It was like boarding the subway in NYC during rush hour and getting an intimate view of your neighbor’s armpit. Only in yoga it’s more exciting because the people are half naked and their sweat flies on you when they flail. That class lasted about 45 seconds for me. I had to leave. I don’t do flailing.
After suffering from downward dog withdrawal and getting a $61 parking ticket (“And things were going so well!”) I had plenty of time to reflect on the valuable lessons learned. This is kind of a game we play, trying to extract a valuable life lesson from every event no matter how annoying. (“A bee stung me on the ass. What valuable lesson can be extracted from that?”)
Why was I annoyed enough to bail out of that class? Well, for one thing, I have issues
with sweaty strangers violating my personal space. But I also don’t like cults of personality.
Some people actually come to a yoga class for the yoga, but a male teacher can become popular and female students will don the appropriate Lululemon yoga gear and crowd into his classes, never admitting out loud that they have a crush on him. Movie stars get people to buy tickets, usually not directors or scripts. Cults of personality. Charisma is king. 
But Arnold Schwarzenegger’s charisma isn’t enough to run this state, and charismatic people like Tony Robbins or Suze Orman can seem to me to be style over substance.
Let’s face it, though, charisma is a powerful force – maybe even a hit of life force. It can draw people in, pay the bills, get your message across and your cause followed.
I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
–Groucho Marx
Groucho aside, most people want to be members of something. They like leaders to help them join the tribe. Yoga people are their own tribe, and Vegas gamblers, and Michael Jackson fans. In Seth Godin’s book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, he describes how connecting with others is a powerful tool for shaping consumer desire and even changing the world. He and others have pointed out that your tribe has nothing to do with geography, your religion or blood type. It can be fellow Facebook users, Syrah lovers, devotees of Nike running shoes or iPods. In a fragmented world we look to tribal leaders. Charismatic leaders, like Steve Jobs of Apple, can really drive a consumer brand into becoming a movement. There’s that word again: charisma. Maybe it’s the mojo in leadership. Maybe, despite myself, I’m going to extract a lesson out of that crowded subway car of a yoga class.
Thing is, there’s more yoga being done because of charismatic teachers. Apple has inspired a generation of designs that matter. Charismatic social entrepreneurs like Jacqueline Novogratz fund the businesses of the poor by first listening and then building supportive communities around local entrepreneurs. Charisma, backed up with a plan, can really change the world. Ok, I get it. Just stay out of my space in yoga class.
Yes, Saul on a crowded day certainly feels like a cult to me too. I am glad to have an analysis of why so many people follow one leader over another.
Charisma is the key. Thank goodness for it, but also good to be aware of it.
Do we all have a type of charisma in certain settings and how can we use that to have people follow us?
Hi Lee,
I see a similiar phenomenon occurring in the kung fu/qigong world. A great master develops a following and out of that emerges a core of acolytes devoted to his every wish. These acolytes are not always the best students; they just wish to be near a master, who is a form of celebrity. Perhaps they wish to improve their techniques through spiritual osmosis. They are the type of people who will follow anything that moves. They are sycophants. That’s why I always practice my standing post meditation alone in the woods, in lieu of a class.
Regarding Tony Robbins: He’s one of the greatest salesman of our time–and that’s it. He took Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking and ran with the ball. Now he’s essentially the head cheerleader in our seminar society. Firewalk? That’s his main stunt these days. Science has shown perspiration on the feet protects them from burning while walking over wood coals. I believe in the Fiji Islands acolytes walk over superheated stones without injury–that’s mind over matter. It all depends on the fuel used in the firewalk. He knows that.
Yet this stunt is designed to give his students the confidence to overcome any obstacle in life. Rubbish. I’ve been through two bone marrow transplants (doctors gave me a 10% chance of survival early on) and I am definitely confident–in some areas. But try as I may, I’ll never deduce the trajectory of a Mars lander. Or paint for the Vatican. I don’t have the right genetics.
Best regards,
Bob
For me charisma has lot has to do with the visceral experience of looking into someone’s eyes – when I do that and I see a light there, then I feel the force. I’ve interviewed actors for films and some, when they are off camera, are just normal little people – you’d walk past them at Whole Foods. But when the camera is on … they become another person with that light in their eyes. I think also there’s a lot going on with someone’s “origin story” – what drama happened to get them to where they are now? Patrick Hanlon, writing in Primal Branding, gets at this idea for companies, but it works for people, too.
I love your question Ingrid — do we all have a type of charisma in certain settings and how can we use that to have people follow us?
I think that’s the key to living your purpose. When you are able to recognize those moments when you feel most energized and charismatic, it would be a smart thing to continually aim toward and put yourself in those moments. Like Lee said – certain actors become another person with that light in their eyes. When you are in those moments when you are fully passionate and alive, people automatically want to follow you (you don’t have to think about it). What you do have to think about is: Are you putting yourself in situations where you do feel alive and full of charisma?
Hi Bob. I’m also irritated sometimes by the “spiritual osmosis” phenomenon. But I’m trying to recognize it not only as “sucking up” (which it is sometimes) but also an unconscious effort on the part of the acolyte to get close to that life force, the sense of living with purpose, that great teachers emanate. We all want a piece of that action, whether we’re willing to admit it or not. As for firewalks and the like, this brings up some thoughts about The Secret and other vendors of the intention persuasion. No matter how powerful my intention or my skill at walking hot coals, they aren’t going to let me paint for the Vatican, either. I kind of think the Sistine Chapel gig is out, too. Nonetheless, intention and purpose are together incredibly powerful, as you know. When it comes to personal achievement, I remember Bill Cosby saying once that his only goal was to take whatever he had on stage and hit it out of the park. He knew he was fully a comedian and he went with that fully; didn’t ask to paint anything as far as I know. Thanks always for your thoughtful comments.
Lee: Two quick hits. First, I used to have an HL Mencken quote on my office wall — “The charisma of the physician is great; unfortunately his ignorant pronouncements have the same effect on his patients as his knowledgeable ones.” When you put that together with Quentin Qwisp’s famous qwip (ha!) — “Amewica is the only country in the world where people *do* fame,” you might ask if we are also a culture in which people “do” charisma. Here’s the other hit: I recently heard a rebroadcast of an interview Terry Gross did with John Updike, wherein (talking about the 50′s and early 60′s he said (paraphrase): “it was a time when, in the absence of any other compelling religion, people made a religion of each other. It was a time of Sunday volleyball, Julia Child dinners — or as my father said, ‘a lot of rubbing elbows.” Perhaps one way of understanding the overflow, God/Goddess-led Yoga class of today is as Updike might explain it.
Once again, Lee, you are a brilliant writer, and I really enjoy your take on things. I thought it was funny, too! I kind of wished I had joined you in leaving, since I ended up with a bad-ass headache because of the heat, and a dissonant Kirtan. Yet, as you also reply in your comments, we all seek out those who seem to be closer to ‘the source’, ‘the light’ etc. I believe it has to do with that if they are good, they remind us of our own light. Of course, we should do as Tabby suggests, make ourselves charismatic, but sometimes, I, at least, need that spark from the outside, but then in a less crowded class;-).
Awesome notes, Frank. True enough: one reason for the God/Goddess-led Yoga class is a desire to rub elbows … to seek community … get a hit of charisma. Thanks for commenting.
Yes- exactly: I’m all for getting a spark … with a little space, too! Thanks for commenting.
At first glance, the notion of charisma as a self- serving tool might be off-putting, which pundits often underscore. But a closer examination would go to the reason individuals become leaders in the first place within various industries. The idealistic model suggests that leaders traditionally assume the leadership baton, because he or she has the best intentions for the perpetuity of civilization in mind. There is no doubt that this may be the case. In both examples, Hitler and Dr. King had the interests of their respective countrymen in mind. They were both responding to the immediate needs and desires of their constituencies. However, both men knew their audiences and what would motivate them towards action. Individuals don’t necessary assume leadership roles because they embrace a notion of popular consensus, but because they believe their ideas are better. In short, they will to power to exercise these ideas for self-gratification primarily and for the uplifting of the masses secondarily. Whether it is politicians, clerics or well-meaning individuals, most charismatic leadership as well as other forms of leadership, begin with a compelling idea of supremacy.
This would stand to reason. After all, what would be the need for alternatives, if the status quo was sufficient? The desire for betterment is at the core of human motivation and innovation. Witness the rise of mega churches, with charismatic leadership often the progenitor of its success. What more commentary could individuals provide from biblical scriptures that have been around for two thousand years? The cleric who says he has another point of view by which he builds a church is self- aggrandizing, which invariably leads to congregants accepting his point of view as a guide to a better way of life.
Let’s be clear that charismatic leadership, while initiated from the self- interest of the leader, is progressive in that it cuts through the rhetoric of why individuals become leaders in the first place–to achieve a goal and a mission. The general rules for leadership modules have gone off course mainly because it proposes to be politically correct rather than effective. The reason there is a saturation of leadership models with very little leaders is because they largely attempt an overly idealistic reality about human nature. Man was never as good as pundits have asserted. And any criticism on the part of humanity is largely excused in favor of lofty ideas regarding man’s inherent design to be “God-like”, but consistently falling short of this grace. As man continues to fall off the horse, our hope is that eventually he will become an experienced rider.
Edward Brown
Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute
http://www.charismatoday.blogspot.com
Lee I love the way you write!
Great question…where do we feel alive and full of charisma? That is the next topic for my blog!
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