You Are the Message

by Roger Ailes

  9

  BEYOND CHARISMA:

  CONTROL OF THE ATMOSPHERE

  “Charisma” is a powerful but often misunderstood word. It derives from the Greek kharisma, meaning favor or divine gift, and its root is kharis, meaning grace. In politics, the idea of charisma came into play a quarter of a century ago, when Jack Kennedy burst upon the American political scene as a presidential candidate. It’s really an old-fashioned word now—it’s like “gee whiz.” Charisma had to do with a look and a style, and today we expect more than that.

  Every leader wants to have “charisma” in its modern sense, which the dictionary defines as “a special, inspiring quality of leadership.” Some people seem to have charisma naturally; others work hard to achieve it. Some have it in person but lose it on television.

  Charisma is personal confidence as opposed to job confidence—just the sense that someone knows what he or she is doing. Charisma is comfort. It’s the ability to never appear uncomfortable.

  Some people define charisma as sex appeal. Some see it as an almost electric vigor or vitality. Some see it as authority. It includes all of these ingredients, but it’s more. It’s really the ability to subtly cause others to react to you as opposed to your reacting to them. People with charisma seem to be in charge of their lives. They seem to have a goal, a purpose, a direction—in fact, a mission.

  If you’re famous, you have a kind of automatic charisma. Just think of Robert Redford or Oprah Winfrey. But I’ve also seen charismatic people who are not well-known personalities walk into a room and take charge. Sometimes they use silence, sometimes they use humor. But they cause everybody else in the room to respond to them in a positive way.

  HAVE YOU GOT IT?

  People who are not necessarily stars can be charismatic. I recall a charismatic cop I met when I was directing a commercial in California. It was a tough law-and-order commercial and we needed a policeman to do it. But we also needed a policeman who could read the TelePrompTer, move well, and take action cues. His job was to come through a dark alley, walk up to a police car with a red light shining on top, lean into the camera, and deliver the entire commercial in twenty-six seconds. That’s a fairly complicated set of directions for a nonprofessional. After a casting search, I was asked to see a man named Jack Hoar. He was a Los Angeles undercover cop who also had done some small movie roles, most notably a tough guy in the film To Live and Die in L.A. Casting on this particular job was critical because even if the performer could do all of the mechanical things correctly, the audience absolutely had to believe his confidence, commitment, and credibility.

  After meeting Jack, I hired him without even giving him a test reading. I just knew he could do it. He had charisma. His eyes and voice never wavered. When I asked him if he thought he could do it, he didn’t do an “aw shucks” and look away and say, “I hope so.” He simply looked at me and quietly said, “Yes, I can do it.” We shot one night in an alley in Sacramento. After taking three hours to set the camera track and lights, water down the alley, and line up the camera angles, I called for Jack to come onto the set. He’s six feet three inches, 220 pounds, and all muscle from the neck down, brains from the neck up. He did exactly what we needed. He delivered his lines perfectly on the first take.

  However, when you shoot a commercial, you often do what are called safety takes. These are reshoots of the commercial so that when you get in the editing room, you have a choice to cover for a technical problem you may have missed when you were shooting. For example, sometimes cars would go through the shot at the end of the alley where we worked. Or there would be ambient noise on the microphone. Perhaps the camera wouldn’t be precisely focused. Often, when you cue an actor to repeat his performance over and over again, he begins to lose confidence and thus lose that commitment and charisma you need on the screen. Jack never did. He was as steady on take eighteen as he was on take one. We finally produced an excellent commercial. He had the kind of charisma that was not loud or flashy, but whenever he spoke, everyone on the crew listened and answered him with respect.

  To determine whether or not you have the ingredients to be charismatic, answer the following questions: What are your real feelings about who you are? What do you believe in? Do you have goals or a mission in life? Do you project optimism? Do others turn to you for leadership? Noncharismatic people spend their lives auditioning for others and hoping they’ll be accepted. Charismatic people don’t doubt their ability to add value to a situation, so they move forward with their mission.

  Former Treasury Secretary and Texas Governor John Connally had a great deal of personal charisma. When you were in a room with him, you just felt that he was in charge. I even saw him arrive late for a meeting with cabinet officials and the president. All activity stopped while everyone watched Connally walk all the way around an enormous conference table and sit down. Then the meeting resumed. These were all important people and they stopped for him because he was that imposing. He just moved with that kind of confidence. Very few people have that much presence, but he was one of them. He looked in charge.

  Connally’s flaw was that he sometimes came across as arrogant and a little pompous. Those qualities are magnified on a television screen. That’s one of the reasons he never became president.

  LBJ

  Lyndon Johnson couldn’t translate his earthy, good-old-boy charisma to television, either. But in a room with three or four other people, he had tremendous charisma. In person, Johnson was a larger-than-life character—gruff, coarse, raw-humored, intimidating, and yet magnetic. He just overpowered you. But when he faced the nation on television, he underwent a personality transformation. He became stiff. He attempted to look serious, dignified, and presidential, largely because television was one of the few things that managed to intimidate him. He was afraid that the news media and intellectuals would watch him up close and brand him a hopeless cornpone. The irony is that they did anyway. Johnson should have just skipped the raw language and otherwise been himself on TV. But he always seemed to be auditioning for the public on television instead of letting the medium adapt to him.

  THE KENNEDY BROTHERS

  Charisma came easily to John Kennedy. With his good looks, his background, his money, he had style and easy grace. But his brother Bobby didn’t have the same charm—at least not on the day I met him. I went to Washington to film Robert Kennedy in his office for a television special that we were doing for Westinghouse Broadcasting. He had a high, thin voice and he sat on the edge of his desk, almost in the fetal position. We had tremendous difficulty getting him to use eye contact or gestures at all. I don’t think I’ve ever been around anyone who was quite as uptight. Now this was sometime after his brother had been killed, probably 1964. He was very polite and answered all the questions, but he could not maintain eye contact or project his voice very well. It was interesting for me to see him later run for president. Somewhere along the way, he must have gained confidence, or else he’d had an off day on the occasion we’d met. More likely, as a presidential candidate he was imbued with a sense of mission—a goal—and many of his communications problems cleared up automatically.

  FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

  Hubert Humphrey’s one-on-one charisma gave him an amazing ability to work a crowd. I watched him on a street in Philadelphia one day. In a split second, he was able to give everyone he met the impression that he was interested and concerned for them as individuals. He could just touch someone’s hand and use his eyes to make it work. He connected with every person, even though he was moving rapidly toward his car. He imparted a feeling of warmth, so it was impossible to dislike the man. On a personal basis, Humphrey was one of the warmest, nicest people I’ve ever met.

  But he, like LBJ, was never able to translate that to television. I once saw him on a talk show. The host asked Humphrey a question and he gave an eleven-minute answer. He just kept talking, and they couldn’t even interrupt him to go to a commercial. Finally, the host started looking off-camera, as if
to say, “What the hell did I ask? I don’t know how to get out of this.” Humphrey never understood that television is a time-sensitive medium, and he was never able to get to the point quickly. When he gave a speech on television he strained his voice, and this gave him a strident, high-pitched quality. When he was angry, he sounded whiney instead of tough.

  His wife, Muriel, on the other hand, had more charisma than her husband, because she was completely comfortable on television. She was aware of everything and everyone around her. She was just natural without a bit of pretense about her.

  ROCKY’S PUNCH

  Nelson Rockefeller was the same way. Although he was extremely wealthy, Rocky loved to tell people that he went to public school in New York City up near Harlem, and that he used to roller-skate to school with his Mends. Of course, what he never mentioned was that there was a limousine following behind with bodyguards, and when he and his friends got tired, they got into the limo. But he was great at telling that kind of story and carrying it off.

  Nelson could never remember anybody’s name, so everybody was “Hiya, fella, how’s it goin’?” He was very physical. He would touch people, grab the workers’ hands, and look at people directly. Even with the Rockefeller name, wealth, and power, he was able to project himself as “one of the guys.” He left a strong personal impression, and I believe that had a lot to do with his charisma.

  THE GAUNTLET

  It’s tougher today to be viewed as charismatic. In the heyday of the people just mentioned, the press was not nearly as diligent as it is now in finding and exposing weaknesses in public figures. In fact, many of the faults of these charismatic people didn’t come out until after their deaths. To be considered charismatic on a national—or even local—scale today, you have to run a media gauntlet for a number of years and not allow the reporters to find a skeleton in your closet that can bring you down. Despite this relentless scrutiny, there are still people today whom the public respects and looks up to—people with personal charm who someday may be viewed as charismatic figures.

  In popular culture, those who have charisma include John Madden, former coach of the Oakland Raiders football team, who has become a funny, hip, and dynamic television sports commentator. Golfer Lee Trevino is charismatic. He seems comfortable with himself, confident, and likable. Legendary golfer Arnold Palmer has charisma, too, because he’s the grand old man of the sport—and he’s still playing. The longevity of his appeal is notable in our times, when many celebrities rise like comets one month and then fall like shooting stars the next. Palmer is viewed as a man who has lived his life in the way he wanted to live it. That’s the dream of many.

  Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky, the Russian Jewish dissident who was finally released after several years in Soviet prisons, is viewed as a hero—a man tempered by the fire of mistreatment, yet good-humored and free-spirited throughout his ordeals. For example, when the Russians released Sharansky, they ordered him to walk perfectly straight across a bridge to his freedom. But in an act of whimsical defiance, he zigzagged in almost Chaplinesque fashion across the bridge. In a pantomime captured by news photographers and understood around the world, Sharansky communicated the truth of the saying that “you have not converted a man because you have silenced him.”

  Chuck Yeager has the charisma of an authentic American hero. He flew the X-1 jet, he was nearly killed several times as a test pilot, and he came through World War II as a fighter ace. He’s cool, confident, and unflappable, and he has a good sense of humor. He’s a man who has looked death in the eye and won. People admire that.

  Authentic charisma usually requires a lifetime of achievement. Sometimes intense and dramatic events like wars or hijackings provide the circumstances that can give people charisma. For a short time, the inner strengths of a few protagonists are exposed in the public arena. Some people display courage, leadership, faith. These are attributes that can make people charismatic, whether they’re found on the battlefield or in the boardroom.

  YOUR CHARISMA QUOTIENT

  To summarize, you can measure the degree to which you are charismatic by rating yourself on the following qualities, scoring yourself from a minimum of one (“Not true of me at all”) in ascending numbers to a maximum of five (“Describes me exactly”):

  • Self-confident (in myself, as opposed to confidence related to my job or material possessions)

  • Comfortable with myself

  • Able to make others comfortable

  • In charge of my life

  • Having concrete goals and a definable mission (sense of purpose)

  • Seen by others as a leader

  • Natural and unpretentious, regardless of circumstances

  Add your score up and divide by seven. If your average score is one to two, you need to take stock of yourself. You’re very low overall in charisma. You should think about why you rated yourself as you did and discuss it with a friend or even your boss. Based on suggestions in this book, try to develop an action plan to enhance your personal dynamism.

  If your average score is three to four, you have a good charisma quotient. But try formulating a personal action plan, because everyone can improve.

  That same advice goes to the few people who average five on this self-evaluation. Those who are very charismatic need the stimulation of challenge. Write down ways you can harness your charisma—new relationships, projects, and goals.

  CONTROL OF THE ATMOSPHERE

  Regardless of how you scored in the charisma self-evaluation, I feel it’s important that a person use the elements of charisma but move beyond them to something I call control of the atmosphere. Control of the atmosphere is control of the time and space you work in. When you control the atmosphere, you’re not operating on other people’s time. You set your own rate of speed for saying things. You pause and pace your rate of speaking for maximum impact. You have no fear of silence. You’re not reacting to and feeling inhibited by physical space or people. You use gestures; you move effectively, assertively, when and how you please—whether behind a lectern or on the factory floor. You use your eyes, you show a range of emotions, and you modulate your voice with purpose—not like a shotgun scattered all over the room. You look directly into people’s eyes, and you use your voice and eyes like a rifle. In a room of thirty, or fifty, or even a hundred people, you pick out anyone you want to talk to and, boom, you can direct your voice and your eyes to them. Vocally and with your eyes you can express a range of emotions, including amusement, excitement, and even anger, where appropriate. All these abilities are included in control of the atmosphere.

  MISSION CONTROL

  You can learn to control the time and space you move through, if you really believe in yourself and understand what your mission is in every situation. It helps if you look a certain way, but that doesn’t mean you have to be handsome or beautiful. In fact, many charismatic people do not look as though they’d been stamped out by a cookie cutter. For example, the ascetic-looking Mahatma Gandhi was charismatic. Winston Churchill with his squat, bulldog countenance and trademark cigar was charismatic. Anwar Sadat’s rugged face and proud bearing were charismatic.

  In popular culture today, Bruce Willis, star of the Die Hard movie series, has potential charisma. There’s a certain cockiness about him, but an enormous likability. He appears to be Peck’s bad boy with a good heart. If he maintains some humility and doesn’t start believing his own press releases, he can go on to become a long-term charismatic actor. Tom Selleck is not a great actor. He’s a competent actor with terrific looks, but that is not the secret to his charisma. The secret is that while he is very handsome, men are not threatened by him—they like him. Women, of course, are attracted to him and like him. But he appears to have a gentle soul in an enormously masculine body and face. He’s unthreatening and he looks kind. That combination makes him charismatic.

  Keep in mind that charisma is not as simple as a look or style. It is frequently a combination of elements which make you different i
n the eyes of people you meet. You must have your own style. You do have to look strong, confident, grounded, and happy with yourself. You must convey your thoughts and show your feelings with conviction. Humor helps, of course. The ability to not always respond in a predictable manner helps, too. But all this means taking risks, and a lot of people don’t want to do that.

  If you’re properly controlling the atmosphere, you’re projecting a likable fearlessness—without arrogance. The ability to do that consistently will take you beyond charisma.

  The natural reaction of most people when they encounter a new situation is to find out what’s going on in the room and try to become invisible, to avoid changing or interrupting it. If you’re prepared to go into any kind of communication process and change the flow, you have the opportunity to take control of the atmosphere.

  RISK AND REWARD

  All of this requires risk. You have to be able to speak up at certain times and move the direction of your thoughts to other people, cause them to react to you for whatever reason. When you do this, however, it must impress the others as being appropriate, relevant, useful, and interesting. Don’t speak up to hear yourself talk or just to insert your opinion. People will turn off.

  Some people try to control others by dominating the conversation, talking too slowly, repeating themselves, or using other manipulative techniques, such as showing annoyance at interruptions or refusing to relinquish the floor. That is control in a negative sense and not to be confused with control of the atmosphere.