No Charisma? Don’t Worry, You Can Still Be A Leader!

Leadership, to Americans, is a familiar concept. Go into any bookstore, and the number of tomes with the word in the title – Total Leadership. The Leadership Code, Leadership for Dummies (of course) – can make you think it has replaced dieting as a way to move merchandise. Listen to politicians’ stump speeches, and it will be seconds before you hear them extol their unique leadership qualities.

Don’t Worry About Your Looks: It’s what you do that counts.

Since JFK, who has a lot to answer for when it comes to the overvaluation of charisma, Americans have liked their leaders to be handsome or heroic, preferably with a thatch of dark hair and a trim waistline. It doesn’t always work (otherwise Mitt Romney would be in the White House) but it does mean that it’s not surprising that two of the foreign leaders who have most made an impression in the U.S. are the young Tony Blair and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.