Work hard. Get good grades. Participate in extracurricular activities. Get an Ivy League education or if not, the best one you can. Be ethical. Be humble. Serve others. This is the formula for leadership and success, right?

Except when it isn't. Hop on board the mid-level management hamster wheel. Do you want to be one of the many Asians who have seemingly done all the "should’s," have experienced early praise and success, but get stuck in the middle of their career - seemingly hitting an immovable ceiling? Do you enjoy doing tremendous work, but getting little recognition or watching as others get all the glory? If there was just one thing you could learn that would change your fortunes, would you be willing to do what it takes?

Warning! If you are still enamored of all the "should’s," if you judge others by them, if you propagate this way of thinking in your own children, then this article is not for you.

Here is the ugly and liberating truth. You may want to take a seat.

There is no amount of hard work, dedication, and technical skill that will make people believe you are a leader.

Those things will not make people see you as a leader or put you in a leadership position. In fact, the more you focus on those things to the exclusion of other interpersonal skills, the more likely it is that you will be passed over. Okay, I said it. Everything that you have been worshiping your entire life, while a crucial part of your success, is also what is holding you back.

If you want to break through to higher levels of responsibility and management, you're going to have to loosen your grip on some of your previous idols and make space for a new passion - Charisma. I know what you are thinking. Perhaps a combination of one or more of the following. I'm an introvert and will never be an extrovert. Isn't that more for dating? It doesn't seem honorable to try to get people to like you in order to advance - I was raised with better values. And finally, that's not fair and if that’s the game, I don’t want to play it.

The reason most people, and a lot of Asians, don't value Charisma as a serious professional attribute is because their definition or mental model of what it is suffers from an inherent misunderstanding. If you look up any definition of Charisma, all it will tell you is the effect and uses words like attraction or magnetic. This is true, but misses the main point of Charisma which is how is it being generated. Once you understand why Charisma happens, you will see it’s true value. And once you understand how it works, then you can begin to get more of it. I've come up with a ground-breaking definition of Charisma which will get you back on the right track.

Charisma is the ability to sense, and ultimately deliver, exactly what is most needed from an emotional perspective in a given moment.

Here's the cold, hard truth when it comes to leadership and being chosen - people have to feel like you should be the leader; it's not a calculation. And when it comes to helping people feel secure, confident, and happy, nothing beats Charisma.

Think about that person, in your life or from afar, who is the most charismatic. Notice how they are providing something that you really need emotionally and their outsized ability to deliver it to you makes you loyal, trusting and willing to follow them. Charisma works as much in the good times as in the bad. When fun is the furthest thing from your mind and you are struggling, it's the person who can bring you comfort and stability who you are thankful for and search out.

If you find yourself stuck hitting a career ceiling, take a good hard look not at what you have in terms of skills and accomplishments, but instead at how you make others feel and whether that is the type of feeling people have for leaders. If you feel like a follower, you will always be relegated to a supporting role, even if it is a high-level, well-paid supporting role.

If you still don't believe me ask yourself this. Would you go to work for a company where the Board hired the new CEO based solely on a review of their education, work experience, and business trophy case? Or would you expect an intensive interview process, along with in-depth discussions with references to get a more complete picture of this person's leadership style and capabilities for a good fit with what the company needs?

So you may be wondering, what is my answer to the original question, "Do Asians lack the Charisma needed to lead?"

Once you understand the improved definition of Charisma you can see that anyone can have the Charisma needed to lead. Lack of Charisma is not a permanent, fatal condition. You may lack it today, but you can develop it at any time. The good news is, now that you understand how it works, you can get started.

I think where many Asian professionals falter is that many of us have been raised to focus on achievement to the exclusion of everything else. As a result, not enough attention is being paid to how to behave like a leader by exhibiting Charisma, Executive Presence, and other interpersonal skills that impact how others feel about us. Making the problem even worse are stereotypes, bias, and othering of Asians that are used as a rationale to override or overlook our performance and impact and keep us out contention for leadership positions. The great thing about Charisma and Executive Presence is they are an antidote for the damaging misperceptions that come from us, as well as from others.

• If any part of this article resonated with you, either for yourself or for a professional or recent graduate in your inner circle, I just launched a new coaching product - Executive Presence Crash Course. For a limited time during the holidays it is discounted heavily ($250 off!) and is a unique and thoughtful gift for that hard-to-shop-for person who already purchased most of what they want. You can find it here.

One last point. Be kind to your parents. They raised you the best way they knew how and frankly, it's about 20 years too late to blame them.

I lied, second last point. Your leaders will not tell you that this is the one thing holding you back. Not because they dislike you, but because a) they don't really understand this dynamic clearly enough to express it; or b) they do know this is the problem, but they don't trust themselves, you, or the company lawyers enough to wade into this minefield with you. This is all okay.

This is the first day of a new day where you start to break through that ceiling and climb as far and as high as you choose. See you in the Penthouse Suite!

Joe Kwon, the Connection Counselor

P.S.

I have an embarrassing confession. Although I had written a book about Charisma (Unlock Your Charisma: Be seen. Be Heard. Be Chosen) and though I am Asian myself, I never understood the interplay between charisma and success until recently. It was only when a former colleague of mine invited me to speak to a group supporting Chinese-American professionals that this dynamic came to light. My colleague pointed out how lots of Asian professionals excel in school and are highly recruited at the entry level, but few make it to the Board room or C-suite. She wondered whether this had anything to do with a lack of Charisma. We ended up having a great discussion about culture, leadership, and the role of Charisma in success. You can watch the video here. Also, if you are specifically interested in Executive Presence, since I originally wrote this post I wrote a new book Unlock your Executive Presence: Feel Like a Boss.

Why most articles on how to get more charisma will lead you nowhere and what you should do instead

There is a certain template for writing an article on Charisma. I can see it in my head. I can write it in my sleep. Go ahead and search “how to develop charisma” and click on one. You’ll see some form of the following:

• A dictionary definition of charisma which will sometimes give a shout out to the original, religious meaning of the word.

• A few lines about why charisma is important and helpful.

• If you’re lucky, an inspiring story about how charisma changed a person’s life.

• Last, but not least, and the reason you came — a list of things you should do to develop charisma.

These articles fail on a several counts.

• Describing the effects of an intangible skill doesn’t help you develop it. You could read the most detailed, eloquent review of a concert or movie, but that doesn’t give you the ability to be a musician or actor or to conduct or direct the performance.

• Success stories, while inspirational, don’t reveal the underlying principles of what worked. They reveal what happened to work for that person in that scenario. Unless you have the exact same situation, it’s not going to work for you.

• Creating an inventory of traits of charismatic people won’t get you there either. You can copy a person all you want, but it doesn’t give you their powers. We all learned this as teenagers as we walked, talked, and dressed like our idols. With apologies to Nike, wearing Air Jordan’s will NOT bring you even one step closer to being like Mike in the ways that it counts.

Let’s look at a few examples of advice on charisma from actual articles to illustrate further.

1. Be confident and let your body language show it. This is great advice in general, but it won’t make you charismatic. There are plenty of confident jerks running around who are not charismatic so what gives?

2. Have presence or be in the moment. I like a person who is present just as much as the next guy, but I’m not irresistibly drawn to them. Being present without doing anything else just makes you seem really, really there.

3. Let’s group a few for brevity’s sake. Dress for success. Ask questions. Make eye contact. No, no and just no. You can do all of these at once and it still won’t generate charisma for you.

4. Mirror body language. This is my pet peeve. Do you know how most people feel about someone who is “trying” to intentionally and artificially sync with their body language? You are creepy. Or manipulative. Neither are great looks for you.

5. Show empathy. Now we are getting closer, but I regret to inform you that there are plenty of empathetic people who don’t have charisma. They are just really, really good listeners.

None of the advice above actually reveals the mechanism that generates charisma.

Okay, you are probably thinking, so what? Do you have something better to offer Mr. Smarty Pants? What’s your big revelation?

To better answer your question it is helpful to first ask a related question, which is, “why is charisma so elusive?”

Ask 10 people what charisma is and all of them will provide different answers that happen to be like the aforementioned articles on charisma. They will tell you about behaviors or traits of charismatic people or how someone with charisma makes them feel.

No one can seem to put their finger on the actual mechanism that makes a person charismatic.

One reason why charisma is so elusive is it lives in the energy between people — the person with the charisma and the people being affected by it. Also, while you have to do things to have charisma, it is less about the behaviors and more about the proper state of being. You don’t “do” charisma, you “are” charismatic — or you are not. Finally, charisma is all about emotions so this is why the advice about showing empathy actually gets the closest. 

The most important thing is, if you can’t explain the mechanism behind how something works, you can’t get more of it. As I was talking to a coworker around this difficulty of defining charisma, I stumbled onto articulating a practical definition that actually explains how charisma works.

Charisma is the ability to sense, and ultimately deliver, exactly what is most needed from an emotional perspective in a given moment.

That’s it. That’s the entire game in a nutshell.

If you do this, you will be charismatic to anybody, anytime, anywhere. I call this the Charisma Principle of Harmony.

Let’s break this down.

Imagine you are at a party and it is boring with a capital “B.” Sensing and saying, “this party is dead,” will not make you charismatic. It just makes you as observant as everyone else in the room. However, the person who can bring what is needed to make the party exciting and wonderful will be perceived as charismatic.

Now change scenes to a hospital where a family is waiting to find out the results of a loved one’s operation. Bringing the party is not charismatic. What is? Imagine the uncle or aunt who has the ability to empathize, give compassion and comfort — this person will be perceived as charismatic.

Through these examples you can start to see why charisma is so elusive and hard to define. It is ever-changing based on the needs of others and not just a single skill that a person has. Truly charismatic people carry this state of being into whatever context they find themselves.

Charisma cannot be developed by merely memorizing and replicating a list of traits. Don’t waste your time with that approach.

The good news is once you unwrap what charisma actually is, you can start to get more of it.

If you are curious about all 8 Charisma Principles, I have just released my book, Unlock Your Charisma. The best part is you already have everything you need inside. You just need to unlock it.

Together, let’s explore how to develop more charisma — for real.

Available on Audible and Apple Books. Get the insights you need to become your most charismatic self.

Do you ever feel like life has pulled a bait-and-switch on you? You follow through on all the "should’s" that have been fed to you over the years, sometimes by force, and sometimes by a subtle sort of hypnosis. In the end, the message took and you are a true believer.

Work hard. Get good grades. Participate in extracurricular activities. Get an Ivy League education or if not, the best one you can. Be ethical. Be humble. Serve others. This is the formula for leadership and success, right?

Except when it isn't. Join the club of mid-level management wheel spinners. Do you want to be one of the many Asians who have seemingly done all the "should’s," have experienced early praise and success, but are in the middle of their career hitting an immovable ceiling? Do you enjoy doing tremendous work, but getting little recognition or watching as others get all the glory? If there was just one thing you could learn that would change your fortunes, would you be willing to do what it takes?

Warning! If you are still enamored of all the "should’s," if you judge others by them, if you propagate this way of thinking in your own children, then this article is not for you.

Here is the ugly and liberating truth. If you are still mostly a true believer, you may want to take a seat. There is no amount of hard work, dedication, and technical skill that will make people believe you are a leader. Those things will not make people want to follow you or put you in a position where others follow you. In fact, the more you focus on those things to the exclusion of other interpersonal skills, the more likely it is that you will be passed over. Okay, I said it. Everything that you have been worshiping your entire life, while a crucial part of your success, is also what is crippling you.

If you want to break through to higher levels of responsibility and management, you're going to have to, in a way, loosen your grip on some of your previous idols and make space for a new passion - Charisma. I know what you are thinking. Perhaps a combination of one or more of the following. I'm an introvert and will never be an extrovert. Isn't that more for dating? It doesn't seem honorable to try to get people to like you in order to advance - I was raised with better values. And finally, that's not fair and if that’s the game, I don’t want to play it.

The reason most people, and a lot of Asians, don't value Charisma as a serious professional attribute is because their definition or mental model of what it is suffers from an inherent misunderstanding. If you look up any definition of Charisma, all it will tell you is the effect and uses words like attraction or magnetic. This is true, but misses the main point of Charisma which is how is it being generated. Once you understand why Charisma happens, you will see it’s true value. And once you understand how it works, then you can begin to get more of it. I've come up with a ground-breaking definition of Charisma which will get you back on the right track.

Charisma is the ability to sense, and ultimately deliver, exactly what is most needed from an emotional perspective in a given moment.

Here's the cold, hard truth when it comes to leadership and being chosen - people have to feel like you should be the leader; it's not a calculation. And when it comes to helping people feel secure, confident, and happy, nothing beats Charisma.

Think about that person, in your life or from afar, who is the most charismatic. Notice how they are providing something that you really need emotionally and their outsized ability to deliver it to you makes you loyal, trusting and willing to follow them. Charisma works as much in the good times as in the bad. When fun is the furthest thing from your mind and you are struggling, it's the person who can bring you comfort and stability who you are thankful for and search out.

If you find yourself stuck hitting a career ceiling, take a good hard look not at what you have in terms of skills and accomplishments, but instead at how you make others feel and whether that is the type of feeling people have for leaders. If you feel like a follower, you will always be relegated to a supporting role, even if it is a high-level, well-paid supporting role. There's nothing wrong with that, but it should be based on a choice you make and not an oversight.

If you still don't believe me ask yourself this. Would you go to work for a company where the Board hired the new CEO based solely on a review of their education, work experience, and business trophy case? Or would you expect an intensive interview process, along with in-depth discussions with references to get a more complete picture of this person's leadership style and capabilities for a good fit with what the company needs?

So you may be wondering, what is my answer to the original question, "Do Asians lack the Charisma needed to lead?"

Once you understand the improved definition of Charisma you can see that anyone can have the Charisma needed to lead. Lack of Charisma is not a permanent, fatal condition. You may lack it today, but you can develop it at any time. The good news is, now that you understand how it works, you can get started.

I think where many Asian professionals falter is that many of us have been raised to focus on achievement to the exclusion of everything else. As a result, not enough attention is being paid to how to behave like a leader by exhibiting Charisma, Executive Presence, and other interpersonal skills that impact how others feel about us.

One last point. Be kind to your parents. They raised you the best way they knew how and frankly, it's about 20 years too late to blame your parents for any mistakes or oversights you are making now. I lied, second last point. Your leaders will not tell you that this is the one thing holding you back. Not because they dislike you, but because a) they don't really understand this dynamic clearly enough to express it; or b) they do know this is the problem, but they don't trust themselves, you, or the company lawyers to wade into this minefield with you. This is all okay. This is the first day of a new day where you start to tear down that ceiling and climb as far and as high as you choose. See you in the Penthouse Suite!

Joe Kwon, the Connection Counselor

P.S.

One last embarrassing confession. Although I had recently researched and written a book about Charisma (Unlock Your Charisma: Be seen. Be Heard. Be Chosen) and though I am Asian myself, I never put 2 and 2 together until recently. It was only when a former colleague of mine invited me to speak to a group supporting Chinese-American professionals that this dynamic came to light. My friend pointed out how lots of Asian professionals excel in school and are highly recruited initially, but very few make it to the Board room or C-suite. She wondered whether this had anything to do with a lack of Charisma. We ended up having a great discussion about culture, leadership, and the role of Charisma in success. You can watch the video here.