Patel - Becoming Steve Jobs: Amazing Lessons on How to Be Like Steve Jobs

Look at Steve Jobs, someone who was really, really not charismatic originally. He made a conscious decision to learn charisma, to create the Steve Jobs persona. Olivia Fox Cabane, The Economist.

One of the keys to Steve Jobs success, was the persona that he created. Customers adored him, employees followed him and competitors respected him. The respect that Jobs commanded thanks to his charisma, saw a welcome return to Apple, stocks flying after his press releases and falling when he fell ill. Jobs persona became the personality of Apple. Innovative, experimental and bold. Everything we associate with Apple today leads back to Jobs ability to dominate a boardroom, to silence crowds, to persuade, entertain and excite. Being the public face of a company, charisma is everything.

If you dont think of yourself as a particularly charismatic person, theres no need to worry. A few, very simple techniques will help you develop your charm and come across as a more charismatic person. The first is presence. Simply put, presence is how engaged you are with those around you. During a board meeting if you spend your time staring out the window and not making any eye contact, your colleagues will assume you are not listening, which I dont have to tell you isnt very charismatic at all. Another quick trick to boost your charisma is making full use of your body language. When we watch Jobs in press releases and interviews, he makes full use of his hands whilst he talks. The benefits of this may seem subtle, but when you compare someone with active body language, to someone standing stiff and still, the speaker whom moves is significantly more engaging.

Charisma is not about reinventing yourself as someone else. The persona that Steve Jobs put forwards was not an entirely fabricated one. He truly did love music, dress modestly, hate market research and have a philosophical outlook on life. Most people in the world are the same, especially in hating market research. What Steve Jobs did, was present these qualities of himself to the world in a likable manner. An inspirational everyman. Jobs was unique in being himself, but very relatable. He wasnt just another chief executive in a suit, he took being a normal human being, and used it to make himself stand out.

Most public speakers employ persuasive techniques and various rhetoric to draw in a crowd and project a charismatic nature. Steve Jobs took these persuasive techniques, and developed them further. He mixed various techniques to suit the specific situation in which he found himself. We found that Jobs did not exhibit a single rhetorical style, but rather altered it depending on the situation and yet still managed to deliver a constant message to support his companys strategy Professor Heracleous, C harismatic Leadership and Rhetorical Competence: An Analysis of Steve Jobs Rhetoric . Being adaptable plays a huge part in developing charisma, utilizing the same techniques for a variety of audiences will only make you appear robotic and contrived.