Charisma

David Fleming
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(1) The gift of grace that enhances the moral authority of a leader in the eyes of his or her followers.C78

(2) The ability to express interesting and inspiring opinion; the quality of leadership.

(3) A tactic for achieving promotion, recognition or status, despite being intellectually not up to it. Charismatic exhibitionists are entranced by their own mental ability; they try to control others, whom they tend to see as extensions of themselves, and they are intolerant of criticism. They tend not to believe that others have anything useful to tell them, they are liable to take more credit for success than is legitimate, they avoid acknowledging responsibility for failure, they make judgments with such confidence that others tend to believe them and, given the opportunity, they rush to fill positions of leadership. Motivated often by the best of intentions, they find it hard to believe that they could be wrong.C79

(4) A tricky combination of (2) and (3): good ideas and leadership, but a lot of bullshit too, and it can be hard to tell them apart.

 

Related entries:

Intelligence, Fluency, Character.

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David Fleming
Dr David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was a cultural historian and economist, based in London, England. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of peak oil's approach and invented the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change. He was also a pioneer of post-growth economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement and the New Economics Foundation, as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association. His wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future', published posthumously in 2016. These in turn inspired the 2020 launches of both BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's feature film about Fleming's perspective and legacy - 'The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?' - and Sterling College's unique 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time' online courses. For more information on all of the above, including Lean Logic, click the little globe below!

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