領導者的魅力太大 不一定是好事兒

We tend to judge everything from sports teams to entire nations by the charisma of their leaders — or to be more specific, by how much personal charm, force of personality, and ability to inspire they possess. Historians call it the Great Man Theory, which holds that certain people are born with qualities that enable them to rise to the top and lead the multitudes.

不論是一支運動隊，還是整個國家，我們都傾向于通過領導者的魅力來判斷一切——或者更具體地說, 判斷他們擁有多少個人魅力、人格力量和激勵能力。 歷史學家稱之為偉人理論, 認為某些人天生就具有能夠爬到頂端并領導眾人的品質。

In the business world, charisma is particularly valued attribute, as evidenced by the 2012 Harvard Business Review article "Why You Need Charisma." The article describes a pseudonymous example, Paul Lee, and his ability to win over potential investors and others through personal magnetism so compelling that he can take a half-hour commuter flight and emerge with a plane full of new friends. As the article's author, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, wrote: "His leadership model involves making sure all feel that they are special and will have their particular needs met, yet also feeling that they are all in it together."

在商界, 魅力就是特別有價值的象征。在2012年的《哈佛商業(yè)評論》(Harvard Business Review)的文章《為什么你需要魅力》上，就證明了這一點。這篇文章描述了一個假名的例子, 保羅 · 李, 描述了他通過個人魅力贏得潛在投資者和其他人的能力, 因為魅力太大，他可以搭乘時常僅半小時的通勤飛機后, 就結識了滿滿一架飛機的好朋友。 正如這篇文章的作者, 哈佛商學院教授的羅莎貝·摩絲·肯特所言:"他的領導模式包括確保所有人都感到自己是特別的, 并且能夠滿足他們的特殊需求, 同時也要感覺到他們在一起是很必要的，他們是一個整體。"

Since charisma is so potent, you might think that a leader couldn't get enough of it. But as it turns out, that's not the case. In a newly published study in the Journal of Personality and Psychology, researchers collected the charisma scores for hundreds of business leaders calculated using the Hogan Development Survey, a psychological test, and then compared them to how their peers, subordinates and bosses actually assessed their effectiveness.

因為魅力本身就極具吸引力，所以你可能會認為領導對此屬性都倍加青睞，也希望自己越有魅力越好。 但事實證明, 并非如此。 在《個性與心理學雜志》上發(fā)表的一項研究中, 研究人員收集了數(shù)百名商業(yè)領袖的魅力分數(shù), 這些領導者是通過霍根發(fā)展調查的(一個心理測試), 然后讓與他們同一級別的下屬和老板對他們的效率進行實際的評估。

The researchers found that as charisma increased, so did others' perception of a business leader's effectiveness — but only up to a point. Leaders at low and high ends of the charisma spectrum, as it turned out, were perceived as less effective than those who were judged to have only moderately magnetic personalities.

研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn), 隨著個人魅力的增強, 其他人對商業(yè)領袖效率的看法也會變味——但只是在一定程度上。 事實證明, 領導者的魅力值太高，反而會被認為不如那些被認為擁有適當魅力值的領導者。

"Our findings suggest that organizations may want to consider selecting applicants with mid-range levels of charisma into leadership roles," said Jasmine Vergauwe, a doctoral student at Belgium's Ghent University and the study's lead author, in a press release, "instead of extremely charismatic leaders."

"我們的研究結果表明, 一個組織可能更希望選擇具有一個具有中等領導魅力的申請者擔任領導角色,"比利時根特大學的教授的博士生、該研究報告的主要作者賈思敏·維爾高烏(Jasmine Vergauwe)在一份新聞稿中表示,"而不是極具魅力的領導者。"