"Aura of command"

[asterroc]

I've often heard individuals described as having an "aura of command", "aura of power", or "aura of leadership". Such people are described as having a magnetic personality, of drawing people to them, of entering a room and everyone immediately snaps to attention, of having their every word paid attention to.

I have never met such a person. Do these people, does this quality, really exist? Or is it just a literary hyperbole that people have bought into and pretend exists in real life? Is it just really rare and that's why I haven't encountered it? Is it really common and it's just been the luck of the draw that I haven't met such people? Or am I just insensitive to it?

Comments

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

There are people whose personality seems to cause others to want to put them in charge. They get looked to for semi-arbitrary decisions and for social conflict resolution.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

As I commented below, this adds to my fear that *I* might be one of those people. My colleagues at work have been trying to push me to take positions of responsibility, such as department chair or union president. I'm not really interested in these b/c I like to teach and they would take my time away from that. For now we have people in those positions who are (respectively) sufficiently competent and excellent at what they do, so I certainly don't have any incentive to do it.

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

Just don't abuse the power.

I figured out years ago that I am an "alpha male", I tend to end up in charge of projects and teams that I am involved in. I am asked advice even when more qualified people are involved.

If you do have this personality type, it is important to be aware of it. It is easy to take positions offered when others are better qualified, so learn to delegate and redirect.

It isn't a bad thing, or an undemocratic thing, it is just how humans seem to be built. We can get more things done more easily when someone can take charge.

Of course it also allows us to fall under the sway of people who use it for their own ends.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

*nods* In college I became lazy about organizing things - in HS I was always the one to organize events with my friends, but I got sick of this when we all moved on to college and told my friends one of them should organize it. Currently I have other motivations to not take/accept/apply for the positions my colleagues are pushing me towards. For example, such positions come with a course release, meaning I teach fewer courses, and I like teaching more than I like doing leadership things. Also the timing is bad, as I've a sabbatical coming up, and I'm thinking about going back to grad school. So yeah, I don't think I'm likely to abuse this power at the current time if I really do have it.

As for others abusing the power, maybe my insensitivity to it in others is what allows me to point out when those others are doing stupid things. I've been told I was "brave" once for doing so, and I just blinked and asked why. I mean, what the person said was clearly wrong, why *wouldn't* I point it out?

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

I mean, it's not a magic trick. There's nobody who literally snaps a room to attention just by walking in. But I've met people with magnetic personalities.

I've seen speakers who have held a room of hundreds rapt for two hours and then, as the applause died down, I've thought to myself, "There was every reason for this audience to be hostile to that message. Only force of personality can explain why they weren't." Al Gore, in An Inconvenient Truth, flashes moments like that, to note an example I'm fairly sure you've seen.

I think most successful politicians have it to some degree or other. I saw John Bolton speak at NYU and while there were a few protesters who weren't going to listen to anything from him, I was surprised by how powerful his hold over the audience was. When you have a private or small group meeting with a person like that, it can be overwhelming. When my high school class met with Rush Holt, our congressman, all the jokes we'd made about the outlandish positions we were going to take vanished out the window.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I know/care less about politicians/politics than you, so maybe that's another reason I haven't seen it as much: that politics attracts those sorts of people, leaving a dearth in other fields.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. I mean, politics is a strange hybrid field. The three people I mentioned are by trade, respectively, a career politician, a career diplomat, and a career physicist. And I've run across people like that in other fields. I've met professors and college presidents with that sort of ability. I've met lawyers with that sort of ability. I've met corporate executives with that sort of ability. Not all people in authority have it, but it's across the board in a variety of fields.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

The closest thing that comes to mind right now is when I was in the military, where the senior person in the room/situation was generally looked to as, well, the leader. But that's not quite the same thing as what you're asking, really.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Right, that's like how students look to the teacher as a leader. There it's respect given b/c it HAS to be given.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

I think those people do exist and I have met many of them. My manager from Minnesota has a very magic and magnetic way about her. Everyone just swoons when she's around and she has such a nice way of saying "No" that you don't feel small or disagreeable about it at all (she's also one of those people that see letters as colours).

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Maybe those sorts of people don't gravitate to academia. That'd be a good explanation for why I haven't seen them. If so, it's a shame, for there is a hierarchy and such and we could use those sorts of people.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

I can imagine! Her husband teaches college level economics interestingly enough. I imagine that the hierarchy can get a little crushing :\

[jholomorphic.livejournal.com]

cornel west!

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Think back to grade school; think of the most popular clique. Was there a center person in that clique? A sort of founder? Maybe there was even a second-tier clique (especially in middle school, perhaps) where everyone hated this person... but it's always about this same person. That's the sort of person these sorts of descriptions are talking about. It's also sometimes the same thing that makes some people really interesting to talk with, even if they're talking about really mundane topics. It's really a pretty common trait, and a lot of people have it to greater or lesser degrees.

They're the sort of people where, whether or not they have actual tangible power (a management position or whatever), other people want their approval, and want to be liked by them. Failing that, other people at least want to be acknowledged by them, whether in a positive or negative way. They're the sort of people whom everyone has a strong opinion about, whether or not everyone likes them, because you can't help but notice them (although saying "[they enter] a room and everyone immediately snaps to attention, ...their every word [is] paid attention to." is certainly hyperbole).

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

In elementary school I was the outcast so I hated the popular people. In high school my group was outcast, but I was perhaps the leader of my outcast group, and people certainly had strong opinions about me. :-\

[sildra.livejournal.com]

It isn't necessarily all--or most--of the popular people. A lot of them are kind of faceless followers, especially in a large group. It's the leader of the group that counts.

When it's the leader of the outcast group it's hard to say (having been in that position myself a few times). My experience in elementary school was that there was one girl around whom all--well, most--of the other girls in our grade flocked. She was my arch-nemesis, of course. What was great for me, though, was that I was her arch-nemesis, as well; in fact, the narrative in most of our grade was that she had started out hating me, and, in most versions of the story, through no fault of mine. This made me important in that her distorted reflected spotlight fell on me. It meant that anyone who had a problem with her went to me, and tried to be my friend. I wasn't really capable of doing much with that, though.

In the first half of high school I was definitely head of the outcast group, but because I chose to be. In 9th grade I hand-picked a group of outcasts to hang out with me; nearly everyone in the group joined because I asked them to and it was their one opportunity to have friends (I guess one guy did join without being specifically invited, just because he was... umm... drawn to me, but that wasn't the pervasive reason people were in the group).

In late high school and college I found that younger people tended to follow me a lot, and some of them looked to me as someone to emulate or compete with, but I really don't have anything like that effect on people my own age.

[bobdeloyd.livejournal.com]

Maybe you are one of those "aura of command", "aura of power", or "aura of leadership" kind of person and just haven't realized it. That may be why you haven't seen one before. Most teachers are like that ;)
//bob

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm terrified of. :-P Even among my colleagues at work I haven't noticed anyone with this supposed aura, and recently people have been pressuring me to take positions of more authority myself (union president, department chair). My attitude towards those sorts of things is I don't really want to do them, but there's so many incompetent people doing them that sometimes I'm forced to do so for my own self-defense.

[bobdeloyd.livejournal.com]

I kind of got that feeling from your post.

[jmgold42.livejournal.com]

There are definitely people who have a natural way of attracting attention, but I think something like an "aura of command" has to be earned and not just intuited by those around such a person. Someone brought up military command earlier and I think that sort of a background can lend a person some added authority in their mannerisms (it certainly does for my boss), but that too is based on experience and isn't just an innate skill.

[cartoonmayhem.livejournal.com]

Apparently not only does Steve Jobs have this aura of personality, he has a "reality distortion field" that leaves people positively bowled over. I have yet to meet somebody who has such a cult of personality. But maybe it's because when I was in high school there was a student religious leader—of college student age whom a bunch of girls my age just swooned over and brought me to him in a "you have to meet him *gush* manner. Well, I met him and I was quite unimpressed. It left me skeptical and cynical.
Incidentally, I cannot be hypnotized either. People have tried and can't do it.
I also have another question: do you people who are atheists are less likely to be attracted to a cult of personality type than the religious minded?