"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

[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.