Does a leader have to have charisma?

Peter Wengryn, Mahwah, New Jersey

A

You ask an age-old question, but hardly one lacking in urgency. In fact, when we hear your question on the road, there's often an undercurrent of panic to it, since it's usually being posed by a person who's been accused of getting ahead on personality alone, or the opposite, someone falling behind purportedly due to a lack of "zing."

Neither may be the case with you! In fact, your question intrigues lots of people, probably because everyone who has ever been a boss or worked for one knows a leader's level of charisma plays some role in career success. How much?

The answer is a huge amount. Charisma is simply integral to getting things done.

Now, we're obviously not talking here about "bad" charisma. That is, charisma in the absence of brains, vision and character. That trait is useless and even dangerous. In business, wow personalities with less than wow minds are called "empty suits" for good reason.

Too many of these individuals manage to ho-ho-ho their way to the top, even to the CEO's office, but most self-destruct after looking and sounding great for a couple of years but ultimately achieving little.

On a larger scale, history is littered with examples of charismatic leaders whose dark power has been ruinous.

There are, indeed, leaders on the world stage today who fit this billing. Witness the polarising diatribe by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez at the United Nations two weeks ago. He's a charismatic leader . . . too bad! But for a good leader, one with integrity and intelligence, charisma just makes the job a whole lot easier.

No matter the size of the team, division or company being run, leaders must energise their people. And these days, that task is more critical than ever.

Because of the intensifying competitiveness of the global marketplace, business is replete with "unscalable heights". Leaders have to persuade their people to take them. They have to make people understand why change is constantly necessary, passionately explaining what's in it for the company and them.

All that can be done without charisma, using meticulous, legalistic "arguments" instead, but that approach takes a lot more of what companies rarely have today: time.

There are, of course, leaders who succeed without charisma. Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has won legions of followers from the sheer depth of his reasoning. It can be done. But not often.

More commonly, you find smart, capable people stalled because they lack the innate ability to win hearts and minds. Yes, innate, because charisma, for better or worse, seems to be inborn. It can't really be trained into someone.

So where does that leave people without it? They are by no means off the leadership track entirely, just in a slower, more challenging lane. And if you want to be a leader badly enough, that shouldn't stop you from trying.

Q

Why can't the US car industry get it together?

Joseph Lahoud, Foxborough, Massachusetts

A

The answer to your question could fill a book, but here's a 50,000-foot take on the problem.

The US automotive supply chain starts in coal mines, moves to steel mills and ends in the factories of Detroit.

For a long time, this was a neat, airtight system. Every negotiating cycle, organised labour at each step asked for more, management eventually acquiesced, and costs were passed on to captive consumers.

Then foreign competition arrived, and US consumers responded exactly as you'd expect. Result: first coal and then steel went through bankruptcies and restructurings. The process was painful, but the industries have become competitive. Meanwhile, the automotive industry has struggled. Yes, its manufacturing has become more productive and the quality has improved, but major cost disadvantages remain, most notably the widely cited $2,000 to $3,000 that each car carries to pay for retiree benefits.

What will happen? A slew of "gottahave-it" new cars would help, but they'd just prolong the death by a thousand cuts.

No, our experience says that when an industry is in a downward cycle, its leaders almost never see how bad things could get.

Bottoms-up revenue forecasts that are too optimistic and the assumption that competitors will stand still while you improve are just two of the several "mindset errors" that put off the draconian steps required.

Today, the car industry can counter that dynamic, but it will take enormous courage. For example, if it's four plants they're considering closing, the number probably should be closer to eight. If it's two car models that might be eliminated, they need to think about four. If it's a pay freeze under consideration, the right move is probably more like a 30% pay cut.

Now, we recognise that it is a lot easier for appointed managers to announce such brutal changes than for elected labour leaders to push them through.

What choice is there, though? Neither side created this problem. They inherited it. But if they don't accept joint ownership of the drastic solution, the past already tells us the future. The fate of coal and steel industries awaits them.

Jack and Suzy Welch are the authors of the international best-seller Winning.

You can e-mail them questions at Winning@nytimes. com.