Charisma

There are some people who light up any room they enter, who make hearts race and temperatures rise before uttering a word, who can inspire miracles in their staff through sheer personal magnetism. And then there are those who have the charisma of a discarded clump of chewing gum.

If there was any doubt over which group I belonged to, it was cleared up at a recent champagne reception in the City, where I introduced myself to a young executive and was greeted with a thin smile and the remark: “Excuse me. I need to go to the bathroom.”

This has happened before: at too many parties there seems to come a point, usually just after I have opened my mouth, when the person I am addressing feels a sudden need to go to the toilet. But this mortifying incident was significant in that it finally inspired me to find out what it is that divides the instantly charismatic from the instantly uncharismatic…

Read atTimes Online