3. Be Cheerful
People
who have personal magnetism must be cheerful. They talk about glad tidings, not
calamity. They encourage others, never emphasize discouragement. No matter what
obstacles they realize are ahead, they talk and act success, not failure.
Others
feel better after a few minutes with such people.
Just as
the magnetic person leaves others feeling expectant by his briskness, so does
he leave them in elevated moods by his cheerfulness, even when he has to
pretend that cheerfulness. And more successful persons than you realize pretend
they are cheerful.
I have a
friend who had enough troubles to make him an ingrown grouch. Bert was
seriously concerned about these, to be sure, but his wide circle of friends
said they envied him his inborn fortitude. Inborn, nothing!
“I
figured,” Bert told me with a warm smile, “that it wouldn’t help others any if
I went around grouching and telling about my troubles. Neither would it do me
any good, nor solve the trouble. So why not make them think I’m happy, even if I’m
not!”
There is
magnetism in a smile, in every evidence of cheerfulness.
4. Be Direct
A few
years ago a blind student majored in my courses. Of the two dozen majoring
students, he was by all odds the most magnetic and the most popular. He was, in
fact, the most magnetic man on the campus. It was not because the students were
sorry for Pat, either. He earned the popularity by being active, brisk, and
cheerful. So were many other students, but Pat’s blindness, strangely enough,
helped him to be more direct than any of the others.
Since he
could not see those to whom he was talking, he spoke intently in the direction
of their voices. He turned his face in that direction. He faced others when he
talked to them and did not talk out of the corner of his mouth. Sightless, he
spoke more directly to others than most people do.
The man
who looks at the ceiling, out of the window, or at the third vest button is not
being direct.
There are
sparks given off when one looks intently at another, regardless of which one is
doing the talking at the moment. That is what the blind student did, and since
his atrophied eyes were hidden behind dark glasses he did not glare people out
of countenance.
A man who
has specialized in training retail sales clerks tells me that one of the most
common errors of beginners is to look at the goods they are displaying. They
should look at the customer, talk to the customer.
The
leader has power over others from his direct glance and direct manner. There is
a “look in the eye” of the leader. It is not a fierce or a haughty look; it is
a direct look. He does not glare (the way Mussolini tried to do) or stare, like
a country bumpkin on his first visit to the city. The leader looks intently at
others. That intent, direct look establishes contact.
You can’t
be magnetic by talking to the ceiling or looking at the floor.
5. Be Fearless
[An
unmagnetic scientist I know] had always been extremely cautious about offending
people. He had his convictions, to be sure, but he kept them to himself for
fear he might cross someone. Not for love or money would he have done the
unpopular thing. He went with the stream.
Such safe
playing is apt to win contempt. Such folks are called the Mr. Milquetoasts.
They are spineless, wishy-washy. Like a rubber stamp, they lack character and
individuality.
The
scientist’s character and accomplishments were without blemish, yet people
looked down on him instead of respecting him. His playing-safe policy was
revealed in every word and gesture. He had his convictions but was so pussyfooting
about them that people guessed the opposite. He was yes man.
The
natural leader has the gumption to scrap, if necessary, for what he thinks is
right. He “speaks out in meeting” against injustice, graft, obsolete methods,
blunders by the high and mighty.
This
quality shows itself not just by sticking one’s chin out when there is trouble
around. It is reflected in the tone of voice, firmness of glance and lips. It
gains respect for the leader — and wins followers.
A veteran
paratrooper was sitting at an adjoining table in the dining car. He was a
private first class. His face was bronzed and firm. Three naval petty officers
sat down at the table with him. The sailors had seen no active service; the
paratrooper had. The sailors asked him dozens of questions, and he replied to
each in a clipped firm but pleasant voice.
The
sailors finished first, and as they left the table, each extended his hand to
the unknown paratrooper and wished him good luck. He held the sailors in the
palm of his hand because he seemed to ooze fearlessness from every pore.
In words,
actions, and thoughts, the leader must be fearless. People, animals, and even
vegetable life respond to the person who shows no fear.
I was
helping my uncle on his small farm. Thistles had sprung up in the hayfield, and
he put me to work clearing them out. I approached the first one tenderly, then
let out a yelp of pain as its nettles stung my hand. Although it was a
blistering hot day, I set up a cry for leather gloves to handle the thistles.
“It’s
easy, if you know how,” my uncle said. “Look, like this. Grab hold firmly, as
if you meant business. That crushes the prickers. Never pat a thistle.”
Some time
later I was sent to a neighbor’s farm on an errand. As I neared the farmhouse,
the dusk was gathering rapidly. I didn’t relish walking back in the dark. Then
I heard the neighbor’s vicious watchdogs raising a noise at my approach. How I
hated to complete the errand!
But it
was too late to turn back, because the dogs were approaching me now, and there
was not a friendly sign in the pack.
Then I
remembered my uncle’s words: Never pat a thistle.
“Lie
down! Get into the barn, you whelps,” I shouted at the dogs with all the mock
courage I could put into my voice. I picked a stone from the roadside and threw
it at the pack. They did what I had planned doing myself a few moments earlier.
They ran the other way.
The
lesson of those two experiences has been useful for me many times in dealing
with people. Perhaps you feel no more bravery than I really felt, but show
courage anyway.
Don’t
overlook moral courage in connection with fearlessness. Teddy Roosevelt had
physical fearlessness. A Wild West character, making fun of Teddy’s eyeglasses,
picked a fight and drew a brace of guns on the effete easterner. The bullets
hit in the ceiling as Teddy landed on the bad man with such force that the
troublemaker was laid out cold. A few years later, low political rivals hired
“Stubby” Collins, an underworld strong arm man, to beat up Teddy in the Delavan
House in Albany. A few moments after Stubby accosted his “victim,” the accoster
was being revived by his friends.
But keep
an eye on Teddy’s moral courage, too. That is as important in leadership as
physical courage. It takes both brands to make real leadership.
He would
fight for an ideal, for what he believed was right, with just as much force as
he would struggle to save his own life. There was the time, for instance, when
he was indignant over some of the things being attempted by some factions of
organized labor. Now a scheming politician is supposed to humor labor along, to
be sure of their vote. But Roosevelt won more votes than he lost by his moral
courage — he stood on a platform in front of an audience of thousands, shook an
angry finger in the face of Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of
Labor, and denounced him roundly.
Imagine
the electric nature of that occasion. There were sparks aplenty!
No
wishy-washy person would have the courage to do that. No yes man could do it.
It took fearlessness, of which Roosevelt had a magnetic share.
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