The Science of Charisma: How Compassion Creates Influence with Heather Hansen

Here's the leadership trap no one warns you about. As you gain power, the part of your brain that's seeing other people's perspectives can actually shrink, which means the higher you rise, the easier it is to miss what your team is trying to tell you. Today we get into compassionate charisma and how to rebuild that perspective muscle on purpose. I'm Susan Drumm, and this is The Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership revolution. Each week we spotlight cutting-edge strategies to help executives and entrepreneurs grow in leadership and in life. My guest today is a former trial attorney, Heather Hansen, and she breaks down what charisma actually is, why compassion has to come first, and the small shifts that make people follow you because they want to. Heather is a former trial attorney and seasoned business advisor who merges two decades of courtroom experience with her expertise in psychology, hypnosis, and dispute resolution. Heather is the CEO of Belief Builders and has shared her insights at venues like Harvard Business School, Google, Stanford, and has appeared on platforms such as The Today Show, CNN, Fox Business, Dr. Phil, and Dr. Oz. Heather, it's so great to have you on the show. Welcome.

Susan, I'm so happy to be here.

So the interesting thing is we're both former attorneys, although I never ended up practicing. Yes, I went to law school and took the bar in New York and could have practiced but decided not to and went into consulting. Did you end up practicing or what is— tell us a little bit about your career journey.

I sure did practice. I went to Villanova Law. I had a psychology degree undergrad, and I went to law school knowing that I wanted to be a trial attorney. And I tried cases. I started working at the firm where I was my entire career while I was in law school, and it happened to be a medical malpractice defense firm. So I defended doctors, nurses, healthcare providers for 20 years and tried a lot of cases and loved it, loved it, loved it at the beginning. And then I got tired of it. I knew I never wanted to retire, and so I was starting to think about, well, what else can I do? And I got certified to be a mediator thinking that I could help people to resolve issues before they have to go to trial. And that was not— it was kind of boring to me. And then I wrote my first book, which is called The Elegant Warrior, in 2019. And that led to speaking opportunities and a lot of people asking me to coach them. And so I started doing that work. And then I gave some speeches, which led to doing a lot of work within organizations. Creating curriculum around communication skills and the things that we use in the courtroom to win and how they can be used outside of the courtroom. So now my business is focused solely on that communication skills, primarily for healthcare organizations, providers, teams, but also leaders in all kinds. I've done work with Google and LVMH and Harvard Business School and lots of financial advisors. So I've run the gamut, but I really do focus on healthcare providers because I think that they have to face such difficult conversations and they're not trained on how to have those conversations. And so that feels like my next curve of my career.

Yes. So helping people communicate better in what format particularly is it more— and I'm thinking about your trial experience and now tell us a little bit about that transition and what flavor you bring to that work.

So when I first started, I talked about it in my first website was called Advocate to Win. And I talked about the difference between communicating and advocating. So when you communicate, Susan, you share perspectives. You know, you and I right now, we are communicating. There's a slight difference when you're advocating because when you're advocating, you want to change someone's perspective. And sometimes you do both, you know, but sometimes you really— it's a different endeavor. And I think that a lot of people don't recognize that. But in the courtroom, That was the whole plan, right? You had to change a jury's perspective. And, and I will say this, you know, in my cases, every single case, every single juror was a patient, right? Everybody is a patient, including me and the doctor and everybody else. I never had a doctor on my jury. Sometimes I'd have nurses, but never had a doctor. And so I really did have to change perspectives because everyone had the perspective of a patient. The other side. And so there are specific skills that you can use to do that. And that's a lot of what I continue to teach today. It's a lot of what, you know, it's a lot of using your, using your body. Yes. But building credibility, using compassion, which I know we're gonna talk about today, using charisma in order to not only get people to see your perspective, but then to also embrace it and take action because they have done so.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's one of the fundamental skills that leaders need to be good at, which is helping shift perspective. I talk about it in the form of patterns, helping people see patterns, helping them shift that pattern.

Yeah.

But a lot of that is the default ways that people are doing. It becomes the water you swim in, and it's not necessarily obvious that there's another way, there's another viewpoint to look at, right? And so bringing some of these skills, I think, would be incredibly valuable.

I talk all the time. In fact, the compassion piece is a lot about seeing other people's perspectives. My TEDx talk was on that because I do think you're right. I think that we so often— and I think it was the biggest gift, to be honest, of being a trial attorney because I had to see the other side. You know, I always say you can't win unless you know how you can lose. You have to see their, their benefit, the things that they can use to win and why someone might find for them and see the world from their perspective. And then you can address it and take it down and, and fight it and build your own and all of that. But I think a lot of people, especially today, don't want to, you know, they wanna kind of like put blinders on and say, this is what I believe and this is, and that is, yeah. Fine, but it is going to make you far less effective as a communicator, an advocate, and a leader.

Yeah. Now, you've shared that what's really fundamentally required is compassionate charisma. So let's break that down. What do you mean by that? And how can we go a level underneath?

Charisma is this term that's sort of thrown around. And when you're asked to define it, I think the way most people that I work with think it is something like when I leave the room, they're gonna talk about how good I was, how well-spoken I was, what a great speaker, presenter, and all of that. And the way that I like to define charisma is not, it's not what they say about you when you leave the room, it's what they do. You know, do you compel them to take the action that you want them to take? And that's the charisma piece. And we can talk about what the research actually shows lets that happen. But first you need to have compassion. And the way that I look at compassion is you see things through the other person's perspective and then you act to help that perspective. And so if you do that first, if you, if you sort of ground yourself in compassion, then the charisma and the specific things that you have to do to have charisma can come out of that in a way that helps everyone and is far more effective.

And so I would imagine that working with a leader to ground themselves in compassion might look a couple of different ways, right? What often you see mistakes that leaders said, oh, yeah, I'm compassionate. How are they showing up in reality? And what do you do to help shift them?

Well, one of the things that's hard for leaders, and I feel badly for them, is research shows— and it's understandable— but research shows that the part of your brain that is good at seeing other people's perspectives gets smaller as you get more power. There's actually MRI studies that show that this is true. And of course that makes sense if you think about, you know, we, we came from gorillas and apes. And as gorillas and apes get more powerful, they don't care about what the less powerful gorillas and apes think, right? Because they, they don't have to. And so the same is true for us as leaders. As we become more powerful, we forget what it's like to need to look at what other people are thinking. And so it really is starting to build that skill back up. And there's ways to do it. You know, there's exercises that you can do, but also just asking questions is a great way to build that skill back up and say, what am I missing? Is a great question to ask because then you start to see that you are missing the way that a lot of people see it. You also have to have— and John Quincy Adams is an example of this— his wife was a really good person to say, like, you're missing something, or you're not seeing this. And you need people in your life as leaders that are willing to speak truth to power and say, you know, there's a whole perspective that you are missing. Because that is the biggest thing. I think that most leaders want to do the right thing and want to serve their people and want to have compassion. But it's almost impossible when you only see the world from that one perspective.

Yes. And I think many times leaders don't realize how difficult it is for someone who— to actually tell them what they're seeing and that it's a different perspective. So you have to be extremely cautious about your response to that because if it's not invitational, if it's not welcoming, you will not get it again.

Well, that's right.

That's right.

And it's that curiosity. It's a big thing that I, that I talk about. It's the willingness to be open to the feedback and to weigh it before you just dismiss it. And, you know, to think about what, what is their experience that they would have to say that thing, even if it's negative feedback about your leadership, what would they have to have felt and experienced in order to feel that way about you as a leader? And to at least consider it makes you a stronger leader. It doesn't mean you have to always accept the feedback or think of it as true. But in, if you're not willing to see that other people are seeing you that way, you can't decide whether or not you want to change it.

Yes. And I think a part of that is that skill of not giving immediate pushback when someone comes to say they see it differently. Yeah, that is something, you know, and as leaders, we think we need to set direction. Even if you think that person is way off base, take a beat. You know, that's interesting. Let me see if I understand your perspective, you know, so they feel heard, they feel understood. And then you can say, You know, I see it differently. Here's what I see. And then you're, you're shifting. But so many times, I mean, I see this particularly, you know, we talk about Enneagram, often Type 8 leaders, they will tell you that they really want their team to give them feedback and they don't understand why the team won't give them feedback. But what they don't understand is the energy of the response when they're getting feedback. Because they like to kind of like— they don't shy away from that conflict. They're thinking that their strength and how they're communicating their perspective is well received. But the reality is it's shutting people down. So exactly, I see that. And so there are skills that I'm sure you talk more about of like how you take that pause, how you really have people feel heard, and how you reframe it back to them.

Yeah, and it's skills that you probably, that you tap into too, Susan. It's, you know, the active listening. But I think that your point is really a good one. I think that we don't talk enough about respect. And when you dismiss someone's feedback, they feel disrespected. You know, it's one of the things that in the courtroom, juries hate disrespect. They hate it. They will award huge amounts of money if they think that a healthcare provider, for example, has disrespected a patient or a caregiver, you know? And so you see how important that is to human beings. You know, the courtroom is such a great teacher. And what you're talking about, that dismissiveness of someone's feedback to a leader, and so much of this, especially today, has to do with efficiency, right? I'm in a rush, I don't have time. But you've gotta remember that respect is a basic human expectation. And if people aren't feeling like they get it, it's going to cause real upset in the organization.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we have that piece. Is there more you wanna discuss there or do you wanna move to the charisma part?

Well, no, I just think that people need to recognize that it's, um, and this again comes from the medical research, but it applies everywhere. There's a gentleman named Dr. Stephen Treziak who did some research on, okay, patients want to be treated compassionately, but what does that actually mean? What are the actions we have to take to show compassion. And there's 9 of them. We won't go through all of them, but they're important because they're the same things that leader can do, right? So like, focus on me when I'm talking to you. Do not have distractions. Don't put your computer, you know, in the, in the hospital, it's that, you know, putting the computer between you and the patient. Sit down. Sitting down is a huge one. Sit down to talk to me. Sit down to give me feedback. Don't stand at the door. Huge. Speak to me by name. Also huge. Ask my opinion about the things that we're talking about or the things that you want me to do. These are specific actions. It's not just be compassionate, this fluffy thing. Yes. There are specific actions that you can take to show your compassion that other people feel as compassion, and it has so much value for the relationship.

What have you found for the healthcare providers who are able to do this? In terms of their outcomes.

It's huge. There's a book here. Let me pull it up just because it's sitting right here. It's, um, Dr. Triziak's book. It is a big fat book that is just filled with the ROI of compassion in medicine. And it applies to all leaders. Anyone listening, if you're not in medicine, it doesn't matter. This book shows that when physicians, providers show compassion to their patients, the patients get better faster. They have better results. They have less pain. The hospitals make more money, you know, so it's about the bottom line as well. And also very important for your leaders, they're less likely to burn out. And so it's not because sometimes, especially in medicine, we worry about compassion fatigue, and it can be the same for leaders in any organization. Financial services with the economy going up and down the way that it is right now, a lot of people are feel as though, oh my gosh, I'm running out of compassion at the end of the day. And they worry that if they put themselves too much in the shoes of their clients, their customers, their colleagues, they will have that fatigue. But this research shows that that's just not true.

Yeah, absolutely. That is so fascinating. So when you think about the results that can get produced, until you do that compassion piece, it's going to be very different— difficult to shift perspective. And I know we were all under the gun and we just like, just do it my way, just do it this way, just get it done right. But you're actually not going to produce the result you want. You actually will probably need less handholding if you invest the time in the front end.

100%. And the thing that you do is you turn everyone around you into your advocates. You know, when you know how to— I always talk about this— a good advocate turns the people around them into their advocates. So you don't have to hold their hands because the other people in the organizations are so beholden to you. They respect you. They feel that you give compassion to them, and then therefore they're loyal to you. And they're out there saying, let's do this. Let's make this happen. Let's be of service. Let's do this thing. And so you've really turned your team into a team of advocates.

Great. And so the charisma piece, tell us a little bit more, because it's always the, gosh, it would be so great to have charisma, right? Or some call it executive presence or gravitas, right? There's kind of different flavors of it. Where— how do you define it and what moves the needle on it?

So I am a big— you know, again, the lawyer thing comes through, right? In the courtroom, I can't just I have to have evidence to back it up. And so I'm big on research and science and making sure that we're not just throwing these things around. And there's a gentleman who's named Dr. John Antonakis, who is the premier researcher on charisma. And his studies are extremely well validated. He's sort of obsessed with it. You know, he wants to make sure that he's actually showing that these things that he talks about move the needle. And so one of his studies with the things, and we'll talk about what, what He has found move the needle. But one of the studies that he did is he had a bunch of people who were temps and they had to fill envelopes. And a group of the people were given more money as a motivation to fill the envelopes. A second group was given a motivational speech. And a third group was given a charismatic speech. And the people given the charismatic speech filled more envelopes than those given more money. So they were more driven to make a change in their action, right? And that's what we want as leaders. Yeah. We want people to change their actions than more money did. And so, and he's done all kinds of research like this. And so he breaks it down. There's 12 things. I'm not gonna remember all 12, but there's 12 things that he lays out that are the composite of a charismatic speech. But for your leaders, they are things like, and this is an important one because today there's a huge trend towards storytelling. And storytelling is charismatic, but it is not the be-all and end-all. And in fact, a lot of times stories take longer to tell. They are harder to remember. But one of the things that's really amazing, and I'm obsessed with this too, there's a book I'm reading on it over there, metaphor. We think in metaphor. Metaphors are things we carry with us and are— now that I know about metaphor, I see them everywhere. In the book that I'm reading now, it's, I think it's called Metaphors We Live By. Who talks about how we think up is good. And, and a lot of that has to do with height and the fact that bigger people were able to overpower smaller people. And so then the economy is up, I'm feeling up, things are looking up, and all of this stuff. So we think in metaphor. So as a leader, rather than trying to come up with stories, try to think about metaphors for the thing that you are doing. So that's one. Lists of 3 are also very charismatic. Rhetorical questions are very charismatic. Tone of voice is a huge one. And I know that you'll love that, Susan, because you're into music and tone. Yeah. But tone of voice is so important because, you know, when people come to me and they wanna be more charismatic, they often wanna focus on body language and facial expressions, but those can be faked. And there's a study out of Yale that shows that you can't fake your tone of voice and that your tone of voice tells people more about your emotional state than your body language and your facial expressions combined. So tone of voice is a huge one that we can dive into. And then there's, there's the ability to set a high goal and to believe that the people that you lead can reach that goal. And those are some of the 12 that are actionable things that the leaders listening can do to be more charismatic.

So tell me a little bit more, because these are topics Let's take tone of voice. What are the thing— what is the thing I need to do? Or how do I even know if my tone of voice is charismatic or not?

The way that you know whether you're charismatic is, are people doing what you want them to do? Right? Because that's like, char— charisma is the ability to change outcomes. It's the ability to persuade and influence in such a way that people want to do the things that you want them to do. So that first piece, compassion, is seeing from their perspective and then thinking about where is my goal in line with their goals so that they do want to do what you want them to do. But then tone of voice, you know, you can often tell your tone of voice is reflective of your energy. So I always know when I'm getting on calls, if I'm like in a bad mood or I'm right before the call, I was struggling with, which is what I've been struggling with lately, something in the Google Workspace, right? That, that my tone of voice can reflect that. And so your job as a leader, the best way to change your tone of voice is to change your belief in the moment because your belief impacts your energy and your energy impacts your tone of voice. They are one and the same. And so if you're believing that you're never gonna get this thing done, your energy is going to be discouraged, down, frustrated, angry, confused, and then you are never gonna get this thing done. But if you can get yourself to a belief and you, you know, you can't gaslight yourself, so you're not gonna be like, oh, this is a done deal. But we're going to figure out the first step today or this week. And if you can really believe that, then your energy might be enthusiasm or hopeful or determined, resolved, all of those things. And that will reflect in your voice.

Yeah.

So as leaders, if you wanna change your tone of voice, you've gotta change your belief.

Yeah. I, uh, belief and also get real clear on what is it that you want them feeling. Um, and if you want them feeling, let's say, energized by a new opportunity, then you've got to get yourself energized by that new opportunity. So you come with that vibrational stance, it will be sent out and received. But if you're not— like, that's the, that's the disingenuous behavior that we see so much, where we can tell leaders are so sort of pontificating one thing, but everything about them is saying something different. And it's that authenticity is just not resonating.

100%. You know, again, with the courtroom, I always knew that you can't prove something that you don't believe, right? Jurors know. If I— and that's why I would never— if there was a case where I felt as though the doctor or the hospital had made a mistake, we might argue it on causation. We might say that, yes, there was a mistake made here, but the damages are not what they want you to believe. But I would never get up there and say the doctor did everything right because the jury would know. People get it, you know? And so you're 100% right. Your belief comes first and then their belief will follow because your energy and your actions will follow your belief.

Yes, absolutely. Well, let's take another one of those. What is an action that a leader could take to improve one of those components that you've highlighted?

I mean, I think the metaphor thing is so important and it's— and it sounds like, um, like you're back in English class, right? Like, oh God, I gotta come for the metaphor. One of the ways I love doing it, and I will tell you, you know, now that I, I had a wit, a doctor who I represented more than once. Now you might think he's a bad doctor. He actually is a phenomenal orthopedic surgeon, very famous in his field. But because of that, he would take some of the high-risk cases. He also performed a lot of surgeries, so statistically he was more likely to be sued. But so I tried more than one case with him, and we won every one, and the jurors loved him. And in retrospect, I think about the way he would testify and he would talk about, you know, the knee joint being like tires and the tread wears down after a while and, you know, it can no longer do its job. And so he was always talking in metaphor. And so to just think about what metaphors can you use and the way to begin for every leader out there, the question you ask yourself is, what's this like? What's it like? And then just start brainstorming about it. What's it like? You know, or use AI.

Honestly, you can describe what it is and ask AI for metaphor examples and start to think, oh yeah, this could, this could work. This could really resonate.

You can, although it's funny because AI, this is something it's not as good at as humans are yet. It will get better. But it's funny because I have a metaphor that I'm using in, in some of my work with, um, lawyers.. And I put it into AI and it gave me a terrible one. I was like, what am I, what are some other options? And it gave me ones that I was like, no one's gonna get those. And so it's, it's something that the human brain naturally does, but it's worth, you know, and then just start paying attention to the metaphors in your life. Like we think about time as money and because we do, how do you spend time? You waste time. There's all kinds of metaphors in the way that we think about time. Some cultures don't think about time as money and they treat time differently. Same thing about that up and down thing. And so start looking around for metaphors and then thinking about where can I create a metaphor for my team? And you know, a lot of people use sports metaphors. That's a great way to start, but play with them. Let it be playful. Life is hard. And if you look at this as another thing that you have to do, it's gonna be harder. But if you think about ways to like, okay, what can I play with? This is like on that TV show I watched last night where this person did this thing. It can be playful and it can really be so effective because if you come up with a good one, the entire team will embrace it. They'll repeat it, they'll use it, they'll repeat it to people outside of the organization. It can really have legs.

Yeah, absolutely. I know you didn't mention all 12, but I'm curious, is being playful or playfulness part of that list?

You know, it's not, but energy is. Energy is part of the list. And so we, you know, with a playful energy, can certainly be helpful as a leader. I think that a leadership, a leader's energy depends on the context. You know, there are some times where a leader has to be resolved and resolute. There are other times when a leader has to be serious, but it is really important that a leader is willing to be playful because it is, you know, work is a big part of our lives and if there's no fun there, people won't stay for long.

Well, and people don't see the link between fun and creativity, because if you want your team to be innovative and coming, it's got to feel like there is an opportunity to play.

Absolutely. Completely. It's where that innovation happens, right, is when you are playing. It's like creativity doesn't happen without play.

Yeah, absolutely. So what else have you seen that has been transformational in a leader going from maybe who wasn't the most charismatic to charismatic? What did they do differently that made that shift possible?

I think so much of the work, the way that I talk about it is you've got your outer jury. That's the lead people you lead, their clients, your customers, your board if you're a leader. And then you've got your inner jury, which is the part of you that decides what to believe. And I like to talk about it in terms of your jury isn't there to judge you or hold or punish you. Your jury is there to listen to both sides and choose what to believe. And you have got to feed your inner jury a positive story because too often the only story that your inner jury is hearing is the negative story. And so you've got to feed yourself, you are capable, you are worthy, and then collect and create evidence to support that story so that you at least have a choice. Because otherwise you are just gonna believe the negative time and time again, and it's gonna be really hard to motivate your team to make a change, take an action, if you are in a place of disbelief or believing the negative. And so collecting and creating the evidence is something that I talk to people a lot about as well, because evidence is everything, right? You can't prove something without evidence. And so we talk about collecting it, which is looking in your life or Googling someone who has done the thing you wanna do. And then creating it by going out and actually taking steps to do that thing to prove to yourself that you can do that thing.

Yeah. Because where your attention goes, you will collect evidence that will support that. I mean, gosh, I've seen it so many times with so many leaders. So think about some of those, that negative internal talk that's going on. Then you continue to collect evidence that supports that. But we're not looking in the places that is the opposite.

You know, one of the things that I was— again, a major benefit of my work, I didn't get to choose my cases. If I had been on the other side, people would come in and I'd say, no, that's not a case, this is a case, I don't want to take that case. For me, on the defense side, the insurance companies would just send us cases. And so I had to look at the case and figure out, okay, where can I make a case here? And so you've gotta do the same thing. It might look like this is a loser, right? This, this thing, this innovation I wanna do, this change that I wanna make, but you've got to pretend like you've been given the case that it's a winner. So go out there and collect and create evidence that it is. And you may find that it is ultimately not the, not the road you want to follow, but you've got to, you've got to at least try to make the case. And a lot of times when you do, momentum will start to pick up and you'll start to really build that belief.

Yeah, that is something that even though I didn't practice law was a foundation of how law school really teaches you to shift perspective, to take different perspectives, to look and see like one viewpoint has these set of facts, but a different viewpoint might have these set of facts and how fundamental that is to us as human beings.

So it really is. And so many people don't want to do it these days because we're so divided. But it really makes you better all around and all.

Definitely. Definitely. So what's one thing that leaders could do tomorrow that you think would be most important towards the shift of compassionate charisma?

It— this is really important, and I think it's undervalued and undertalked about. One of the 12 things is belief that your people, your followers, can do the thing you want them to do. Belief that they can reach that high and mighty goal and communicating that belief to them. And it reminds me in the courtroom, the jury, a lot of times lawyers will come back after jury selection and say, oh my gosh, we got a terrible jury, or, oh my God, I hate our jury. And the jury feels that, right? And it's just not effective. It's not an effective energy at all. Same thing with a leader. You've got to believe in your team and you've got to communicate that belief. I'm friendly with a leader who was telling me that he used to say to his team, you know, this is a hard thing that we're gonna do, but you guys are just the people to do it. And I, I am not worried because I know that this team together will, and I'm like, oh my God, you're so charismatic. And of course he is. Yeah. But he's in large part because he was naturally doing what Dr. Antonakis talks about, which is believing in your people and communicating that belief. It gets them so fired up. To go and reach that high and mighty goal.

Yes. And as a leader, you might want to tap into when you were in grade school, didn't you have— there was one teacher somewhere along the line, or maybe a mentor who believed in you, right? And so think about the messaging that you got from this individual. I mean, hopefully you had one, someone out there, um, and that's the type of person you need to be for your people.

Such a good metaphor. It's exactly right. It's exactly right. That teacher, that teacher metaphor, because everybody has one in their head.

Yeah.

And that is, that is who you wanna be. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Where can people learn more about you and your work?

Well, this is such a pleasure. I have a new website that is really focused on the healthcare piece, but there is a tab for my speaking and my leadership work, and it's the H Hanson Group is the name of the website. So H Hanson Group. Hansen with an E-N Group, and you'll find all of my offerings there.

Awesome, Heather, thank you. And if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Natalie Nixon, who helps us discover why creativity, not control, is the next frontier of leadership.

Let's lead the way.

Hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of The Enlightened Executive.