The Competence / Charisma Quotient

I was attending a continuing education class the other day on legal ethics, and one of our presenters offered an interesting insight.  This presenter was the Chief Deputy Regulation Counsel for the Colorado Supreme Court -- or in other words, one of the higher-ups who "regulates" when a lawyer does something wrong.  She stated that the attorneys they deal with on a regular basis are invariably those attorneys who have difficult personalities.  She went on to state that a very incompetent, but very personable attorney will have far fewer greivances than a very competent, but impersonable attorney, and regular communication with clients is just as important as the work you are doing for them. 

As soon as the presentation was finished I thought to myself, herein lies a very important truth: charisma is often more important than compentence.  Once that thought occurred countless examples sprung to mind: politicians, business associates, employees, actors, etc.

From this thought came introspection:  What does my charisma to competence quotient stack up? If you were to rank charisma from one to ten (ten being the highest level of charisman), and competence from ten to one (1 being the complete competence), this quotient could actually be given a empirical value.  For example, if I ranked myself a 5 in charisma and a 3 in competence my quotient would be 5 / 3.  I'm not sure this is helpful other than to demostrate the functional relationship between the two qualities and to perhaps compare quotients between individuals.  Nevertheless, some interesting thinking.

Comments

[Claire]

Ryan, I definitely agree with your thoughts on this. Not that I am the most charismatic of people but I've been throught the job interview ringer a bunch and I think I know how to work an interview at this point, but I always wonder if they realize how little I know (knew) about my job field. I know there are people who know way more than I do about accounting and could do a much better job, but if someone else is more charismatic in the interview, goodbye to the better qualified person. I'm sure this isn't always the case but it sure is interesting. Good point you brought up.