Is Charisma An API?
By Katie Anderson, Chief Editor, Pharmaceutical Online
Charisma seems like an odd topic to talk about in pharmaceutical manufacturing, but what if I told you that thinking about your charisma could get your drugs produced faster?
After nearly 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry, Samir Shah, director of regulatory CMC for medical products and combination products at AstraZeneca, knows how beneficial charisma can be for the pharmaceutical professional. That’s why he presented the topic at the 2025 RAPS Convergence.
Pharmaceutical development and manufacturing cannot be accomplished in silos. It takes a village of experts, all of which have to communicate effectively to get the job done better and more efficiently.
“Charisma is important to all pharma professionals because the knowledge base to make a drug is too much for one person. Within each function, we are interdependent on other departments, often with people who have different expertise, priorities, and perspectives from us, and charisma helps build that trust and bridges those gaps for all of us to work together,” explained Shah.
What is Charisma?
If you ask someone for their definition of charisma, they most often will respond with something related to magnetism. It is often associated with a certain charm that draws others toward you, whether personally or professionally. Charisma, though, is also about leadership style. Merriam-Webster calls it “a personal magic of leadership.”
In his presentation at RAPS, Shah defined charisma as the combination of competence and warmth, sourced from one of his favorite experts on the subject, Vanessa Edwards.
Shah explained, “The answer is found in two universal signals: warmth and competence. Research tells us that people judge us—instinctively and instantly—on these two qualities, often before we’ve even said a word. When we assess someone for warmth, we’re asking, can I trust you? When we assess someone for competence, we’re asking, can I rely on you.”
Indeed, one draws in others because of their knowledge and professionalism, while the other draws in others because of their charm. Shah explained that one without the other would not complete the picture.
The warmth element of charisma is particularly important for pharma professionals, according to Shah. “The warmth element of charisma builds a genuine relationship while getting things done in an often fast-paced environment. For all pharmaceutical professionals, charisma inspires trust, motivates action, and therefore, helps drive projects forward, towards treatments to patients sooner,” he noted.
For example, communication is a vital element in tech transfer from R&D to clinical supply; between CMC, regulatory, and quality control in the manufacturing environment; and between CMC to any manufacturing outsource partners. These are just a few examples of vital communication relationships in pharma devepment, but imagine how poor communication skills can impact their outcomes.
“The most charismatic, influential professionals are those who know how to signal both. If you show too much warmth, you may be seen as trustworthy, but not powerful; friendly, but not impressive. If you show too much competence, you are seen as smart, but not approachable; dependable, but not always collaborative. And when you are charismatic, when you showcase your warmth, then they believe in your competence – you have the great idea, and you get buy-in,” added Shah, paraphrasing from Edward’s book Cues.
Shah dove in deeper, explaining the cues for each that you can use in a professional capacity.
Show Those Palms
Charisma can be shown both in person and through digital communication, and Shah emphasized the different best practices in each.
It is all about non-verbal language, a.k.a. body language, when it comes to in-person charisma. Charisma cues can include leaning toward the person or people addressed.
“Believe it or not, leaning in is one of the fastest ways to look interested, to look engaged, and feel it too! You can do this in-person, and you can do this on a video call –people pick it up,” noted Shah with reference from Edward’s book.
It also involves fronting, which is quite literally aligning yourself with your audience. Shah had the audience partner in threes where one person presented an issue during manufacturing with charisma cues and then without, noting the difference in interaction.
Shah furthered (referencing Edwards’ book), “[Fronting] is where you angle your toes, your torso, and your top towards the person you are speaking with. It’s very hard to feel like you are connected with someone if you are not physically aligned with them. When your top, torso, and toes are pointing at each other, it helps for feeling like you are on the same page.”
In-person charisma also includes space smarts with the audience and purposeful eye contact. Warmth cues can include nodding to the other person’s statements and tilting toward them, whereas competence cues involve gestures such as flashing your palms or “the steeple” gesture. Shah showed images of several influential, charismatic leaders employing these same gestures.
Conversely, off-putting cues could include maintaining your distance, self-soothing, and blocking.
Digital Charisma
Charisma is not just shown in person, it is also felt (or not) through digital communication.
“Today, less and less of our communication is in-person. We e-mail, we Teams message, we text, and we don’t see the instant facial expressions, tones of voice, and gestures --the cues, that communicate the warmth, that help drive clarity and engagement, or act as behavior curbs. And what we do see, digitally, is often delayed. Digital channels can strip away nuance or misrepresent intent, there’s a time delay. Even video calls don’t have all the cues that we have in-person. So, we have to be intentional about the cues we send with digital communication,” noted Shah, referencing Digital Body Language by Erica Dhawan. Shah offered four helpful tips to communicate charisma in digital interactions:
- Brevity: Though you certainly don’t want to drone on and on, you must be clear in your messages to others. Making them too brief can create anxiety in others. Similarly, short responses can communicate the wrong tone.
- Coded Language: We are certainly all guilty of it, but some common lead phrases can misrepresent your tone. Shah gave a few examples, including: “per my last e-mail, there’s been a miscommunication, I know you’re really busy, and bumping this to the top of your inbox.” While these phrases may be harmlessly included in an e-mail, they can offend the recipient and affect your response from them or relationship with them.
- Response Time: A relatively quick response time is important. Taking too long to respond to a message communicates that you are not interested.
- Formality: It is important to maintain formality in new communication. Though more informal communication can be used later, the formality must match the person with higher seniority.
To communicate tone, Shah recommended employing emojis and punctuation such as ellipses or exclamation points. During the in-person exercise, one of the participants was to send the other an e-mail with charisma cues they learned during the exercise. At the end of the exercise, they revisited that e-mail to evaluate their digital charisma cues.
Better Business Communication
We’ve got a million things on our plate, so considering a new approach to communication may seem overwhelming. However, changing just a few habits can improve your in-person and digital charisma, leading to better business communication and more fruitful interactions.