Studies performed by Belgian and American scholars tested personality characteristics in 800 business leaders to find if they are charismatic, and then compared self-evaluations of their effectiveness with their peers’ evaluations of their effectiveness. The study defined charismatic based on high scores for bold, colorful, mischievous and imaginative personality tendencies as judged by the Hogan Development Survey.
The study found less charismatic leaders underestimated how effective they were compared to how they were perceived by their peers until the 80th percentile of charismatic leaders, at which point the more charismatic people overestimated how effective they were compared to peer evaluations.
Authors of the study attribute this perceived difference in effectiveness, which may not reflect actual effectiveness, to the costs of being highly charismatic. At a certain point, the costs of high levels of charisma may outweigh its benefits. Highly charismatic leaders are often very ambitious, but this may come at the cost of operational behavior and day-to-day activities, which can hurt their perceived sense of effectiveness.
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