This week in the world’s #1 newsletter on leadership communication:

• How to Create an Aura
• On the Show: 10 Moves to Stand Out Without Looking Like an Egomaniac
• Book Recommendation: How to Lead Without Losing Yourself

How to Create an Aura

Hi Reader,

"There are people who, when you meet them, you just know. Just the demeanor lets you know that this person is onto some other shit."

That's hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash. (I managed to snatch a signed copy of his book at London’s Rough Trade record store)

You've met people like that. They walk in and the room changes before they've said a word.

We call it aura. Last week I went down the rabbit hole on it. What is it? Is it the same as charisma? And most importantly: can you create aura?

Turns out the idea is old. Very old.

In art, aura is often shown as a halo. Greek art showed the sun god Helios with a crown of rays. Buddhist art has shown the Buddha with a halo since at least the 1st century AD.

Christian art adopted the halo in the 4th century, first for Christ, later for the saints. Persian kings were said to carry khvarenah, a radiant divine glory. And the Statue of Liberty's crown of rays goes back to Helios.

Different cultures, same intuition: some people radiate energy.

The word aura itself comes from the Greek for "breeze". You can't see it, but you feel it the moment it touches you.

So is aura the same as rizz aka charisma? Not quite. Charisma comes from the Greek for "gift of grace", and it describes how people are drawn to you. Aura describes what happens to the room when you're in it.

Most people mirror the energy in the room. People with aura create it.

Most people’s energy is flat when the room is flat, and nervous when the room is nervous.

But people with aura don't adapt to the room. When the team is tired, they lift it up. When the room is nervous, they calm it down. When everyone is panicking, they create confidence in the solution.

Researchers have studied what's going on underneath: mood contagion.

In four studies, Joyce Bono and Remus Ilies found that when leaders expressed positive emotions, their followers' mood rose with them. Followers also rated those leaders as more effective.

What that means is that as a leader, your mood becomes the room's mood.

Most people are thermometers. They measure the temperature in the room and take it on. People with aura are thermostats. They set the temperature.

Here's how you create aura:

1/ Read

Start like a thermometer. How does the room feel? Tired? Tense? Distracted? One word is enough.

2/ Rise

This is the hard part: When the room is nervous, you get nervous too. That's biology. So don't let the reading become your state. Take one breath and ask yourself: "What does this room need from me right now?" Then rise above the mood in the room.

3/ Radiate

Now you become the thermostat. Decide on the temperature and go first. Use body language and your voice.

Flat room? Lift your pace and power: "Let's take this decision in the next 15 minutes." Panicking room? Slow down and give direction: "Here's what we know. Here's what we'll do next."

One word of caution: aura isn't forced cheerfulness. Smile while the building is on fire will backfire. Positive doesn't mean happy. It means confident about the way forward.

Grandmaster Flash is right, you just know. While nobody is born with a halo, you now know how to create an aura.

Why don’t you try it and share with me how it went? I read every reply.

⬇️ Creating an aura is move 10 in my new video on breaking the frame.

ON THE SHOW

10 Moves to Stand Out Without Looking Like an Egomaniac

▶️ Episode 349 on YouTube, Spotify or Apple.

Harsh truth: good boys and girls don’t make it to the top.

Playing it safe feels comfortable. But it keeps you invisible – and in the age of AI job losses, invisible is vulnerable.

That's why it's worth asking ourselves what sets us apart from others. Specifically, what is one big thing we do differently this year?

In this week’s short video, I break down 10 ways to break the frame without coming across as an ego-driven maniac. You can use every one of them today.

One of my favorites is to give time back. Everyone runs meetings to the last minute. Try this instead: “We’ve scheduled an hour, but I think we can decide this in 20 minutes. Shall we try?” Nobody expects it, and everyone remembers who gave them 40 minutes back.

Number 6 on the list may surprise you: you don’t have to accept the premise of a tough question. When someone asks “Why did your team miss the target?”, step back and reframe it, and you’re out of the defensive position.

Ah, and I also talk about why I sometimes show up in colorful shirts (and what your version of that might be), and why it’s a good idea to ditch that headset.

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BOOK RECOMMENDATION

How to Lead Without Losing Yourself

Peter Sorgenfrei built six businesses on two continents at breakneck speed. Until his body refused to cooperate. (You can listen to my conversation with Peter on Speak Like a CEO.)

“Not because the work itself was energizing or draining,” he writes, “but because I had been running a system designed for crisis mode as if it were a sustainable operating model.”

The problem wasn’t the work. It was the system.

That’s the core of The Whole Human Leader. After his burnout, my friend Peter decided to pass on the lessons he learned the brutal way and started to coach CEOs in over a dozen countries. And now, he published the best guide I know to integrating life and work.

The key word is integrating, not balancing. (I’ve always found work-life balance a strange idea. It suggests your work isn’t part of your life and that you’d rather be somewhere else:)

Peter’s Whole Human Framework asks four questions:

1/ Personal Sustainability: Do your days give you more energy than they take?

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2/ Relational Intelligence: Can you be present with someone without trying to fix them?

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3/ Team Synergy: Does your team thrive when you’re not in the room?

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4/ Systemic Impact: What do your habits signal to everyone around you? (If you send emails at 11 p.m., you’re telling your team what’s expected.)

You can’t tick them off one by one because they are all connected: “When you attend to personal sustainability while neglecting relational intelligence, you end up fit and lonely.”

He also names something I see in many of the leaders I coach: complexity burnout. It rarely comes from one big crisis. It comes from too many impossible tasks landing at the same time.

If you worry that crisis mode has become your operating model, this book is for you.

And because I listen to Peter, there will be no newsletter next week. I will enjoy some Winter sun and underwater wildlife with my wife. There won’t even be a laptop nearby.

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Have an inspired weekend,

Oliver

Eo Ipso Communications GmbH

c/o Mindspace

Uhlandstraße 32, 10719 Berlin

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