Published on: October 2, 2026 at 11:30 am
Love him or hate him, you have to concede that U.S. President Donald Trump has a quality that most successful politicians share—charisma, which he uses to get people to do what he wants them to do.
According to Academy of Management Scholar Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management, who moderated the panel “The Framers of 1776 vs. The Nation’s Leadership In 2026; Is the Vision Now Vivid or Blurred?” at the 2026 AOM Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Trump can be extremely charming when you spend time with him in person—especially if he wants something from you. He coauthored the book Trump’s Ten Commandments: Strategic Lessons from the Trump Leadership Toolbox with Steven Tian, also of Yale.
“Trump can obviously be grandiose, and he rubs many people the wrong way, but there are also some other unexpected qualities, the most noteworthy of which is how he can charm people.” Sonnenfeld said, “I took a left-of-center political scientist from Yale to meet with him once, and he walked out thinking, ‘Wow, he’s so curious; he really wanted to learn everything I know about gerrymandering—I guess he wants to reform it.’
“I said, ‘No, he didn’t know anything about it—he’s ignorant in a lot of things, but it’s wrong to call him stupid, because he knows what questions to ask, and you just informed him about it,’” he said. “He’s very curious about something that can be expedient and useful to him, and you’ve now filled him in on gerrymandering, but not because he wants to reform it.
“Soon after, Trump called on Texas officials to gerrymander to give Republican candidates an edge in the midterm elections.”
