Now don't take this as anything definitive, but I had a look through the astrodatabank and looked up some famous leaders who I definitely know were/are extremely charismatic, mainly because history books/news articles talk about their personal charisma all the time. The vast majority of the people in the databank are movie/pop stars so I didn't have many to work with, but I got a sample of 5: Tony Blair, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Hitler and Reagan. The sample is far too small to make any definite conclusions about, but I thought it would be interesting anyhow. Note I'm skipping minor aspects like the inconjunct and semi-sextile.
This idea came to me when I was casually looking at Hitler's chart and Gandhi's and I thought, hmmm, there's something similar here. So I thought I would go through and test the idea more thoroughly just in case it was a coincidence. The similarity is contact between the luminaries and Jupiter.
3 of the 5 above charismatic leaders have some contact between the Sun and Jupiter - the Dalai Lama has a trine, Hitler has a trine and Reagan has a square. For Blair, the Sun and Jupiter are in the same sign and house but you would need a 14 degree orb for a conjunction. Jupiter is however 5 degree away from Blair's Gemini ascendant.
4 out of 5 of the above charismatic leaders have a contact between the Moon and Jupiter. Once again Blair is the odd one out. The Dalai Lama has a sextile, Gandhi has a square, Hitler has a conjunction and Reagan has an opposition.
There doesn't seem to be any pattern about the sign of the ascendant.
For Venus, 4 out of 5 had Venus in front of their Sun (the exception being once again Blair). For Mercury 4 out of 5 had Mercury behind their Sun (except Gandhi this time). The only one with either Mercury or Venus retrograde is Hitler who has Venus retrograde.
In terms of aspects to Venus, there is a variety of different ones as you can imagine. However 4 out of the 5 have one particular Venus aspect in common - that is, Venus and Mars (2 conjunctions, 2 sextiles). The exception is the Dalai Lama (well good thing he is a celibate Buddhist monk...).
I checked the luminaries and Pluto since Pluto gets mentioned a lot. Unfortunately I see little sign of a Pluto influence. Only 1 out of 5 had the Sun aspecting Pluto (Blair with a square). Only Gandhi had the Moon aspecting Pluto (square). None of the group had Pluto rising. Only one had Pluto in the 1st house at all though not conjunct the ascendant or even the closest sign in the 1st house to the ascendant (the Dalai Lama) and only one had Pluto aspecting the ascendant (Reagan, square with a 4 degree orb). I don't see evidence of Pluto playing much of a role at all.
Hmmm. I guess another problem with what I'm doing here is what I am finding is not necessarily related to charisma but to other qualities that made them famous leaders but oh well.
Some information on charisma from wikipedia:
Despite the strong emotions they so often induce in others, charismatic individuals generally project unusual calmness, confidence, assertiveness, dominance, authenticity, and focus, and almost always possess superb communication and/or oratorical skills. To the early Greeks, charisma was said to be "a divine favor/gift" or "gift of grace," implying that this 'divine quality' was an inborn trait; in modern times, however, many believe it can be taught and/or learned, despite the persistent inability to accurately define or even fully understand the concept. Others disagree with this assertion and still maintain that it is an inborn trait and that it cannot be either learned, taught, or 'gained.'
The German sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority to be one of three forms of authority, the other two being traditional (feudal) authority and legal or rational authority. According to Weber, charisma is defined thus:
a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which s/he is "set apart" from ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These as such are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as divine in origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.[2]
Charisma has also been studied as a set of behaviors/traits; for example, a modern psychological approach posits that charisma is basically aggregative, a conglomeration of distinct personality traits that meld well in certain individuals to form the broad quality known as charisma or "personal magnetism."
Theatrically, charisma can sometimes be "performed" on-stage and in films, and is encapsulated in both verbal and non-verbal communication.
Professor Richard Wiseman says that a charismatic person has three attributes:
1. they feel emotions themselves quite strongly;
2. they induce them in others;
3. and they are impervious to the influences of other charismatic people.
Oh yeah, I found some charts for some other famous leaders who were well known for being charismatic. So how do they fit in with the above stuff already observed?
Napoleon Bonaparte:
http://www.kozmikhoroscopes.com/napoleon.htm
Sun squares Jupiter
Mercury behind the Sun, but Venus is also behind the sun, neither retrograde
Venus Mars sextile
no link between Pluto and luminaries or ascendant
JFK:
http://www.kozmikhoroscopes.com/kennedy.htm
Moon trine Jupiter
Mercury behind, Venus in Front, neither retrograde
no aspect between Venus and Mars (they're in the same house!)
no aspect between Pluto and the luminaries or ascendant
Martin Luther King:
http://www.kozmikhoroscopes.com/king.htm
Sun square Jupiter
Both Mercury and Venus ahead of Sun, neither retrograde
no aspect between Venus and Mars
Pluto aspects both Sun and Moon
George Washington:
http://members.tripod.com/tra_nations/1p_washington.htm
No aspect between Luminaries and Jupiter (well if you want to use a 9 degree orb you can get a Moon square Jupiter)
Venus in front of Sun and Mercury behind, neither retrograde
Venus trine Mars
Moon square Pluto
Bill Clinton
http://members.tripod.com/tra_nations/1p_clinton.htm
Sun sextile Jupiter
Mercury behind, Venus in front, neither retrograde
Mars conjunct Venus (with a 5 degree orb)
Pluto square Moon
Steve Jobs (how can I leave out the man who is described as having as having his own reality distortion field?)
http://www.astrodatabank.com/NM/JobsSteve.htm
Sun SESQUIQUADRATE Jupiter (since I'm counting the sextile, I guess the semi-square and sesquiquadrate are OK too since I think they are the same strength as the sextile?)
Both Mercury and Venus behind the Sun. Mercury is retrograde.
No aspect between Venus and Mars
Pluto trine Moon
Richard Branson
http://www.kozmikhoroscopes.com/branson.htm
Moon opposes Jupiter
Mercury in front and Venus behind, neither retrograde
Venus trine Mars
No aspect between Pluto and luminaries but Pluto conjunct Asc
So out of 12 charismatic leaders, you have 10 (11 if you count Washington with the 9 degree orb) who have at least one contact between a luminary and Jupiter. 8 out of 12 with Venus in front of the Sun. 9 out of 12 with Mercury behind the Sun. There is one Mercury retrograde (Steve Jobs) and only one Venus retrograde (Hitler). 6 out of 12 have an aspect to Pluto from the luminaries (though Branson does have Pluto rising). 8 out of 12 have either a conjunction or soft aspect between Venus and Mars (no hard aspects? Why?).
The strongest signs of charismatic leadership by far seems to be at least one of the luminaries contacting Jupiter and no retrogrades in either Mercury or Venus [actually I'm not sure about this now as I've just realized that 80% of the time Mercury is direct and Venus doesn't retrograde often so it's easily possible that 11 out of 12 people in a random sample would have neither Mercury or Venus retrograde]. Signs of moderate strength seem to be Venus in front of the Sun and Mercury behind, conjunction or soft contact between Venus and Mars. Maybe Pluto contacting a luminary or Pluto rising could be considered a moderate strength indicator too.
For comparison, 8 out of 12 of the above leaders have some contact between the luminaries and Uranus (maybe that has something to do with charisma too?). 4 out of the 12 have some contact between the luminaries and Saturn. Neptune or Venus contacts to the luminaries occur about half the time or less (can't remember exactly how many) so I don't think they are that important either. So it really does seem as if contact between luminaries and Jupiter and lack of retrogrades in Mercury and Venus are important. Oh and all of them seem to have the Sun in the top half of the chart except for the Dalai Lama (1st house) and Steve Jobs (6th house).