Executive Presence
Succeeding in today's competitive business environment requires performance-driven individuals to display skills on a multitude of levels — academic excellence, business experience, endearing engagement abilities, exceptional communication skills and a vision that inspires an organisation to achieve its strategic objectives.
The combination of these attributes is often referred to as 'the X-factor'. In business we call it Executive Presence.
What is Executive Presence
Executive Presence refers to those people who walk into a room and everyone turns to look at them; when they speak, people listen, and when they lead, others follow. They command authority, exude energy that is magnetic and possess charisma that is captivating. Their appearance is impeccable and they present themselves with confident composure, perfect poise and an exceptional ability to develop relationships of trust.
Executive Presence is not a title one awards oneself. It is an honorary accolade bestowed upon us by colleagues, contemporaries and constituents — earned over years of developing professional credibility, sharing mutual respect, displaying empathy and encouraging the empowerment of those around us.
Executive Presence has two fundamental elements: how we feel about ourselves, and how others feel about us.
Can presence be developed?
Executive Presence is the art of identifying and developing the seemingly intangible attributes that highly successful people display. It is often debated whether one is born with presence. Truth be told, presence is a complex combination of characteristics, attributes and behaviours that can be developed with purposeful practice.
There is no single blueprint. Every professional looking to exude presence has different skill sets, strengths and weaknesses — and only once the work begins with an Executive Presence coach can the key development areas be identified and the process of improvement start.
Delivered in person or virtually, and structured around your requirements.
Key development areas
Methodology
Executive Presence is not about becoming louder, more charismatic or more polished. It is about strengthening the qualities that determine how a leader is perceived, heard, trusted and remembered.
Project confidence without arrogance and remain composed when pressure is high.
Build authentic human connection and make people feel part of the conversation.
Demonstrate knowledge and authority without overwhelming audiences with information.
Ensure your words, behaviour and delivery reinforce trust in both you and your message.
Turn complex information into clear, compelling messages people understand and remember.
Develop authentic personal impact without trying to become somebody you're not.
Executive Presence isn't about changing who you are.
It's about strengthening how effectively who you are comes across.
Nine practical tools
"You are the hero of your own story." Executive Presence is an art — deeply personal, refined and mastered over time through experimentation, failure and repeated execution.
Never walk into a room doubting your own worth. Prepare a perspective built on your own hard-won experience, then walk in knowing you are an asset.
A strong message can be undone by poor body language. Poise, posture, movement and genuine eye contact engender trust.
Cut the preamble. Listen for key words, consider your objective and say considerably less than you think you need to.
Deep, deliberate breathing before and during a presentation releases tension, steadies the mind and increases poise.
A well-chosen pause gives the audience time to absorb your message — and gives you authority instead of urgency.
Powerful communication is never one-sided. Ask, gather feedback, read the room and respond to what you see.
Professional distance earns respect. Stay open to constructive feedback and let the rest go.
Leaders who take themselves too seriously are taken less seriously. Well-placed humour diffuses tension and signals confidence.
Colour, body style and personal style, worn with pride. It is how you wear something, not what you wear, that carries authority.
Executive Presence
Every executive and professional speaker I have had the privilege of working with have had two challenges in common:
They have too much information to share and too little time to share it. This results in a plethora of crammed bullet points on slides that intellectually overwhelm the speaker and cause the audience to die a miserable death by PowerPoint.
There are very few people who wake up in the morning excited to deliver a presentation. Fear of failure is a natural human tendency that triggers a rush of adrenalin into the body that results in shaking, stammering, sweating and forgetting.
If you suffer with either or both of these tendencies — welcome to the world of being human. There's nothing wrong with you, every reaction you're having is absolutely natural. And believe it or not, I know the feeling only too well, I suffered with the same for many years. My aim is to work with professionals to overcome both of these obstacles. The answer lies in finding the purpose of the presentation and preparing it in such a way that it's easy for the speaker to deliver and enjoyable for the audience to receive.
What the work covers