Away of developing and improving embodied leadership…

Digest Two: What is presence?

Many think of presence as the ability to command the attention of others.  But “commanding attention” is only one outcome of presence, not its essence or even its most valuable outcome.

I prefer to think of presence in a different and deeper way.  For me, presence is the ability to connect authentically with the thoughts and feelings of others. Most people think you are born with presence, or without it, or that circumstances lead you, if you’re lucky, to develop it at an early age.  And if the right circumstance never quite align?  Well, too bad.

Fortunately, that’s not the case.  Presence is the result of certain ongoing choices you make, actions you take or fail to take.  In fact, presence is a set of skills, both internal and external, that virtually anyone can develop and improve.  However, when I say anyone can improve his or her presence, I don’t mean it’s an easy task.  It requires you to give up habitual patterns of behaviour that you maintain because they make you feel safe.  Developing presence will require you to go places and do things that feel uncomfortable, at least initially.  Given that hurdle, I am absolutely convinced anyone can develop his or her presence.  Just recently, working with a group of ladies from Athena Network the day focused on developing their unique presence which looked at:

Presence – projecting a sense of ease.  Enablers and unablers – understand your drivers and barriers.  Reality – be aware of self and environment.  Voice – direct your unique voice.  Energy – manage your personal power and capacity.  Congruency – balance your thinking, emotions, voice and body language.  Text – know your script.

More than skin deep…

For me presence comes from within.  It begins with an inner state, which leads to a series of external behaviours.  In relation to the key elements outlined above each one has an internal aspect – which has to do with the intention – the heart upon which the external aspect – the skills/behaviours are developed.  Sure, you can put on the behaviours, but by themselves they’ll lack something essential.  They’ll be hollow noises and nothing else.  We’ve all heard politicians say, “I feel your pain,” when we know they’re simply saying what they think we want to hear.  Compare that to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, which obviously sprang from his deeply held beliefs and motivated a generation to overturn four hundred years of assumptions and behaviours.

So it’s all about making a better impression?

Yes being impressive is part of it.  But to be truthfully impressive you need to embrace presence entirely, because in my experience others who work on these concepts pay too much attention to impressions, but true presence goes far beyond such superficialities.

Just because you have won the lead in a play or a leadership title at work doesn’t mean you automatically hold any more sway over your audience or your team.  It is your “performance” in both the theatrical sense and the organisational sense that will grant you the authority the title or role implies.  The presence you bring to your role – how you show up, how you connect, how you speak, listen, act – every move you make on the corporate or real stage, combine to create the impact you have.

Coming soon: the link to acting and theatrical performance…