Your Authentic Presence

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We’ve wrapped up the research for our fifth book! Through interviews, focus groups and surveys, we’ve talked to hundreds of people who shared a current perspective about presence in today’s corporate setting.

Over 50% of respondents are working in companies with over 1,500 employees, and the majority of them are between 36-55 years old. The group was split between people who have experienced us in the last three years, people who experienced us more than three years ago, and 30% who have never worked with us at all.

And the unanimous perspective across all the inputs is…presence hasn’t gone away.

In fact, two in three respondents believe presence has grown in importance over the past five years.

Most of the people who gave input used the pandemic as an inflection point of change. It shifted how we work, it put looking out for people first and foremost, and it required all of us to see each other in a more holistic way.

Corporate norms changed, rules softened and guardrails widened. We began meetings by asking people if they were OK. We experienced our colleagues in vulnerable moments. Communication was often vulnerable and honest. And even though it’s a period that we’re glad to have behind us, the openness and vulnerability took hold. And it’s had a real impact on how we think about our expectations of presence.

While the book will provide a broader view of insights and consider the listeners’ perspective from different vantage points inside a company, here’s an overview of four themes we explored and what we learned.

IMPRESSIONS
Presence begins with impressions, and those impressions take shape for any communicator in a similar fashion. The statistics that suggest we can from 11 impressions in seven seconds still support how quickly we take someone in.

• Body Language: 36%
• Listener Engagement: 34%
• Voice Power: 30%

We talk about a communicator’s toolkit as the body, voice and listener, and as groups weighted the importance of each concept, the body was still the larger impression. But not nearly as much of the impression as it was been in the past. It dropped from 55% of an impression to 36%. Listener engagement was 34%, and the voice was 30%.

What’s different is the reduced number of situations where you can make a strong impression or reset a misinterpreted one. In-person meetings bring a strong advantage to a communicator over virtual meetings, and the hybrid meetings with people in a room and online are considered the most difficult to manage. The virtual and hybrid meetings were listed as the most challenging by all participants.

These inputs show up in current coaching sessions, and it’s put a heightened demand on coaching to diffuse impressions or find more intentional ways to set impressions as a virtual communicator.

ATTRIBUTES
The attributes of presence today look very similar to the attributes we began coaching more than thirty years ago. People want communicators to be confident and clear. They like conviction behind thoughts and a communicator who works to pull them into the conversation.

But when asked which group of attributes matter most, listeners are split between confidence and authenticity. And that means it isn’t enough to be confident and commanding from the front of the room. Listeners want less performance and more sincerity. They want a communicator to build trust, not just respect.

This has been building as an expectation, and it’s a hard one for communicators to consider because authenticity, like trust, builds over time not in a single meeting. But this sound bite shared by one listener says it all: Be the same person tomorrow that you are today.

SKEPTICISM
This theme may go hand in hand with what listeners describe as authenticity. There is more skepticism in most audiences and meetings, and it shows up in tougher questions. Listeners want more context with direction, and they want more than an email message as an explanation. In fact, communicators who are live or visible via video are twice as likely to be believed as a written note. “Talk to us frequently, tell us the truth, and admit your mistakes.”

Communicators say that they feel more challenged in settings. When they hit a skeptical listener, they feel defensive and need some guidance on managing through it. For some communicators, it’s getting comfortable with different perspectives in every setting. For others, it’s learning to hear it, acknowledge it and still move people beyond it.

Communicators feel the pressure to gain alignment. As one said: “Hearts and minds are still there as a focus, but the focus on outcomes has intensified.”

PERSONAL BRAND
Our 1:1 interviews went further in exploring how people think about presence related to their personal brand. And that’s what seems to bring authenticity into focus.

Personal brand is authenticity; it’s who you are and what you’re known for. It evolves over time, and if you’ve been intentional about it, it shifts from what you do to what you can do.

As we talked to individuals about their brand and their presence, it resonates that your brand is how people describe you when you’re not in the room. Brands take shape over time. Your presence is the experience of you in each and every moment.

And coaching someone to deliver on all of it is the focus on our fifth book.

Our observation is that people who have invested time in understanding and exemplifying their personal brand find it easier to bring authenticity to their presence. It’s broadened our coaching, and it’s all part of the communicator’s journey to presence.

We’ll share more as the book project continues.

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Also Read: Coming Full Circle: The Future of Executive Presence

 

Coming Full Circle

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If you receive newsletters and mailings from us routinely, then you know that we are well underway with a fifth book to reset our perspective on presence. The book begins with the concept of “coming full circle” and how we’ve evolved our approach to coaching it.

To be honest, I thought we needed to write the book because our concepts were set fifteen years ago through the eyes of communicators in high-profile, business settings. The insights for the first book came from senior leaders who defined the expectations of executive presence based on their experiences. And in today’s setting, that seemed too narrow of a lens.

We’ve redefined leadership in the last decade in terms of who leaders are and what we expect in how they lead. Every meeting is an opportunity for leadership, and every communicator can influence decisions. We’ve evolved work settings and stretched business norms to the point that guardrails seem less certain. And with so much shifting, evolving and resetting, we knew that we needed to understand how expectations of communicators have been impacted by that. Even with thirty years of experience as coaches, we told ourselves to listen and observe.

And we have listened through surveys, interviews and focus groups. We’ve observed virtual settings, in-person meetings and hybrid presentations. But we expanded the lens to not just observe the communicators, but to observe the listeners as well…what they take in and what they take away.

And here’s the bottom line:

Impressions have remained steadfast and universal. No matter who you are, where you’re from or what you do, people have expectations of communicators. And when you speak up, those expectations take shape as impressions. We’ve coached to impressions and expectations for three decades, and we continue to leverage that approach to strengthen your skills. We observe your style, and we note impressions. And almost as if working a puzzle, we focus on the origin of impressions. By helping a communicator adjust impressions of the voice and body, we can improve how someone sees them, hears them, and responds to them. It’s about intentional choices and helping a communicator feel effective to be effective. That all remains true.

But presence has evolved through a broader lens.

When you consider the listeners’ expectations, it’s less about “in this moment” and more about the consistency of impressions “in every moment.” Presence has moved beyond the pressure to show up well in high-visibility moments to the ability to prove out those impressions in every moment.

It started with the pandemic shutdown and the vulnerability we all expressed as people first and then leaders and managers second. Expectations shifted from confident to authentic and today, listeners want both. As we saw all elements reset from that point forward, the concept of presence became intertwined with personal brand.

Today, our research shows that while you might be a great presenter and communicator when the spotlight is on, listeners pay just as much attention to how you communicate in small settings and with all groups. That’s where authenticity and consistency take hold.

The full circle for us has been how we describe presence and coach someone to consider it.

We don’t just explore a communicator’s ability to engage and connect; we start with it. And our focus has evolved from guiding someone to a defined set of impressions to evolving someone from their own sense of authenticity. Those aren’t vastly different in how they’re coached. But they are different in how communicators feel about the journey. As one communicator recently shared: “I get it. It’s less about the performance and more about the impact.”

To us, presence is the convergence of two themes: intention and consistency.

You might think of those as expanding expectations, and in the short term, it’s true. It’s harder to deliver on both. But if you believe your presence is tied to who you are and how you want to influence, you’ll find that the broader lens on presence gets more aligned over time. It’s not a concept you turn on when it’s needed. It’s an impact that you take with you into every setting.

Communication becomes a continuous loop and a set of impressions that get validated over time. Presence is earned by a communicator when listeners feel it’s as much a part of who they are as how they communicate. And that’s how we’ve come full circle. So much so that our workshops start with engagement today and build the elements of presence around that full circle of connection. We start with the listener lens, and we raise the bar on not just presenting well but influencing consistently.

If you haven’t taken a presence workshop or been through a coaching session with us recently, maybe you should come full circle.

More to come in the months ahead as we share excerpts from the book.

We’re on a new journey! And I hope you’ll call us when you need us.

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Also Read: Strengthening the Impact of Leadership Teams

 

Strengthening the Impact of Leadership Teams

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If the focus of our work is any indication of a trend, one priority that we’ve seen across companies is the focus on top leadership. Specifically, on leadership teams. In fact, our work with senior teams has increased threefold. And as different development teams organize these programs, their objective is similar.

“We need to strengthen the consistency and impact of our leaders’ communications.”

Effective communication skills were identified as a strength or an area of improvement by mid-career. Many leaders have been coached, and most are pretty good communicators once they step up to a leadership role. But pretty good isn’t good enough when everything about the success or failure of a leadership team tethers back to communication.

Leadership isn’t just about a good strategy. It’s how effectively you paint the picture of the strategy and get others on board. That takes compelling communication.

Leadership isn’t just about navigating troubled waters. It’s how well you calm the waters and keep others moving forward. That takes compelling communication.

Leadership isn’t just your impact behind closed doors. It’s also your impact in the public eye and whether you’re liked, admired and trusted in high visibility moments. And that takes compelling communication as well.

And while senior leaders have always felt the pressure of impact, three variables have increased the pressure on and the complexity of their communication: Pace, Transparency and Trust.

PACE
Acceleration is a common term in every strategy and playbook. Leaders feel the impact of that increased pace on their ability to align an organization. It takes a while for messaging to take hold. You can say it once and repeat it a second time, but messaging gains buy-in over time as ideas are illustrated and validated. The faster pace of work has shortened the amount of time a leader has to establish buy-in.

Today, communication has to be compelling enough to be repeated by others so that it travels faster within an organization. Leaders have to hit the mark in a more compelling way, and they have to be in sync as a team so that messaging resonates timely and consistently with all audiences.

It isn’t easy. Companies may scale up in January and lay off in June. Messages can be contradictory and confusing because direction shifts and leadership teams aren’t always aligned on how to talk about it. Teams have to anticipate questions and align with each other on responses. We developed a workshop, Owning the Message, specifically focused on helping leaders align on messaging and handle questions and discussion that follows it.

TRANSPARENCY
Transparency is a great aspiration, but it creates risks in execution for leadership teams. When today’s leaders ran departments, they communicated openly and they shared their perspective as well as the company’s perspective. Sometimes, there was a little friction between the two, but leaders would say that’s how they built trust with their teams. Employees counted on them to share the message — and their opinion on it.

For senior teams, that approach is fraught with risk. When employees or external groups hear different views, it sounds like dissention. And it spreads like wildfire. Leaders say their perspective has been overshadowed by their responsibility to the company’s perspective. And some even say they’ve lost their voice in the pressure to align to one voice.

That’s true. Getting a senior team to one voice is more critical and challenging than it’s ever been. We work with teams to understand the impact of one voice and the risks of multiple ones. And we shift their thinking from being transparent to be authentic. Employees would say transparency and authenticity are one and the same. Leaders would say they are miles apart.

Our coaching helps a leadership team find their authentic voice. They can rarely be transparent about what they know until the company is ready to share it. But they can be authentic in how they communicate and present their voice in their communication style. And that’s why we developed, Finding Your Voice as a Leader, to help teams define their leadership brand and their authenticity within that brand.

TRUST
When a senior leader steps up to a new role, they ask: How do I establish trust with this group? And the reality is: over time. You can establish good intent, clarity, warmth, confidence and many other attributes. But trust has to be earned. And that takes time.

Today’s leadership teams struggle with getting to trust quickly. Many have changed the frequency of interaction and the cadence of being together. They don’t have as many opportunities for informal connection. Or they may not reach out to each other enough for input, advice or just commiserating.

Ask any leader how they manage communication as a team, and they will say trust is the added element that helps them align on messaging, consistency and a single voice. It takes time to trust a process and to trust your colleagues to follow it. It’s the most critical variable to work on. In our programs, we focus on building trust and making sure teams are working toward it as part of their contract with each other.

>Download an overview of our Strengthening Leadership Teams programs

Solving for these variables has been the focus of our work in helping current leadership teams strengthen communication. And this year, we’ve added these elements into our leadership programs for tomorrow’s leaders because they will face the same pressures.

Investing in the development of leadership teams is a smart priority. When they work together on challenges of pace and transparency, they build trust. And when leaders trust each other, they communicate as a team and lead companies to great outcomes.

We’re excited about new challenges and opportunities in 2026. And we’re ready to help your teams work together to strengthen the impact of communication.

So, call us when you need us.

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Also Read: Raising the Bar on Your Influence & Impact

 

SELF-REFLECTION: Raising the Bar on Your Influence & Impact

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2026 promises to be a year focused on momentum and outcomes. We see efforts around AI multiplying, and expectations around pace accelerating. In every corporate strategy, we hear transform, pivot, accelerate, and disrupt. Every message is energized like we’re competing in the great race to reach better outcomes and growth.

And it’s why as you set goals for the new year and evaluate individuals and teams, you’d be smart to evaluate yourself as well. Because whether you’re a senior leader, a seasoned manager, or an individual contributor, your ability to influence and impact is dependent on and rooted in the ability to communicate effectively. In fact, as you consider the year ahead, ask yourself what would change if your skills as a communicator shifted from competent to compelling?

Everything!

And that’s why we believe raising the bar on your own skills should be a top priority. Here’s how we evaluate and guide a competent communicator to become a compelling one.

INSIGHTS VS. OUTCOMES

If you’ve worked with SW&A, you know the storyline framework. And we’ve coached you to use insights to shift perspectives and gain alignment with listeners before positioning options and a recommendation. But the blind spot we continue to see is defining value from a listener’s perspective. Some of this comes through in a message, but it’s also about learning how to define value from the perspective of different audiences.

Consider your role in communicating outcomes.

Senior Leaders:
Senior leaders say it’s easiest to align value for internal audiences and harder to position value with external ones. To gain traction beneath outcomes, you’ll have to bring messaging close together for audiences from the inside looking out and outside looking in to buy into results. For many leaders, it’s less about getting it right the first time and more about staying consistent every time.

Raise the bar this year by setting the direction so clearly that you can stay consistent with the big goals as you move through the year. It’s how you avoid confusion with too many redirects and gain believability and memorability to outcomes.

Seasoned Managers:
We describe you as “the mighty middle,” and you will feel it in the year ahead. You sit at the intersection of big goals about where the company is headed and the work required to get there. In every communication, you need to connect the dots between them. If your senior leaders communicate direction effectively, it will sound so clear that the path feels defined. It isn’t. For your team, the path ahead will be full of dead ends and potholes. They will have to reset, restart and sometimes totally turn around. If your communication focuses only on the work of your team, it can feel like they’re floundering when what they’re really doing is resetting against bigger goals.

Raise the bar on yourself by learning to connect specific actions to bigger outcomes. Set a repeatable structure for communicating progress, setbacks and continuous learning so the group feels intention to their efforts.

Individual Contributor:
Whether you’re delivering presentations or collaborating through discussion, connect your thoughts to a bigger picture, whether it’s an overall strategy or work by other team members. Be the communicator who is valued for connecting ideas that help any group move forward. Focus less on talking about why things won’t work. Focus more on ideas to get beyond hurdles.
Raise the bar on how you listen and how you contribute.

COMFORTABLE VS. INVESTED

This is about raising the bar on how people experience you. A lot has changed about how we work and formats we use for communication. But the power of impressions has stayed constant. And your presence is the foundational tool that differentiates you as a communicator. So, what’s the difference between being comfortable versus invested? It comes down to body language. When I see you as comfortable, you seem experienced. When I see you as invested, you seem inspiring.

Consider how your style conveys inspiring.

Senior Leaders:
If you’d say most groups would describe you as comfortable, we’d say you’re relying on years of experience as a communicator. But it isn’t enough because it isn’t about you. It’s about everyone else. And every time you communicate, you need to be motivating enough that listeners will follow you, align with you, and maybe shift how they’re feeling because of you. Your style and presence can erase uncertainty with employees, investors, board members and every other audience you face.

If you’re asking your organization to move mountains, raise the bar on yourself by ensuring you know how to get physically and emotionally invested in every message you deliver.

Seasoned Managers:
Employees feel a difference in being told what to do and being inspired to do it. It has a lot to do with the conviction that comes through in how your manager communicates. Do you communicate in a way that says work is due by Friday? Or are you inspiring in a way that says that work is making a difference?

You are the connective tissue for your team, and you should raise the bar on how you illustrate conviction before you ask them to move the needle on what they’re delivering.

Individual Contributor:
All companies are assessing how to use resources differently and who to keep on teams as roles evolve. As an individual contributor, your direct manager knows your capabilities. Everyone else makes assumptions about capabilities based on how you show up in meetings. You can influence those impressions if you know enough about your personal presence to add intention to how people experience you.

Raise the bar on yourself by investing in work on personal presence to better understand impressions and choices.

IMPRESSIONS VS. IMPACT

Our beliefs and our coaching centers around the impact to listeners. A compelling communicator knows that and makes an intentional shift from focusing on themselves to focusing on listeners. Our coaching on presence starts with awareness, but it never ends there. It goes much further in helping someone explore their ability to impact others. It’s not an easy shift. It takes awareness, intention and practice. And it takes a little vulnerability to start the journey.

We measure impact by asking listeners for input on communicators. When we get inputs on how someone looked and sounded, we know that the listener is stuck on impressions. When we get inputs on actions that a listener plans to take as a result of the communicator, we know the communicator had real impact. Listeners don’t distinguish a communicator’s ability to impact based on their responsibility in a company. But as you think about yourself as the communicator, you might distinguish the risks you have in not delivering on this.

As a senior leader, if the year ahead is relying on your ability to inspire an entire organization toward bigger outcomes…your risks may be that employees who don’t feel inspired won’t deliver results.

As a seasoned manager, you will be the epicenter of things that have to be reset and reconsidered. If you can’t inspire…your risks may be employees who get defeated early and give up on the challenges ahead.

And as an individual contributor…your risk may be missed opportunity. As companies think differently and work differently, it will create more moments of visibility in meetings and discussions. Don’t miss your chance to be seen and heard as a voice that wants to be a part of the changes ahead.

It’s the right time to raise the bar on yourself as you raise the bar on an organization or a team.

Make this a priority for yourself, and we’ll ensure that you get there.

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Also Read: Communicating the Value & Impact of AI