How to Talk About Yourself

We all do it. We’re asked to step into the limelight from time to time. Most times we’re asked to give presentations on topics we know a lot about. Sometimes we’re asked to give speeches on topics we’ve led or direction we’ve set. But eventually, the journey for all communicators leads to the hardest topic of all: ourselves.

Nobody wants to give this speech. Everybody shies away from this topic. I think it’s because this is the topic we fear will disappoint a group or not live up to assumptions or expectations. And if you don’t consider your career path an incredible journey, you assume it isn’t worth telling. If your experiences can’t fill a best-selling novel, you assume we don’t want to hear them.

But that isn’t so. Everyone has a story or two within them. Talking about yourself helps people get to know you and trust you. Your stories make you real. They also make you vulnerable.

And that’s another reason people don’t like to talk about themselves. Career journeys aren’t limited to successes. In fact, most journeys have more challenges than successes. They’re crooked paths with dead ends, roadblocks and even a few falls. But that’s what we love about them. The career journey helps us relate to someone and potentially see a glimpse of what we have in common.

So, why is it hard? Because many people worry that sharing more about where you’re from, what you’ve tried and where you’ve failed may not justify the success you have now. It may not add up to the spot you’re in today. It doesn’t matter. It’s your journey, and you are where you are for good reason. What does matter is that you understand how to tell your story in a way that’s interesting to others.

And that’s where most people struggle. They don’t know how to tell their stories.

Case in point:

A few years ago, I was giving a keynote at a conference and was scheduled to follow a well-known business founder. I was intrigued to meet him and actually wondered how I would get a group to shift to my topic after his story. I shouldn’t have worried. Unfortunately, he bombed telling his own story.

Here’s why.

He told his career journey in terms of the big things he had accomplished. And he had accomplished a lot. But instead of talking about the challenges that led to accomplishments, he focused on his heroics. For thirty minutes, he went through step after step of building a very successful business. And not once, did he relate anything he said to the people sitting in the ballroom.  It felt like a canned speech, and it sounded like a homage to a hero.

The reason to share your story is to make it relatable to a listener. The people sitting in his audience didn’t relate to him as a successful founder or entrepreneur. And I kept thinking that within his glory, there must have been some failures or a few stumbles that they could relate to.

This is the core element of storytelling. The connection with the listener isn’t through great outcomes or success. It’s always with the challenge or the unexpected curve.

And that’s part of why it’s hard to tell your own story. You’re focused much more on the successes. That’s what you want the group to know.  It’s “How I Did This” or “How I Built This.” But the points of connection are always the struggles. It’s the little steps that make you human and vulnerable.

It’s hard to map it out because you lived it and you don’t always see it.  It’s less a chronology of everything you did; only your Mother cares about that. It’s more the cumulative learnings that shape who you’ve become and the stories you use to bring those learnings to life.

We’ve helped many managers and leaders tell their stories through a three-step process.

Here’s how we do it:

First, we map the journey.

We want to know what you’ve done and where you’ve been. We start from the early days and track every step leading to your current role. Sometimes we do this on a map; sometimes we do this on a timeline. We build the full picture so we can see the highlights and low-lights in perspective.

Second, we interview you to get more details about your journey.

We dig deeper to understand the experiences that seemed to matter the most. It’s never the same. But there are often patterns that help us color in the experiences that have shaped you. We call those your key learnings, and we sometimes identify them as the traits of your leadership.

And finally, we take those experiences and we bring them to life with specific stories.

Every journey has stories, but not all stories are worth sharing. Many communicators make the mistake of trying to tell too many. We focus on helping you get to three or four stories that will intrigue a listener. And we help you tell those stories really well.

When it’s complete, it’s no longer the dreaded career speech. It’s your story told in a manner that adds interest and meaning for listeners. It has highs and lows that engage a group and make you seem more “normal” than they might have assumed. And that’s pretty inspiring to any group.

So, when you’re asked to talk about yourself, let us help you do it. We’ll find those stories within you that can paint a picture of who you are and where you’ve been. And, I think you’ll find it more fun than you might have imagined.

We’re here when you need us!

The Mastery of Presence

The development of an effective communicator is a journey. And I’ve always felt that my team can impact that journey in two ways. In our workshops, we introduce awareness and core competencies to start someone’s journey, and in our 1:1 coaching relationships, we accelerate the journey by working side by side to influence results.

But neither format nor a combination of the two is a promise of mastery. And I’ve thought about that a lot in the last few years.

I’ve had an opportunity to work with a lot of people over thirty years, and I’ve tracked their progress over time. Every investment of time leads to progress and every lapse in effort leads to bad habits. And so behind the scenes, I’ve been thinking about mastery and comparing my knowledge of different journeys to different outcomes.

I don’t think it can be solely blamed on a lack of effort if someone never truly masters the art. And I don’t think it can be assumed that only a few people can. I’ve seen the road to mastery for many clients, and I’ve thought about my own experiences at trying to master different things in life.

To be honest, there are far more skills that I’ve quit on than ones I’ve mastered. And you may feel the same way. It’s why I believe any kind of “road to mastery” has to have passion behind it. You have to deeply want something to be great at it before you’ll invest the time and the length of the journey to master a skill. That easily takes learning guitar and marathon running off my list!  Way too much of a commitment and not enough passion to master it. But it still leaves hiking 16ers and beating my kids at pickleball as potentials!

If you connect passion to a true interest in mastery of communication, then you’ll see some people  drop off the journey based on a lack of a commitment toward something they just don’t value enough.  And if that’s you, we should have a different conversation because I believe that someone who can influence and impact groups is destined to be a leader in one setting or another. And I also believe if you aren’t willing to be a great communicator, then you shouldn’t lead people because people want to follow someone who can define a direction with passion and purpose.

But even those who have been earnest about communication skills, don’t always master them. And I think some people stall on the journey because they don’t have all the ingredients in place for mastery.  As we’ve thought about it on our team, we’ve agreed that mastery comes from combining six things:

FEEDBACK:

Impressions and guidance aren’t the same thing. Everyone can give feedback by telling you how they’ve experienced you. But few people really understand what drives impressions and how to help someone consider new choices that move beyond them. And that’s why a lot of communicators get guidance that isn’t very helpful. More than 70% of the guidance clients share was a clear impression and misguided direction.

To master communication, you need insights from an expert, and someone who knows how to interpret impressions into actionable goals.

WELL-DEFINED GOALS:

One of the hardest things to do as a coach is to meet someone where they are versus where you think they should be. Thinking through where a person’s journey is today helps shape goals that they can reach. And accomplishing some goals encourages someone to keep working toward mastery.

It’s no different than training for anything else. You don’t start at the top of the 16er. You work your way up through the length and difficulty of hikes.

We work hard to set goals that can be reached in a workshop day or across a coaching engagement. To master communication, you have to keep resetting goals that align to your journey and push you toward the next milestone.

NEW HABITS:

That’s the first real roadblock for new skills. Are we really willing to change habits and think about being uncomfortable as a part of the journey? Mastery is way outside your comfort zone, and it’s the reason a good coach can keep setting new goals and forward motion for a communicator.  Expectations change with any new role, and skills have to expand and grow as well. It’s why communication should be integrated into any transition plan.

To master communication, you have to keep resetting communication skills. Every time you step into a new role, you should align goals for influence and impact and think through how you can continue to grow.

Those three elements make a big difference in how well someone begins the communication journey.  It’s the right formula to start with awareness, intention and effort. And I’ve evolved our coaching steps over the years to integrate these three concepts into everything we do.

And we deliver on it really well…as long as we’re in charge! And that’s what I’ve been thinking about around mastery. The difference in someone who becomes a master of communication is something that’s happening when we aren’t around:

PRACTICE:

It’s really what leads to mastery. And it’s practice with intention, not just repetition. It takes a plan, manageable pieces and a little motivation. And those are the remaining three ingredients.

PRACTICE PLAN:

We’ve created practice plans in coaching engagements for years. We outline where to practice and align someone’s goals to upcoming events. But we’ve come to realize we can’t practice for someone. And the difference in someone who knows how to practice versus someone who picks up a few techniques is miles apart.

People who master communication buy into practice. They’re less about “I use a few things” and all about “Here’s how I think about it.” When it’s internalized, it sticks.

SMALL PARTS:

Practice helps a communicator break big goals into small parts. Whether it happened in our workshops or someone else’s, when someone tells me they took away a technique, I explore it further. Techniques feel like acting to me. It’s something you think you’re supposed to do in a certain setting. Communication doesn’t have one setting or one technique. Communication is all about intention in every situation.

To master communication, you have to know what you’re trying to do in order to do it well. Break down techniques into intents. When you truly understand it, you begin to accomplish it. And, that’s great momentum toward mastery.

MOTIVATION:

I called out passion at the start of the newsletter, and I think it’s critical to keep you going. I can’t force you to be as passionate about communication as I am. But I can help you practice in small parts, and maybe that’s all the motivation you need! That’s why we built SWAU – a practice platform that provides the intent behind every communication tool and a little encouragement in every step. It brings clear goals together with an intentional plan to work on style step by step.

Our exploration around mastery has expanded our thinking about Presence and has led to a few additions to our offerings.

We recommend you begin your journey with our personal brand workshop. It takes a deeper look at impressions and assumptions. And it sets a great stage for thinking through why impressions occur so that you start your journey with a clear set of intentional choices, rather than universal techniques.

And when you’re ready…we’ve added Presence 2.0, which we call Mastering Executive Presence. And whether we worked with you two years ago or ten, this is the next level course that shifts focus from your style to the audience impact. We look at style through the lens of a listener and take the basic concepts and fit them within a higher profile setting and a high-stakes impact.

And mostly, we’ve built the practice platform to keep the journey going.

 

That’s what we’ve done about mastering communication. What will you do?

 We’re here when you need us!

The Wingman

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As a leader, your brand, style, message of the company, and the company itself are intertwined. SW&A coaches many leaders and considers themselves the “wingman” for people in leadership positions.

On this episode of What’s Your Story?, Sally talks with instructors Francie Schulwolf and Lia Panayotidis about their experience as The Wingman.

More About Our Guests

Francie Schulwolf: Francie’s focus is on developing strong, confident communicators. With close to twenty-five years of global, corporate experience in advertising, marketing and communications, she is intimately familiar with the demands executives face. This understanding, along with her honest and warm style, create a safe and comfortable environment for individuals to learn and grow.

Lia Panayotidis: As a lead instructor for our style programs, Lia focuses on raising awareness of individual brands and working with people to strengthen personal presence. She creates an insightful learning environment in each program and can make the most vulnerable discussions a little easier. She approaches each program with a natural joy of connection and fifteen years of diverse experience in training and development

Show Highlights:

• As a leader, your brand, style, message of the company, and the company itself are intertwined.
• Sally Williams and Associates coach several leaders and consider themselves the “wingman” for people in leadership positions.
  • Wingman means the person behind the leader who is focused on that individual to become successful.
• Sally has spent several years speaking in front of groups and now uses the tools she learned in leadership and visible roles to help others.
• Coaching is about observing others.
  • There is more joy in watching someone else succeed.
• What is the role of communications as an influencer?
  • Having the ability to get people to deliver on a message they can get behind.
  • Understand every CEO has a different approach and skill set.
  • Being the voice behind the curtain that makes everybody sound really good.
  • Understand how to separate content from style components.
  • Practice and teach others how to become self-aware and develop self-confidence.
• Coaching is all about connections and getting leaders to the next level.
• What is done with the content collected?
  • SWA talks about celebrations and people.
  • SWA learns from each new leader they work with.
• Coaches are trying to figure out what is going on and how to get their leaders/clients to that next place.
  • They work toward figuring out how to help them discover their voice and how to get them there.
• What is frustrating as a coach?
  • Coming into a session and encountering apprehension from the beginning and an unwillingness to be open. When clients have their guards up from the start.
  • Seeing the potential that the coach knows is there and they are matched with resistance.
  • Clients who don’t realize the value of feedback.
  • Leaders who refuse to watch themselves on stage to learn.
• What makes a great coach?
  • Chemistry.
  • Connection.
  • Relationship.
  • Creating a safe zone where clients can try new things.
  • Coaches who are still learning.
• The clients that are remembered are the ones that really made a difference during the training.
• The ones who grew a lot not.
• Leadership is about:
  • learning what is happening in the room
  • Embracing the intent is behind what they are doing
  • Discovering how the listener is doing
• Coaching is taking the love of people and development and putting it together.
• How do you coach mastery?
  • You give them the tools and show them how to master it.
  • Encourage clients to be intentional about practicing.
  • Realize that each person’s goals are different and embrace it.
  • Ask the clients:
    • What do you want for yourself?
    • What do you see for yourself?
  • Success is gauged by audience response.
  • Helping clients realize it comes down to their own desire to master it.

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!

THE VIRTUAL COMMUNICATOR: It’s Not as Easy as it Seems

Our “new normal” as virtual communicators has progressed in the last few months. As we’ve talked to clients, the first conversations were about how “easy it was” to make systems and processes work virtually. Corporate teams did a great job of setting up transitions and processes to move a workforce to a virtual setting. The first focus was the technology of communication…but it wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

Then, the conversation shifted to communicators and we were asked: “What should leaders be doing to create a virtual culture?” This was our article, “Leading through Video” that focused on how to stay visible with employees. Overnight, a leader’s toolkit expanded. Many had to adapt quickly to engage an invisible audience in virtual town halls and conferences…and it wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

And now, conversations are shifting from leaders to everybody else, and we’re hearing: “We need help with this. We don’t understand the ground rules of virtual communication. My team can’t run meetings, my team can’t lead customer conversations, my managers can’t influence their teams. We need help with platforms, we need help with focus, we need help with engagement.” None of it was  as easy as it seemed

How can that be?

Remote working and virtual working may not be synonymous. Remote working is a term we’ve used for a while to refer to someone who doesn’t come into the office. They may work remotely every day or just some days. It implies a different way of working and sometimes a different schedule. Remote workers set their own timeline, their own space and their own approach to their role. It works well for people who can work independent of almost everyone else.

When we made everyone virtual, we realized that every employee couldn’t work independent every day. We needed to communicate and interact with each other. And most people can feel work happening if they can “see” work. So overnight, virtual working required video. It’s a good way to get interaction and to talk to someone.

But it also required employees to sit at a computer and interact with a laptop screen for 8+ hours every day. It’s like playing a video game for hours on end. It wears you out. And it didn’t really follow the same practices of a remote worker who’s working, but within their guidelines and time frames. And very few were sitting for 8+ hours.

And now we’ve figured it out. It isn’t the same setting, and it isn’t as easy as it seems. In fact, it’s different from both perspectives.

For a listener, it’s more removed and more independent. You can get most of the experience through video, but it’s not always clear and focused. That’s because communicators are distracted by new steps and not always “ready” to manage a meeting. Listeners also have a harder time interacting with other listeners. It’s not like sitting in a room and observing others. Technology controls your view, and you get a snapshot of those talking a lot, not those who are quiet. And if a listener doesn’t like the pace or the interaction, they have the power and independence over video to turn off their camera, turn off their audio and just “leave” for a few moments.

That changes the power of the communicator. We’re not used to people connecting and disconnecting so easily. It makes things very disjointed. While the listener is a little more distant, the video makes the communicator more intimate. It’s a close-up shot of you. Yes, you can change that if you know how, but some communicators aren’t really sure where the camera is. So, the snapshot may have them looking down, looking left or all around, and it makes it harder to focus on them and harder to hear what they say. And many communicators say they’re managing too much in this new format, and it feels like a juggling exercise to run a virtual meeting.

It is different, and it’s a new set of skills. And it’s why in response to the questions and discussion mentioned above, we’ve pulled our best practices together to create “The  Virtual Communicator” program for leaders, sales teams, internal teams, project teams, and anyone who is trying to improve their impact in a virtual setting.

Our premise is that it takes three things: Preparation, Participation and Presence.

Here are a few highlights from the program.

 

PREPARATION

We’ve always said that a prepared communicator sends an agenda in advance, so participants know what you expect them to do in an upcoming conversation. It’s a best practice for all meetings, and it’s a necessity for the virtual communicator. It’s hard for the virtual communicator to generate participation in the moment. When listeners aren’t prepared to participate, the virtual meeting falls flat. This makes the communicator lose confidence, and the listener lose interest. And that’s when listeners disconnect.  They can turn on/off technology at will.

Sometimes, technology is the challenge for communicators and listeners. Platforms are being over-worked, and they aren’t running beautifully. But most of it is operator error. The leader is dropping calls, dropping people, talking without sound, talking with too much sound, etc. The first two minutes of any virtual meeting should be ground rules for technology and participation. No one is doing it, and everyone needs it.

PARTICIPATION

Once the ground rules are set, the communicator has to signal participation. We introduce techniques for getting involvement early and keeping it throughout a meeting.

It takes facilitation skills, and few communicators have had much experience with facilitation.

Technology works against you on this one. Technology pulls the talkers front and center. If you’re speaking, you show up more on the screen. The communicator needs to know who isn’t talking to make sure they have everyone engaged. And the quiet listeners are hard to “see.” We’ve developed a simple workaround that helps a communicator track a full group and still keep their focus on the conversation.

PRESENCE

Your presence is as important on video as it is in a conference room. In fact, it’s a more intimate snapshot. We don’t see the communicator from head to toe. We see a close-up shot from the shoulders up which makes connection and expression the most critical style component.

That’s a challenge because many communicators don’t seem to know where the camera is. In order to make a listener feel seen, you have to be talking directly to them. Communicators seems to be looking down and all around. In the close-up shot, the lack of connection is front and center.

You can adjust the listeners’ view…. you can improve it, but you have to think about it. Some teams are having a lot of fun with backdrops. They are fun, but distorting, for important meetings. It seems as if someone is behind a curtain pulling on your body parts. Ears get cut off, arms seem to be broken, etc. It will be a “to do” for marketing teams to improve the green screen backdrops. For now, find a real setting in your house that works for important meetings to avoid the distraction.

 

It’s a new medium, and it requires a new set of skills. They aren’t totally different, but they aren’t as easy as they may seem. If you’re beginning to focus on the skills of your communicators, we’d like to help your team manage and improve their virtual setting.

Learn more and sign up for The Virtual Communicator today.

We’re here when you need us.

Key Learnings from Virtual Meetings

It seemed like an easy concept. With the mounting concerns around COVID-19, the order to “work from home,” took hold without a lot of debate or exception. But I’m told by many clients that the shift to 100% virtual wasn’t easy. It was more a herculean task as companies moved everything from call centers to billing departments into a make-shift home office. It was a frenzied pace and transition, and then all of a sudden, we were home… working.

For some employees, it’s been easier than they thought. For others, it’s been harder than they expected. And for everyone, there have been surprises and key learnings.

First, the surprises. Whether you work virtually every day, occasionally or not at all, the experience hasn’t been quite what anyone expected. Prior to COVID-19, leaders often asked us for help in managing a virtual workforce. And our advice has always been: “Turn the video on. It’s a much better meeting if you have a visual connection with an employee or a team.”

I felt heard on that point after seeing the significant increase in Zoom, BlueJeans, and Teams Meeting invites on calendars. Everyone is on video meetings. And, they’re exhausted by it. How can that be?  Because the video adds a requirement that we misunderstood. Historically, “work from home” meant I can manage a personal schedule on top of a work one. And that interpretation means everything from not dressing up today, to making lunch over sales reviews, managing errands or home repairs, etc. Until now, virtual working has been a multi-tasking opportunity.

It doesn’t mean people weren’t paying attention on conference calls, but they were rarely in front of a computer screen. So, they weren’t participating in the same way that we’re asking employees to participate now. And that realization has also highlighted some challenges in managing a virtual meeting.

Here are some thoughts on improving the virtual video experience.

GROUND RULES:

The Zoom screen full of faces isn’t the same as the room full of bodies. If you didn’t realize it before, you now know how much we rely on body language to get a group’s attention or to speak up in meetings. It isn’t as easy in a virtual format. So, the meeting lead needs to set ground rules for how to participate. There are tools within most platforms to raise hands, wave and forward questions. But you have to know how to use them and establish that you are using them in order for them to be effective. There aren’t universal rules. So, set your own and call them out at the start of every meeting.

INTERRUPTIONS:

We’re also learning how to manage interruptions from dogs barking to kids who need something. The responsibility for managing this lies on the participant more than the meeting lead. Participants should be alert to sound quality, noises in a house, etc. We are overloading all internet systems, and most virtual meetings have at least one person with technical difficulty. Have a plan for managing this. Respond quickly to an interruption on your end. It’s OK to have interruptions right now; it’s not so good to ignore them or to be slow in response to them.

During this time, meeting leads need to be lenient. Be aware of who is more challenged working from home. Some people are balancing a lot more than others. Once we reset and define new boundaries, you can reset expectations. For now, try to help individuals manage interruptions so that everyone gets value out of a virtual meeting.

PARTICIPATION:

In a virtual setting, we often say someone needs to participate in order to listen well. As a meeting lead, you should encourage and manage participation differently. In our remote meetings workshop, we coach facilitation tools to help someone manage a virtual group of people. One simple tool is to draw a picture to replicate a meeting setting. Then add names of people so that you have a snapshot of who is in your meeting. Keep track of participation and discussion with a tally beside each name so that you can “see” involvement and call on people who haven’t had an opportunity to speak up.

BREAKS:

If you’re running long meetings or back to back meetings, remember the surprise that most people have about working virtually. People weren’t sitting in front of a screen for a virtual meeting, and now we’re asking them to do that. Virtual participants were taking breaks during those calls; we just didn’t realize it. So, make breaks a part of a video meeting. There should be breaks in meetings that run more than 1.5 hours. And if you acknowledge this in your ground rules, you’re less likely to see people leave the meeting or turn off their video.

SOCIAL TIME:

The “work from home” format also takes the social time out of the workday. Many companies are creating social time. Team leads are being encouraged to host “happy hours, game nights, workout challenges, etc.” Every culture is different, but it’s a nice way to help employees connect with each other without a tight agenda. Keep it light, keep it optional and see if your team values it.

 

No matter when we shift to a “new normal,” we’ve learned a bit about working virtually. And I stand by my advice on the video format. It’s the best way to work because it sets expectations very similar to being in an office. It isn’t a punitive step for a virtual employee; it’s just a better way to work as a team because it improves listening and increases participation.

I expect we will redefine virtual working and reset expectations. Today, working virtually has become the catch phrase for a day an employee needs to be somewhere else and hopes to multi-task between personal and work activities. That’s different than someone who is working in a different location. If virtual working stays front and center, I suspect we will define it more clearly.

In the meantime, it’s smart to sharpen your skills as a virtual communicator. And if your team would like help setting new ground rules and leveraging a different skill set, we can help you do so.

Stay healthy and call us when you need us.

Executive Presence Is a Top Priority for Leadership

High-potential and leadership programs are a top priority as companies focus on succession planning and the development of future leaders. And, as companies define skill gaps, Executive Presence has become a hot topic and an urgent priority.

While it is a part of every assessment and curriculum, many development managers struggle with what it is and how to build it into a leadership program. The concept of Executive Presence is not a new one. People have talked about the aura of leaders and the need for them to have leadership presence for some time. But the gap is wider because future leaders just haven’t followed the same development paths or had the same mentoring opportunities their predecessors had.

Presence isn’t something you give yourself. It’s something you earn from those around you who respect your right to speak and your ability to lead. Some have called it an “earned authority.” It is a combination of behaviors and attitudes that present a sense of confidence, competence, commitment, and authenticity.

Although we’ve coached leadership presence for thirty years, we were intrigued to understand the impact of presence within an organization and to gather perspective through a lens other than our own. So we commissioned a survey on Executive Presence with nearly 400 CEOs, C-level executives, corporate communications executives, and professional development managers. The results were confirming and surprising.

We found them confirming in that senior executives see presence as an essential part of their job. In fact, 89 percent of survey respondents believe that presence helps you get ahead. All of the executives interviewed believe presence can be a differentiator. And 78 percent say a lack of presence will hold you back.

Why? Because while many struggle to define it, everyone agrees presence is easy to spot. Presence fits a person like a well-cut suit. People who have presence fill a room and command attention as if they simply have a right to be there.

Surprisingly, 98 percent of the executives also admitted that their skills were not innate. That’s surprising because most development managers are quick to say that future leaders either have this trait or they don’t. While they definitely value the impact of presence, development managers are skeptical about whether or not it can really be developed.

In fact, the gaps in perspective were highlighted when we asked senior executives and development managers for the most effective ways to develop presence. Executives leaned heavily on three concepts:

1. Observation: 70 percent of the executives observed presence early in their careers.
2. Coaching: 65 percent of executives say executive coaching can help a leader develop presence. Only 20
   percent of the development managers believe this.
3. Training: 55 percent of executives say that leadership programs are a great way to develop presence; only 33
   percent of those who run these programs believe this.

All of the executives we interviewed said they were aware of the impact of different leaders in their organizations and they made note of what set them apart. All of the survey participants felt they had worked on their own presence, and approximately 35 percent thought they could benefit from more work. Most said they think intentionally about how they need to come across, and they work hard to deliver an authentic, succinct, and relevant message. In fact, they believe their ability to do so can calm unsettled issues, inspire unfocused employees,
and convince skeptical audiences.

This strong buy-in to presence by the C-suite explains why senior executives need to be involved in developing presence in others. Some companies do this by rotating a portion of the curriculum among senior leaders; others use executives to set the tone for a program and to offer feedback at the completion of it. Executive participation also speaks to what future leaders really want out of leadership programs, and that’s exposure. Many rising stars believe that if they get exposure to the senior management team, they can create their own fast track and their own potential. The personal stories we heard through our research suggest this may well be true.

We recommend three key elements for a program or curriculum on Executive Presence:

• Assessment: Presence is about perception, and the critical starting point for any future leader is to have a clear understanding of how he/she is perceived. Feedback and evaluation set the stage for where you are today and where you need to be in the future. It’s also the acid test for feedback. The executives we interviewed said feedback was an important part of their own development. They were open to it and sought it frequently.

• Core Skills: There are fundamental skills of presence tied to how you use your body and voice. Every future leader needs to know how to develop and deliver thoughts with confidence and conviction. Our research defined key attributes of presence and revealed that these skills can be developed and fine-tuned in any individual.

• Coaching and Practice: Ultimately, it takes practice to turn initial impressions into lasting ones. Many structured programs use a case study or simulation to give future leaders an opportunity to apply skills to a business situation. This is the point at which existing leaders are willing to engage and support the program with feedback. Coaching
ensures that this high-profile exercise is a high exposure and high payoff for future leaders.

Ultimately, these three ingredients help future leaders develop skills for immediate success and long-term results.

According to senior executives, Executive Presence is a priority because it’s one of the leadership traits that can’t be supported by anyone else. When you step into the C-suite of an organization, you go from being a specialist in an area to being a generalist. Your messages broaden, your audiences expand, and you have to engage and influence every one of them.

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