Leadership Coach & Facilitator For The Left-Brained Analytical Leader & Founder of JAS Leadership.
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Leadership presence is a crucial trait that sets apart great leaders from the average ones. It is the ability to project confidence, credibility and authority in a way that inspires others to follow your lead. Developing leadership presence is not an easy task, but it is achievable with consistent effort and the right mindset.
The first step is to define what kind of leader you want to be and how you want others to perceive you. Do you want to be known as a charismatic boss who inspires and motivates others? Or is your natural tendency to take a more analytical, data-driven approach and make precisely calculated decisions based on facts?
Once you define exactly what type of leader you want to be, you can look at your current style and identify the areas of growth needed to help you transform into that person. In this article, we'll explore practical steps you can take to raise your leadership skills to the next level.
Analyze your communication skills.
It's important that you can articulate your ideas clearly, concisely and with confidence. Review the myriad of ways you may interact and communicate with your teams, such as presentations, company memos, email, etc. These all contribute to the way you lead. Even your active listening and nonverbal communication during meetings and events constitute part of your style. Improving your communication skills often just takes time and regular practice.
Project confidence.
Confidence is an essential component of leadership presence because it can inspire trust and respect. To become more confident in yourself and your abilities, start by setting small, achievable goals. As you accumulate successes, gradually build to bigger challenges. This will help foster a sense of accomplishment that will radiate from you and inspire others' confidence in your leadership.
Practice mindfulness.
Mindfulness—the practice of being present and fully engaged in the moment—is a vital skill for developing leadership presence because it helps you stay focused and grounded in stressful situations. It can also help you control your emotions, improve your decision-making skills and increase your overall effectiveness as a leader.
One practical way to begin honing your skills is to build small windows between meetings and tasks. Reserve five to 10 minutes for processing information from the previous activity, allowing you to enter the next one with a decluttered mind.
Being aware of your breathing is also helpful. Before starting a task, take a deep breath, let it out and set an intention to stay present. If you happen to find your mind wandering during a meeting or activity, count 10 breaths. By focusing on the simple, rhythmic feeling of your chest moving up and down, you can chase other thoughts out of your head. Afterward, you'll be better equipped to bring your attention back to the present.
Build a strong network.
Leadership is not a solitary activity. Having a reliable group of supporters, mentors and peers who can provide you with feedback, guidance and support is significantly helpful. Reach out to others in your industry or community who share your values and vision, and work to build relationships based on mutual respect and trust.
Develop emotional empathy.
Emotional empathy is a skill that can help build the foundation for trust and confidence in your team. Your employees spend a generous portion of their time in the office (or at their home office) focusing on projects, goals and interactions with co-workers. So, of course, there are emotions involved. When a person encounters failure in a project, they feel it. When there's a brusque or rude encounter with a co-worker, they feel it. As a leader, one of your responsibilities is to acknowledge your own emotions and take others’ emotions into account as well.
Set the example.
As a leader, your team members take note of your behaviors. So consider the core qualities that you wish your direct reports to exemplify, communicate these expectations and then demonstrate them in your day-to-day actions. By modeling the ideal behavior, you're more likely to see others follow suit.
It's particularly important to set the example when it comes to value. For instance, a senior executive I know believes in honesty, integrity and a commitment to excellence. While interviewing a potential hire for his team, he quickly realized she'd somehow obtained insider information and was using it to her advantage. In essence, she was cheating. When he asked her outright, she confessed.
Because of his commitment to honesty, this executive gave her a second-chance interview. The candidate aced it on her own merit, and after hiring her, the executive promptly explained the expectations around his three core values. The new hire took this to heart, especially after seeing his thoughtful demonstration of these behaviors, and she's been an asset to his team ever since.
If this list of practical steps seems daunting, take heart. Developing authentic leadership presence is a lifelong journey that requires dedication, hard work and a willingness to learn and grow. It requires setting intentions and sometimes learning through failure. By working through these outlined areas, you can develop the skills and qualities needed to become an effective, inspiring business guru who makes a positive difference in your company.
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