What’s Inside:
Effective Leadership
Link's Links
Worth Reading: A Whole New Mind
Announcements

Effective Leadership Often Comes With Effective Presence

Have you ever wondered what the shared ingredient is among successful leaders that has people following them?

Effective leaders have many things in common, but I've noticed that there is one quality in particular that seems to stand out among them—leadership presence.

On the one hand, leadership presence is the sum of all the traits a person has that makes others want to follow that person. As a result, not everyone's leadership presence feels or looks exactly the same.

On the other hand, individuals with leadership presence—regardless of which additional unique strengths they bring to their roles—tend to do the following four things:

1. convey confidence
2. hold strong to the mission
3. elicit respect from employees
4. act in an authentic way.

Convey confidence
Individuals with leadership presence portray an air of confidence. Does this mean they never worry? No. But people with leadership presence know how to manage self-doubt behind the scenes so they can promote a face of certainty to others.

If your confidence is flagging, consider how this ambiguity might be affecting people's comfort in following you. Finding a trusted confidant outside of work or hiring a coach can provide you with an opportunity to sort through your concerns without demotivating the very people you hope to lead.

When I worked with a health care executive who was worrying about her ability to build a particular project from scratch, I encouraged her to remember that she had been put in this leadership role for a reason and that although she didn't have all the answers yet, she did have the insights, intuition and experience that would enable her to find the answers. Our conversation gave her the little lift she needed to start displaying a confident face at work until she got her natural stride back.

Hold strong to the mission
Those with leadership presence also have the ability to hold true to the mission and values of the organization, even when tempted to deviate from these in order to please certain people. I call this “standing strong.” By remaining crystal clear on their mission and values, these leaders are able to keep the majority of people motivated to follow their lead.

If you find yourself struggling to hold true to the mission, consider the reasons and then take some time to work through the issues. If it's a matter of trying to please certain people, remember that you may not be able to satisfy everyone.

However, you might also begin to realize that it's a difficult time to be a believable crusader for the organizational mission. For example, when I was a VP in broadcasting for a group of radio stations, ownership was changing hands every seven to ten months, which made it hard for everyone, including me, to keep believing in our mission. I was able to get my footing back and encourage others to do the same simply by being transparent. When I admitted that it was a hard time for all of us and that I was struggling with all the change too, people appreciated my honesty, found me to be more credible, and then got back on board when I reassured them that we'd find our way.

Elicit respect from employees
Leadership presence also comes about when individuals are able to elicit respect from the people around them. When people don't take you seriously, they are much less inclined to follow your lead.

This was the case for one of my clients, a sales vice president. Feedback from his colleagues revealed that the passion my client expressed regarding the goals he was promoting sometimes led him to lose his objectivity in team discussions. As a result, his colleagues reported having lost some respect for him and tuning him out when he tried to enlist them in supporting his goals.

Those with leadership presence have mastered the ability to deliver their message in a way that syncs up with their intentions and that ultimately elicits respect. Gathering feedback from those around you can be a great way to identify how you might want to adjust your style so that your intentions are aligned with what others perceive, thus generating more respect and creating more buy-in.

Act in an authentic way
The last hallmark of leadership presence is an ability to act authentically. Authenticity, as noted in a 2005 Harvard Business Review article, has two parts:

• staying true to who you are as you lead others
• bringing forth those parts of yourself that encourage others to follow you.¹

The corporate environment will sometimes test your ability to stay true to who you are. For example, I once worked with an executive who felt pressured to change his reflective, deliberate leadership style to match his company's high-paced, alpha culture. In the end, my client realized, though, that he was most effective at leading others when he remained true to his natural style of leadership. In fact, when he did this, others began to rely on him for his unique approach.

The second part of authenticity involves encouraging others to follow you by playing up the parts of yourself they can most relate to and that meet the needs of a situation. In other words, you want to manage which face you put forward in a given group of people. This is not about acting in a fake way but instead about knowing which parts of yourself to play up and which to play down in a given situation.

I'm reminded of my passionate sales VP. After learning that his intense approach sometimes made it hard for his colleagues to relate to him, my client aimed to share his passion in measured doses that could motivate his people rather than overwhelm them. He also channeled his passion into becoming a better listener and incorporating others' perspectives into his own view. This went a long way in helping others take him more seriously.

The power of leadership presence
It's easy to forget, when you're busy running the organization, how much your colleagues and employees are paying attention to you. By being mindful of the leadership presence you create, and making intentional choices about your style, you can keep others invested in your mission and inspire them to be strong contributors to the team.

Link’s Links

Dan Pink's TED Talk on Motivation — 18-minute video
Having trouble keeping the troops motivated? This 18-minute video will challenge your thinking and provide some fresh perspectives on motivation at work. In his direct, high energy and entertaining manner, Dan Pink challenges conventional motivation practices in organizations where management decisions are often based on outdated and unexamined principles. I invite you to give yourself permission to take 18 minutes out of your day and watch. It will change the way you look at motivation!

Wall Street Journal Article — Staying in the Game with Help on the Sidelines
Executive coaches report steady demand for their services despite the recession. Read more about how businesses, both small and large, are turning to coaches to help retain top talent and support leaders while coping with smaller staffs and recession-starved budgets.

Our parents encouraged us to become lawyers, accountants and computer programmers. Dan Pink posits that our parents were wrong and that the future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. He shares that the era of “left brain” dominance, and the Information Age that came with it, are giving way to a new world that values “right brain” qualities, including inventiveness, empathy and meaning. That is the argument at the center of this provocative book, which uses the two sides of our brains as a metaphor for understanding the key shifts in our times. In this bestseller, which has been translated into 18 languages, the author offers a fresh look at what it takes to excel. A Whole New Mind reveals the six essential aptitudes on which professional success and personal fulfillment now depend and includes a series of hands-on exercises culled from experts around the world to help readers sharpen the necessary abilities.

In partnership with The Pyramid Resource Group, Tim Link is offering a proven and proprietary team coaching program that delivers stellar results. Appropriately entitled The Extraordinary Game™, this process consistently challenges teams to previously unseen levels of collaboration and productivity. Teams are the building blocks of all organizations, and, now more than ever, are being called upon to be smart, innovative and creative. This proven program will help your team get there quickly, and stay there. Its success has been so great that it has been picked up by Pfeifer/Wiley publishing to be marketed as a follow-up to The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. If you'd like to see your team play a bigger game and move to a higher level, click on this link to learn more.