Appendix: Quick Hit I-Presence Tips
“What Should I Keep Top of Mind if I’m a __________”:
General Considerations for Specific Situations
On these pages you’ll find checklists of the most common presence considerations and topline suggestions for CEOs and senior leaders, entrepreneurs, women, job seekers, career changers, and young professionals. Each checklist is arranged by the three I-Presence elements: intentional, individual, and inspirational. Think of these pages as a resource to spur ideas, frame the I-Presence concepts in the book, and help you assess where you stand compared to others in similar situations.
Ultimately, it’s your authentic presence, and it’s up to you to decide what works.
For downloadable tools and interactive activities to help boost your presence, visit thehedgescompany.com.
PRESENCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR CEOS AND SENIOR LEADERS
If you are a CEO or senior leader, you’ve already exhibited a great amount of presence to get to your current job. The challenge now is how to leverage your expertise and functional competency into a more inspiring and motivating leadership role. (Hence Marshall Goldsmith’s adage “What got you here won’t get you there.”) Having an inspirational executive presence means having the right touch—not too hard nor too soft, yet always accountable. There’s also more pressure to be in the spotlight and to fully capitalize on your position.
Part 1: Intentional
Candid feedback can be hard for leaders to obtain; yet you need it now more than ever. Conduct your personal presence audit to determine your strengths, then use those strengths to develop a clear personal presence brand. Select trusted associates for quick feedback points (QFPs) so that the data keeps coming.
Actively use situational intentions to inject emotional resonance into communications with critical audiences (including your team members). Set the tone intentionally; don’t allow it to happen by accident.
When you have important information to communicate, take the time to practice out loud with your full body. Because people scrutinize their leaders’ actions for implicit signs, misaligned body language can lead to serious static in your messages. Remember, you carry a red blinking light that screams this is important.
Part 2: Individual
You’ve racked up numerous accomplishments to get to your position. You’re the go-to person with the right answers. But these qualities can intimidate those around you. So let people get to know you by sharing some of your personal interests, triumphs, and struggles. Be transparent about your thinking so people know how you approach situations.
Leaders need to constantly gauge and build trust or they won’t be successful. Senior leaders often have the credibility and reliability pieces down pat. To strengthen trust, concentrate on building intimacy and lowering your own self-orientation.
Have a deep understanding of what motivates your direct reports and as many others in your organization as you can. When new hires come on board, take them to lunch first thing and spend the time uncovering what they truly want to accomplish for themselves and how this job can help them get it.
Part 3: Inspirational
A big part of your job is managing constant change, so remember the lessons of neuroscience and David Rock’s SCARF model (as covered in Chapter 9). If you want to tamper defensive reactions, support people’s need for status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. Weave this approach into your everyday communications.
Set a vision that creates a strong sense of purpose for your team that rises above any financial or market goals. The vision can support corporate goals, but it should also be meaningful on its own. Make it aspirational and personal. And ensure the vision is shared and active.
Once you get the big title you’ll notice that lots more eyes are on you. Don’t shirk from the attention—step into the spotlight. Be daring, bold, interesting, and real. It’s no longer in anyone’s interest for you to remain safely in the background.
PRESENCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR ENTREPRENEURS
An entrepreneur’s situation is similar to a CEO’s or a senior leader’s with one exception: Many entrepreneurs step into their positions suddenly, rather than rising through the ranks. There’s scant time for acclimation. Entrepreneurial companies generally move faster, make constant course corrections, and have less structure and process than established companies. It’s a wild ride for everyone involved, including the leader. Entrepreneurs are known for their passion, slavish commitment, and personal investment. In a supercharged entrepreneurial environment, executive presence can be an afterthought rather than what it truly is—a key means of achieving success.
Part 1: Intentional
You’re the window into your company. Whatever your presence conveys will be attributed to the entire organization. Set an intention for your personal presence brand that embodies the characteristics you’d like for your company (e.g., innovative, reliable, customer-focused).
An entrepreneur’s passion can cause her to neglect what’s important to the audience during meetings and other interactions or exchanges. Use the Intentionality Frame (found in Chapter 1) to keep your points crisp and relevant.
With the rate of change in emerging companies, entrepreneurs need to be a magnet for feedback. Set a culture in your company where everyone speaks the truth—including to you—and reward them for it. Institute quick feedback points (QFPs) and start by asking for QFPs from someone a few levels down from you.
Part 2: Individual
Connecting takes time, and time is the entrepreneur’s enemy. Even if you’re still in the trenches with your team, set aside specific times to catch up. Schedule weekly one-on-ones with your direct reports and reach out to next-level downs on a regular basis, just to check in. Seek to know two or three things you have in common with as many others in your company as possible.
Entrepreneurial companies run on trust. (In fact, at some entrepreneurial companies, trust is all there is.) As the company grows, find ways to keep people informed about what’s going right and how you are handling failures. Your self-orientation will be assumed to be high. After all, it’s your baby. Take strategic moments to show how you are acting in other people’s best interests, not just your own.
Nowadays, it can be all too easy to rely on email to manage employees. Be mindful not to delegate tasks via email that would be better discussed in person, and never use email to send negative feedback. If in doubt, save the email and revisit it in the morning before sending.
Part 3: Inspirational
Entrepreneurs have the opportunity to set a clear and guiding purpose, and to create a vision that means something to people. Because start-up companies can’t always afford to pay large salaries, a sense of purpose can motivate and help you retain excellent employees. Don’t waste this advantage. Take the time to figure out what your vision is. Make the vision aspirational, personal, shared, and active.
Entrepreneurial companies create greenfield opportunities where people can do their best work with few restrictions. It’s the perfect confluence of events to enable flow, whereby people bring their full attention and skills to bear. However, a constant threat of uncertainty can undermine this process. Be vigilant about conveying information and helping people to see why their work will transcend any future events to positively impact their careers and potentially their larger world.
Readily adopt the notion of yourself as a thought-leader and throw yourself into the conversation in your marketplace. Be a go-to source on your industry, taking every opportunity to speak to groups or to engage in traditional and social media. Dare to be interesting and provocative. Attention drawn to you goes straight to your company.
PRESENCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR WOMEN
I’m frequently asked to comment on specific presence considerations for women, which is challenging because women’s situations are so varied. We are not a monolithic group with universally shared issues. That said, I concede that there are certain characteristics given to women (and often adopted by us as well) that can make presence an extra struggle. Stereotypes and cautionary tales abound for executive women. How many times have we heard the dichotomy that if a woman is too tough, she’s a bitch, and if she’s too soft, she’s not up to the job? For women, the boundaries can seem confining and narrow. Luckily, the steps to a strong presence help expand both thoughts and options.
Part 1: Intentional
Conduct a personal presence audit to get an accurate picture of how you are perceived. Women can be extremely hard on themselves, so the more external data the better.
Uncover any negative intentions that may be getting in your way. Challenge them by turning pessimistic thoughts into optimistic ones.
Set a bold personal presence intention. As you develop it, consider the qualities of both female and male leaders who have had an effect on you.
Part 2: Individual
Women can be highly susceptible to perfectionism. Aim for excellence, not perfection. Actively find ways to communicate your own struggles, and how you’ve overcome them, to use as examples for others.
Make sure that you are focusing on the various aspects of trust—credibility, reliability, intimacy, and low self-orientation. Women have a lower threshold for bragging, which can cause them to hold back their accomplishments and lose out on chances to enhance credibility.
While many would argue that women are better at expressing empathy and connecting than men, statistically, they have less time at the office to do it. According to the 2009 “American Time Use Study” from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women work 45 minutes less per day than male full-time workers. The gap is attributed to women spending more time doing most household responsibilities.1 Collegial catch-up often occurs around the workday fringes—precisely when women often find they are pinched for time. It’s critical to make those connections, so find ways to incorporate touch points into your day. Schedule lunches and coffees. Practice management by walking around.
Part 3: Inspirational
Women are often described as natural collaborators. That’s a good thing, but it can prevent us from stepping out front. Take the time to set a vision for yourself and/or your team. It’s not about ego. Vision requires bold strokes.
Make strong declarations about what you will do. Take every opportunity to demonstrate how you are achieving your declarations to create excitement and a sense of purpose. Avoid hedging. It waters down your power.
Women have the same opportunity as men to be daring, witty, and even skillfully light. Yet, at times, we can oversteer into seriousness in an effort to demonstrate strength and competency. Remember to balance competency with vulnerability. Think of how you communicate with your friends and bring that authentic self into the workplace. Express more, not less. Excitement is contagious.
PRESENCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR JOB SEEKERS
Whether you are looking for your first job or your last one, your executive presence will carry more weight than anything else once you make it to the interview stage. (And with senior executives, that usually starts well before any formal job search process, through your interactions in your network and in business settings.)
Part 1: Intentional
Be crystal clear about your personal presence brand before you begin job seeking. Know what you want to demonstrate through your words and actions.
Use the Intentionality Frame to configure your main points for interviews.
Practice key points about yourself and your experience out loud. Take careful note of your body language to ensure it is in alignment with your intention. Make sure you smile often.
Part 2: Individual
Come up with three or four stories about your life and experience that communicate your values, achievements, struggles, and passion. Keep them handy for formal or informal interviews, to let others see the authentic you. As an extra bonus, stories make you more memorable.
Trust is the name of the game in hiring. Someone has to trust that the chance he is taking on you is a good bet. Review the section “Getting Hired” in Chapter 6 for how to embolden trust.
Find commonalities with each person that you meet, either before or during the interview process.
Part 3: Inspirational
Have a vision for the domain you are seeking to lead—whether it’s a sole-contributor position, a team, or the whole company. Walk in the door ready to share the possibilities you see.
Use inspired language. Make declarations about what you will do (not could or might do) if you get hired.
Share opinions about common topics (i.e., show you are good interesting) and reveal sincere struggles as well. Be human, authentic, and real.
PRESENCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR CAREER CHANGERS
From baby boomers redefining themselves in retirement to market forces changing entire industries overnight, more people are changing careers than ever before. It can be simultaneously thrilling and scary to shift your identity after working so hard to establish yourself in a career. All of a sudden your solid ground feels shaky, and you end up dealing with feelings you hadn’t faced in years. But here’s the rub: Your ability to make this shift successfully is directly related to your ability to demonstrate a strong presence while doing it. If you want others to trust your capabilities in your newfound career, you have to comport yourself in a way that shows you believe you can do it.
Part 1: Intentional
Accept the fact that your new life will require a new set of intentions. Whatever brand you had before might not be relevant now. As you get to know people in your new field, solicit their feedback for a personal presence audit. Their feedback will give you the most relevant information for how you’ll need to “show up” (i.e., what you need to be a player) in this new world.
Set intentions for all your interactions with others, from networking events to interviews. Get yourself in the zone beforehand with a pregame ritual.
Gather success stories (even if they are carryovers from your last profession) to show what makes you excited about this new work. Carefully note your body language to keep it open and assured. Smile readily. Practice your points out loud and be sure not to come across as apologetic.
Part 2: Individual
Don’t forget the path that got you here. As you present yourself at interviews or networking events, share how your past has informed your present and how it prepared you for this new endeavor. It’s what makes you unique.
As with any hiring situation, you need to establish trust quickly. Show why you are credible and reliable for this career by providing similar examples from your past career.
Resist the urge to put on the hard sell in an effort to overcompensate. Listen more than you talk. Acknowledge the concerns an interviewer may have about accepting you in this new role. Then show how you plan to overcome any obstacles the interviewer has described.
Part 3: Inspirational
Energy goes a long way. When you tackle a new challenge you bring enthusiasm buttressed by a fresh perspective. Share your vision for what’s possible for you in this new career. Don’t be reticent. Be candid, and go as big as you can.
Make compelling declarations about what you will do. Don’t be hesitant.
You have an interesting take on your new career simply because you come at it from a unique angle. Use this to your advantage. Be a thought-leader in the industry. Get involved in professional associations and peer groups. Create shining moments by being interesting.
PRESENCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR YOUNG PROFESSIONALS
Fledgling professionals can find it daunting to display a confident and credible presence while learning the ropes. When you are new to the workforce, you may lack role models for how to carry yourself in various situations. Rising professionals who exhibit an executive presence—way before ever being in an executive position—get swept into a virtuous cycle of perception. Young professionals who show leadership potential get noticed for it and end up with more opportunities to develop into leaders.
Part 1: Intentional
Think of the leaders who have been meaningful to you—both in your work and private life. Write down their characteristics and make a short list of what you’d like to model, then begin developing a personal presence brand.
Have a situational intention for every meeting you are in. Always contribute in some fashion. If you have nothing to add, ask an insightful question. Get there early enough to make small talk with others beforehand, and stay a few minutes after to do the same.
Nervousness or insecurity can set in quickly, especially when so much is new. Focus on what you can control, such as your posture, facial expressions, and professional attire. Practice key points you want to make so they come across strong.
Part 2: Individual
Be professional first, and bring the best parts of your personal life into the workplace. Think of some key stories that show what you’re made of and find ways to communicate them. Overcame major obstacles to make your college soccer team? Perfect.
When you are new in your career, people will look to see if you’re credible and reliable enough to be trusted. Always do what you say you’re going to do. If you are going to miss a deadline, communicate it well ahead of time. Be someone who can be counted on and good things will open up for you.
Treat everyone, no matter the person’s position or level of power, as a respected colleague. Be conversational, find commonalities, and bring up outside interests. Even the top guns at the office like to discuss their families and hobbies. Go to office happy hours with the goal of finding common interests with others, not to party on the company’s dime.
Part 3: Inspirational
Communicate a vision for your position. You don’t want to come across as self-serving, so be sure that your vision benefits the company. Follow your industry, conduct informational interviews of experts, and read extensively. As you develop thoughts about what’s happening in your market longer term, share them.
Speak professionally and declaratively. Tape-record yourself to see if you have lingering college speak. Avoid using words such as “like” as an interjection (e.g., “I’m, like, serious … “) or saying “I think,” which make you sound inexperienced and tentative. Aim to speak with conviction using a strong tone.
Volunteer for opportunities that put you in a position of being noticed. If nothing comes your way, take an idea directly to your boss: Propose writing a research report, giving a presentation to colleagues about a topic you know well, or organizing a workplace cultural initiative (another reason it helps to stay up on the industry). The extra effort sets you apart and gives you a chance to shine.