When leading a team of any size, having an executive presence is something that will set you apart from the rest. It is also influential in keeping your employees motivated and inspired.
Executive presence mainly describes the ability to inspire confidence from your workforce, assuring them that you are the leader for them to follow and that you are fully capable in your position. This trait can come naturally for some people but can also be acquired through improving your current skills by taking important steps.
Here are some ways you can work on applying your own executive presence:
Build communication skills
Being a good leader can mainly come down to having excellent communication skills which is a common trait for those people with executive presence.
This consists of possessing two key attributes which are speaking ability and body language. These are both important in portraying confidence and assertiveness to other people.
Having effective speaking skills comes down to not only what you say but in the way you say it, if the delivery of your words is just right it will be perceived effectively by others. To expand on this, even if you have the most interesting subject to talk about with your audience, it will ultimately be ineffective if not delivered in an engaging way that connects with them.
First impressions are vital when interacting with your workforce and are largely influenced by how body language comes across. Having a positive attitude, good posture and making eye contact all help give off positive signals to others, indicate interest and physically project confidence.
Being authentic
Having good authenticity is a key skill to have as leader, people that come across as real, transparent, and honest in their interactions in turn enhance their own executive presence.
This trait can be achieved by making sure that you act with credibility and your actions correspond with your intentions. Therefore, show yourself as someone who can be trusted and ensure that you act like the leader you believe yourself to be. By focusing on your intentions and being comfortable when addressing people, you can send the right messages to your workforce.
Reacting proactively to situations
When faced with challenges, your reactions to situations that arise are all important in how you are perceived to your workforce.
People who present themselves as calm, collected, well-prepared and in control can help inspire confidence for those that are observing them. Although sometimes whilst looking very busy to others may be misconceived by yourself as indicating your value to an organisation. It does not, it just indicates that there may be a large workload you are tasked with, by reacting positively to stressful situations you can help yourself and enhance your executive presence.
Appearances matter
Visual appearance is one of the factors that makes people build first impressions on you as a leader, therefore it is important that your appearance is appropriate for the setting and company culture.
In addition to this, it should be consistent with other people at a similar level to yourself and portrays a professional image to those observing you. It might seem like a small detail but if your appearance is not suitable to what is expected in the workplace environment, it can distract people from the first impression you want to leave them with.
For more information like this, check out our other Brighter Directions blogs.
