The Three A’s of Executive Presence
Stewart Bewley
Executive Presence is a phrase we made up in the business world. It is trying to put words on something you feel when someone is in the room. Over all my years of coaching I have discovered that it is not that some people have it and some people don’t. It is more complex than that. It is also not as simple as 'Do these three things and you will have an executive presence in every room'.
But there are some fundamental things that if you get right, will make a huge difference to you and your audience. If you are consistently asking yourself – who is my audience, how am I combatting adrenaline and what ability am I using to speak and listen, you will move towards executive presence. You will find your body and mind responding well before and during meetings and you will start to find energy in places you never expected. Here are three A’s to get you started on this journey.
Know your Audience
Sometimes we are so focussed on the 'presentation' we forget who is in the room. And that is unwise. So here are four questions you can ask to help you with this.
- Who is in the room?
- Who are you trying to avoid?
- Who are you trying to impress?
- Who is this really for?
When you know who is in the room and how you feel about them being there you start to ground yourself and think about what they need. If you know you are trying to avoid or impress someone these questions will stop you from having tunnel vision and forgetting everyone else. It will stop you from inevitably over or under-presenting to individuals and instead focus you on the room. And if there is only one person in the audience who you feel you are trying to impress, ask the bigger question beyond them – Who is this for? What is the outcome you want from this presentation? How is this going to build your company, your career, grow your team, increase your influence? Focusing on the longer game for yourself and others gives you a greater sense of calm.
Control your Adrenaline
When you are in a high stakes meeting adrenaline thinks you are under attack and tries to get you out of the room. It is very personal. It will take your words and make them less emotional because it is trying to protect. It will take your story and take out any picture because it doesn’t want to expose you. It will offer you long waffly sentences and corporate words that mean nothing. This is safe. But it is boring. And you don’t want to be boring. The best way to combat adrenaline is to breathe gently and slowly out through your mouth. Force yourself to speak in short sentences. You don’t actually need to slow down. You need to speak in short sentences and pronounce words a bit more than you normally would. There is much more to adrenaline than this but these three things - breathing, speaking short sentences and over pronouncing certain words will keep it under control.
Use your Ability
Back in 2019 I ran a 10k. I didn’t want to run badly and hurt my body, so I went into training. And I learned about how to warm up, run well and warm down. It has changed how I run forever and saved my legs from seizing up! You have the ability to use your voice and body to speak incredibly well. But you do need to train for this. Here are some practical ways you can train your body:
- Practise standing tall, even if you have a sit-down meeting. You can take this back into your seat. Plant your feet firmly on the floor, making sure they are the same width apart as your shoulders. Make sure they are pointing forwards and let your arms rest on your side.
- Take a gentle breath in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. You will feel grounded and your voice will have settled more, finding it’s home in your stomach, not trapped in your throat.
- Now take another breath in and instead of breathing out, send a hum out across the room, using the letter MMMMMM. Try and get your nose to tingle as you do this. Do this a few times, until you feel the sound is at the front of your mouth. This means when you open your mouth to speak you will be loud and easy to hear.
If you do this warmup every day of your working week, you are starting to unlock your powerful voice. When you speak your body will respond, much like mine did when I went for a run. It will feel weird and it will work!
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