What is Leadership Presence and How to Develop It?

Despite its popularity and widespread usage, most people find it difficult to identify what leadership presence is. We can recognize people who have it and those who do not but pinpointing its exact meaning is a little difficult. Therefore, let us delve a little deeper and find out more about this term and how you can develop it. In case you are trying to find out what leadership presence is, this article might be handy.   

What Is Leadership Presence

Leadership presence is one of those characteristics that can help you become a stronger leader. It is a combination of different characteristics like communication adaptability along with your dressing and body language. By developing your leadership presence, you can increase your employee's trust in you and enhance workplace productivity. Here are a few more aspects of leadership presence.    

• It helps you connect naturally with others and makes inspiring and motivating them easier.   
• It helps you share your opinions and thoughts confidently.
• It strikes a balance between talking and listening, making your communication persuasive and impactful.    

Cultivating an executive presence is something everyone desires. However, one must understand that leadership presence has nothing to do with doing well in one's business. It does not reflect your leadership skills or qualities but how others evaluate and view you as a leader. Let us find out a few methods that can help you increase your leadership presence.    

How To Develop a Leadership Presence   

Developing your leadership presence can make you come across as a trustworthy figure whom others can look up to. This not only helps with workplace productivity but also increases employee engagement. While your company can always hire an executive coach to help increase your leadership presence, you can try the following methods yourself.     

Conquer Your Inner Critic    

Self-confidence is the key to leadership presence. However, it is difficult to exhibit confidence outside when you have an inner voice that constantly belittles you. Your inner voice may even call you a failure, but it is up to you to listen to it or have the power to believe in yourself .    

To conquer your inner critic, you need to listen first. Find out when your inner critic shows up with negative thoughts. Then ask yourself if these self-reviews are helpful or not. You can also come up with positive statements about yourself and share your truth with others in order to develop this habit. Some people also take the help of emotional intelligence coaching to silence their inner critic and concentrate on the positive truth.   

Help Other Succeed

Strong leadership presence often leads to better connections. Influential leaders leverage their networks and resources to help others succeed. They help those around them without thinking about what they get in return. This behavior also creates an environment where employees work together to make their leaders successful. Hence you need to help others succeed to cultivate effective leadership.   

Gain Credibility

Credibility is born from your body language, communication skills, and being truthful, diplomatic, empathetic, and decisive. However, there are certain words and phrases that can help increase your credibility. According to a recent study, using the word 'because' helps to increase your credibility rate from 60% to 94% . Therefore, if you are looking to improve your leadership presence, try using words like 'because'.    

Redirect Your Focus

Another effective way to develop your leadership presence is to remain attentive throughout any interaction. Strong leaders treat every interaction as an opportunity to connect. Whether in a conference call, a meeting, a one-on-one conversation, or even while answering your emails, the key is to remain focused. This can help you command attention and authority from your employees while becoming a reliable and repeatable leader.    

Communicate Effectively

Another crucial aspect of developing your leadership presence is to communicate effectively. As a business leader, you are responsible for engaging, informing, and directing other teams. Hence , you need to d emonstrate respect toward everyone you communicate with. This not only helps to cultivate effective leadership but also builds your executive presence.    

Develop Your Emotional Intelligence

Emotions play a significant role in communications. Hence, if you can use your emotional intelligence, it can help you understand and manage your feelings which can help you communicate effectively. It can also help you overcome your challenges, deal with conflicts, empathize with others, and relieve stress. To develop your emotional intelligence, you must work on self-awareness, social skills, empathy, and self-regulation.    

Lead Yourself First

Leading yourself first refers to acquiring characteristics like humor, kindness, self-acceptance, and compassion. This helps them in developing a positive as well as attractive leadership presence. Several outstanding leaders started by leading themselves first. From facing their inner critics to overcoming their fears, they also collaborated with mentors, experts, and other executive coaches. They also prioritized their personal growth while becoming comfortable with who they were.    

Developing your leadership presence can help you become an extremely effective leader. It has several benefits, from communicating effectively to sharing one's ideas confidently. Therefore, if you are wondering what leadership presence is, you can use the above-mentioned methods to increase your leadership presence.