Become the Real Deal

The Proven Path to Influence and Executive Presence

Connie Dieken

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781118633786
• eBook ISBN: 9781118755051
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Become the real deal and you'll become the leader you're meant to be.

If you want to make change in your organization and in your world, and advance your own career, you need to become a person who can effectively influence others to take action. When looking to bring about organizational change of any kind, the main skill required is influence. Nothing will help your cause more than being able to effectively influence others to take action. Become the Real Deal presents a modern and practical approach to leadership that yields unlimited dividends for leaders at all levels. Author Connie Dieken calls these dividends your Return on Influence® (ROI).

You'll discover your own Centers of Influence through a series of visual dashboards and learn how to capitalize on these Centers of Influence to become the powerful, purposeful authority you're meant to be.

• Readers will learn how to override personal influence-killing tendencies, such as narcissism, anxiety, long-windedness, silence, social façades, and invisibility.

• Connie Diekenis the country's foremost Fortune 500 communication coachan executive coach to the world's top brands, an Emmy award winning former TV news anchor, reporter, and inductee of the Radio/Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

For anyone seeking to be the "real deal, " this book uncovers the strengths and skills you need to gain influence and lead your organization to success.

Layer One: Inner Presence

How You Experience Yourself

Transform Yourself on Purpose

Chapter 1

What Is Inner Presence?

Managing Yourself

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How You Experience Yourself

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Your inner presence can be your most valuable asset—or your deepest liability. I know that seems like a pretty bold statement—perhaps one you didn't see coming. Chances are, you're wondering what I mean by inner presence. So let's start with a simple definition:

Inner presence is the way you experience yourself.

That may sound a little spiritual, but it's actually a crucial practical skill. Inner presence determines the way you think, make decisions, lead, collaborate, and execute strategies. It directly influences your effectiveness.

Let's allow that notion to breathe for a moment. What's your first reaction? Is your inner presence an asset or a liability?

It's probably both. Why? Because, like so many things in life, the answer depends on the situation.

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Your Inner Presence Is a Moving Target

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Your inner presence is a moving target from one moment to the next, since you experience yourself differently under different conditions. One day you beat projections for the quarter and your head swells with pride; another day, you lose a major client, and your confidence plummets.

Inner presence is what's happening inside your mind and heart as the world comes at you, judging you, testing you—even bringing opportunities your way.

Your inner presence is a means to an end. And a centered inner presence is vital if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level.

In my coaching practice, I've seen executives rise rapidly and crash spectacularly based on this single quality. Everything rides on it: Influence. Trust. Respect. Relationships. Reputation. Career.

I've discovered one thing, repeatedly and unmistakably: presence—what I call “the real deal”—begins within. It's about being, not just doing.

I've spent the past 13 years exploring how this works. I've surveyed thousands of leaders across industries and disciplines to find out how and why their presence affects their performance. When questioned about their views regarding the Three Layers of Presence, only 29 percent of respondents said they believed they were strongest in inner presence. The overwhelming majority felt their inner presence was unbalanced in one way or another.

Centering your inner presence is more important today than it's ever been. We live in a radically transparent society. Our organizations are flatter and more open than ever before. As leaders, we're always on—always in the spotlight. That means it's easier for our colleagues to catch us off-balance. And the pressure of our always-on world can itself throw us off balance.

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Freer. Happier. More Powerful

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Centering yourself will take work, but that work will pay off. When you're balanced, you set your talents free. When you learn to center your inner presence, you will live and work more effectively. You'll be freer. Happier. More powerful. More purposeful.

But when your inner presence is knocked off-center, you become a weaker version of yourself. Your capacity to lead and contribute suffers, as shown in the graphic.

Think of it as a seesaw. You want to be balanced in the middle. Too little inner presence and you're depleted, which can easily cause you to become anxious. Too much and you're full of yourself—and tend toward narcissistic behavior.

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Steady or Warped?

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Your current level of inner presence is a combination of where you came from and where you're trying to go. It's a sense of steadiness—or unsteadiness—drawn from your personal experiences. Most of us have an inner presence that's warped in one way or the other—which means we're wasting our potential. We're not making the impression we want to make, or influencing others the way we'd like. We don't lead the powerfully productive lives we'd like to live.

Remember the word cloud? It's a way to bring the big picture into focus by highlighting the most important themes.

In the Introduction, you chose a word that you would like to define yourself by—something that sums up the way you'd like to feel as you move through the world. Later, we'll talk about how you want other people to see you and hear your messages. But for now, this is all about you. Take another look at your word cloud in the previous chapter.

As you read the next three chapters, keep your word in mind. How often do you actually feel this way? What situations rob you of this ideal quality?

We all get thrown off-center from time to time. But if it happens too often, it will threaten your ability to advance in your career. It's up to you to shift the momentum. Ready to learn more?

Chapter 2

Centered Inner Presence

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Transforming on Purpose

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Steve's teams didn't know what to make of their new leader. He'd just acquired both of their businesses and consolidated them into one. Previously, a domineering bully had owned one unit, while a passive owner had run the other.

“I've got two completely different cultures on my hands,” Steve told me at our first meeting, as he described his site visits. “One group works heads-down. They've been conditioned to play it safe because their previous owner ripped them to shreds for years. The other team, who had an absentee owner, is like the Wild West. Everyone and everything is running amok; there's no accountability,” he sighed, running a hand through his sandy hair.

Steve envisioned a new culture, similar to one he'd built earlier at another business. It was a culture where employees were transformed into leaders at all levels. He wanted everyone, regardless of their title, to be empowered and care deeply about their colleagues, customers, and suppliers.

“The hidden agendas are gone,” he said. “I hope they can get past their skepticism, which I completely understand. They probably think everything I'm telling them is just lip service. They've never encountered leadership like this before.”

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Do You Live Your Values?

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Steve had strong values that balanced his solid work ethic. I'd never met anyone quite like him in a corner office. He was a wildly successful leader who truly focused on others, not on his own needs. When I asked him what he wanted to get out of working with me, he replied, “I'd like for you to help me develop a leadership team that's so remarkable that everyone in the entire organization feels energized and empowered. No phony baloney leaders who are all talk and no action. I want them to be the real deal.”

Of course, he had robust financial goals, too. He wanted to double the company's book of business and profitability. This would be a stretch—especially since these once-separate companies had each disappointed their customers and underdeveloped their workforce in the past.

Steve believed that a culture focused on personal development would ultimately make leadership, staff, and customers happier and more effective. He wanted to invest in his people's development. He just needed to figure out how to make everyone else believe that he sincerely wanted them to reach their potential for themselves—and that he wasn't merely interested in his own profitability and success.

No leader wants his or her followers to see them as fake. Nobody wants their colleagues to suspect them of having a hidden agenda. We're all like Steve; we want the people around us to trust us. That foundation of trust and respect is the only way we can truly influence others.

Steve had already taken the first step toward his goal. He realized that in order to elevate his team's performance, he needed to be balanced internally. He needed to stay centered in order to get the best results for everyone.

He also had one other important advantage: his personal values. He valued respect, excellence, and humility and wanted to build a company founded on these qualities that would serve a purpose greater than profit.

“Values” and “purpose” may sound like fluffy distractions from the serious work of leading an organization in the twenty-first century, but they're not. They're actually the foundation for creating a centered inner presence—and that's the first step toward becoming the inspiring, compelling, effective leader you want to be.

What Centered Presence Looks Like

Did you watch the 2013 Super Bowl? If so, you might have caught the commercial called “So God Made a Farmer,” showcasing a Dodge Ram pickup truck. It features the voice of the late, great radio commentator, Paul Harvey, delivering a snippet of his famous commentary. Though that speech is almost 40 years old, Dodge found Harvey's words inspirational. And so did Super Bowl viewers all over the world.

The speech made a strong impression because Paul Harvey was centered. He wasn't afraid to express his deep respect for others—in this case, farmers. Harvey was fully invested in the values he asserted. He wasn't hiding. He wasn't bragging. He praised the things he valued and criticized the things he didn't. He could give it to you straight, because he was straight on what he valued. Like him or not, he was the real deal. When he died in 2009, the ABC radio network could not replace him.

I recently interviewed Dr. Condoleezza Rice in front of a live audience that was gathered for a book signing of her autobiography, Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family. The former secretary of state exceeded my hi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Become the Real Deal
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction: What Is the Real Deal?
• Layer One: Inner Presence: How You Experience Yourself
• Layer Two: Verbal Presence: How You Reveal Your Messages
• Layer Three: Outer Presence: How Others Experience You
• Bringing It All Together: Becoming the Real Deal
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index