Leading with Presence

Fundamental Tools and Insights for Impactful, Engaging Leadership

Antonie T. Knoppers, Milly Obdeijn, Steffen R. Giessner

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781787146006
• eBook ISBN: 9781787149892
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

In our communication, there are three 'elements' used to express a message: verbal content, body language, and the voice. When these elements are not congruent, we often will believe the body language and the voice. For this reason, non-verbal elements are particularly important for communicating feelings and attitudes and in engaging others; in any type of leadership role these aspects are vital in order to be an effective leader.

Leading with Presence provides a practical guide as to how and why Presence in everyday interaction is a vital component of impactful leadership. This book explores and teaches about non-verbal communication such as posture, gestures, and the voice to create more awareness and understanding of the signals sent, and explains how to be present and 'in the moment,' how to connect with others, to 'read the room,' to motivate and inspire, to instill trust, to exude confidence and thus strengthen your leadership.

Through theory, practical tools and exercises, this book is essential reading for all business professionals in understanding the science behind body language, and exploring, practicing and understanding Leadership Presence.

1

Setting the Stage

Introduction to Presence; Our Definition, Inspiration, Values and Backgrounds

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said. (Peter Drucker¹)

Leadership is about how someone experiences themselves in your presence. (Joshua Margolis²)

The Inspiration for Our Book

David, a manager at a large company, was by all accounts a terrific guy. Very personable, kind, well-meaning and affable; there was little to dislike about him. However, many found it hard to listen to him, in that as you listened to David, after a while your mind tended to drift off to other things. He never could hold anyone’s attention for a long time and this was always a source of frustration for him. Jack, a top manager at another company, had all the right words to say. His employees would indicate that what he said seemed right and on point, and even was inspiring; however, they complained they never really felt it. Stacy, another manager, felt frustrated that her team didn’t seem to have confidence in her. They said she barely took up any space and never really seemed to stand for her vision.

Our scientific and practical interest in Presence, and experiences we had with clients such as David, Jack and Stacy during our training programs and business interactions, inspired us to write this book. We want to empower people and have them experience growth in their Presence work. What we strive to achieve in our work with our clients is not only create awareness of one’s body language but also share the science that supports the work we do and give the practical tools to strengthen their nonverbal communication: their body language and voice.

All these true life examples of Jack, Stacy and David and what we have observed during our workshops and private coaching with many other clients we’ve worked with often indicate a lack of congruence. If your message is to inspire, instill trust, motivate, etc., the words are not enough. In fact, if those words are not congruent with your body language, most people will believe the latter.³,⁴

An essence of our communication is the nonverbal part, as it communicates important information across cultures about our emotional state and intentions, which can even be important to our survival. Therefore, paying attention to the information of the body language and voice of others can give you very important clues to what the other is conveying. Listening to only the words falls short of the full message that is communicated. And if you are the one communicating, you’ll be much more effective if your nonverbal message is congruent with your verbal message. And actually, if your nonverbal message is incongruent with your verbal one, your audience is much more inclined to believe your nonverbal signals. Therefore, if you don’t use your body and voice to embody your message, communication can often fail. For example, if you have to go through difficult organizational changes, Presence helps you to achieve your goals. And it can also considerably support and strengthen your leadership and collaboration with others. As you will read in this book, Presence can greatly enhance many facets of communication. It can make whatever message you’re communicating more effective and clearer.

Our main goal is to empower you: the reader. Seeing growth happen during our training programs and coaching sessions is very inspiring. We seek to do the same through this book: that you will experience real growth in terms of your Presence.

For example, we urge people who always have put themselves in the background, by using a small voice or taking up very little space, to take the space they rightfully have on earth and that suits their communication needs in the moment. We strive to give people the tools to manage their nerves or emotions in a more effective and fulfilling way. There is nothing more satisfying than observing someone who has discovered their “true” voice, take up more space than they previously had, have more confidence, able to instill more trust or connect in the way they have always wanted to connect.

Who We Are: Our Values and How it Applies to Presence

There are certainly many great books out there on leadership Presence. And in our work for this book, we were inspired by colleagues who continue to advocate working on one’s Presence.

We believe this book is unique, in that it covers theory, practice, exercises and research on Presence, and we’ve yet to find a book that combines all those elements. We aim to provide a practical guide as to why – and how – to practice Presence in your everyday interactions. To make you aware of your body language, the signals you send and how you can use this knowledge to feel stronger, more free, open and able to engage with others. Thus, we aim to go further with this book than previous works on Presence. We strive for you to actively increase your Presence through practical tools and exercises.

Because the three authors of this book have such diverse backgrounds, we are able to pool tools, research, exercises and experiences, from our various disciplines. The combination of an actor with a business background, a somatic coach with a dance background and a professor and researcher on body language, leadership and organizational behavior provides a wide pool of resources and experience to draw from. Pooling our knowledge from models and theories on verbal and nonverbal communication, change management, theatrical frameworks, body and voice work, teamwork and leadership allows us to translate Presence in a very practical way.

Our goal is always to make this work as practical as possible and to provide you with easy to use tools you can start applying right away. Every exercise we discuss in this book has a direct link to the daily work you do, and we provide evidence-based theory.

As a trainer of various communication skills, Antonie engages with a large variety of companies, from big multinational corporations, to startups and to small-sized companies, and he is able to view the effects of Presence in a variety of workplace situations. He sees the effects when leaders do not have Presence while addressing their teams. The detrimental outcomes when leaders do not connect with their colleagues, stakeholders and team members. When they fail to create enthusiasm or instill confidence and trust. Presentations that fall flat and become uninspiring. Most of these effects are often due to a lack of Presence. His workshops focus on strengthening communication skills and Presence of his participants.

Milly in her work on somatic coaching, sees many individuals who get stuck in their work and career, as they experience they cannot express themselves clearly and effectively. Therefore, they feel disempowered and underappreciated. She often finds that their nonverbal communication does not support their intentions and talents, which makes it harder to connect and interact freely with others. In her coaching sessions, she helps her clients to lift barriers that impede their Presence and find their inner inspiration and courage.

As a scientist and practitioner, Steffen teaches and trains about nonverbal behavior and how our body is connected to our thinking and feeling. For him, combining scientific understanding about the body–mind connection with practical experiences is a fundamental approach for learning. Students as well as practitioners have increased their Presence from these insights.

In addition, we not only believe in having practical models and tools to work with, but we also highly believe in experiential learning. Presence work cannot be explained only with models, theory, presentations and a book. You will only truly start to “get” this work by doing. Unless you actively and physically work on your Presence, we doubt significant growth will happen in terms of your leadership Presence.

In many leadership and personal development training programs, most of the attention is given to cognitive work and analyzing your personality. Our work is focused on exploring and learning to work with the body-mind connection. As the focus is often on the mind: the thinking, we want to draw your attention to the body as well. As we will discuss more in depth in Chapter 2, the mind and body are connected with each other, so it makes sense to investigate this mutual connection. We strongly believe in adding working through the body to your leadership development, because it is a very helpful way to shift from habitual behavior or reactions to more conscious choices in your responses and actions. This way of working can effectuate real change as opposed to relying only on cognitive comprehension. Working through the body can create true leadership embodiment. Awareness of your posture, facial expressions and voice, for instance, can therefore help you to have more choice over your mood or emotions.

We will provide you with exercises that help you to learn more about your body–mind connection and enable you to grow your Presence. The exercises in this book have a direct link to your workplace situations, even though they might not always seem applicable straight away when you read them or start practicing them. We aim for you to be equipped with practical tools and exercises that have immediate positive effects on your Presence. We also believe in basing our approach and exercises on research findings.

Finally, we believe working on your Presence is a continuous path, and unfortunately that work is never done. After many years of working on Presence ourselves, we still constantly need to remind ourselves to work on our Presence. We have to remain vigilant and aware of our nonverbal communication and maintain a mindful regular practice. The point is: Working on your Presence is never really done.

Leadership and What it Means to Us

This book is focused on Presence with a strong link to leadership, because we believe working on Presence is especially helpful for those who manage or lead others. However, Presence work can be applied to – and help with – any communication you have, be it with a client, customer, stakeholder or colleague (and in private life as well!). It can also greatly help facilitators, coaches and trainers by giving them tools to communicate with more Presence. With regard to leadership, working on your Presence can greatly enhance your ability for self-leadership and thus to effectively lead others, and yourself as well. In Chapter 3, we will discuss how emotional intelligence can help self-management.

Leadership can be generally defined as “a process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.”⁵ Thus, leadership is in essence a process of social influence. Understanding it in this way, it implies that (a) it is not related to a structural position of being a leader or manager and (b) it can be learned or developed. Being in a leadership position certainly requires leadership skills. For instance, as a leader you want to share your or your company’s vision or strategy and then activate people to work toward a certain goal. Mission statements, values and strategies can fall flat if they are not embodied by leaders with Presence. Of course, the coordination, motivation and activation of employees or stakeholders has a language element, backed up by plans, strategies, statements and a clear organization and understanding of one’s tasks and roles. However, we argue, that no matter how clear and well thought-out those elements are, effective coordination and influencing people into action (i.e., leadership) can be greatly strengthened by Presence. When you embody your message, you can strengthen your influence.

In addition, it’s important to realize that as a leader you will constantly be watched, whether you like it or not. Your team and others will watch you in the hallway, at the coffee machine or water cooler, how you enter the room, etc. They are often gauging how your mood is and assessing the matter, amount and the way they will interact with you. Often leaders are not aware of this: that the way a leader sits in a meeting, the way a leader holds their body, the way a leader looks at you (or not), the way she/he greets you, all have an effect and impact on their employees and stakeholders.

We remember being at the offices of one of our clients. We would sit in on their meetings, and often noticed that the manager who was the head of a big department within the company, had a tendency during meetings, to angle his body away from others, cross his arms and often look up to the ceiling when talking to, or addressing, his team members. And more importantly, we remember the effects that body language had on his team members. They often did not trust him, felt guarded around him and he failed to connect with his team members. This greatly affected the manager’s capacity to lead his team. As we will cover in Chapter 4, connecting is one of the four pillars of our Presence work.

Enacting leadership will therefore be important in every moment of your work. Throughout the years, we have seen what body language, the voice and other aspects of Presence, can do both in positive and negative ways to the message one is trying to communicate. If your actions and deeds don’t match what you’re saying, people will start to distrust you and disengage; you might be seen as inauthentic. Despite what you might think you’re showing, many of us don’t align what we say with what we show, creating mistrust, confusion, frustration, irritation and grievance. Team members could continuously be asking themselves if they can trust their leader, if their leader will come through with what he or she promises and/or if their leader is dependable. And when a leader, for instance, has slumped shoulders, is barely audible, speaks with a monotonous voice and has very little eye contact with team members, no matter how well intentioned a leader’s message may be, it can very likely produce an adverse effect:

the way that one organizes oneself bodily will produce assessments from others that will open and close possibilities. The way we shape ourselves will have people move toward us, away from us, against us, or be indifferent to us. (Strozzi-Heckler⁶)

You have made an important step on the path to growth by delving into your presence. Being a great leader takes effort and time. It can be a lengthy and difficult process but can also lead you on a path of strengthening not only your Presence but also your communication with others, your leadership skills and the influence you have on others.

So what Is Presence?

What is that elusive term Presence? It’s harder to define than it is to experience.

Its origins are in Latin: Praeesse and then Praesentia (being at hand). The Merriam-Webster dictionary⁷ defines it as “the fact or condition of being present” and

a: the bearing, carriage, or air of a person; especially: stately or distinguished bearing

b: a noteworthy quality of poise and effectiveness

But we don’t think that says it all. People who experience being with someone who is present, or are present themselves, know exactly what it feels like. Bill Clinton, Jacinda Ardern, the Dalai Lama, Obama and Martin Luther King all are said to have Presenc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Setting the Stage – Introduction to Presence; Our Definition, Inspiration, Values and Backgrounds
• 2  Understanding Presence as a Body–Mind Connection – A Scientific Perspective on the Body–Mind Connection, and its Relation to Presence
• 3  Emotional Intelligence and Authenticity – Using YourEmotions to Strengthen Your Leadership
• 4  The Toolbox – A Practical Tool to Grow and Strengthen Your Presence
• 5  The Voice – Vocal Variation and Expression: Key Elements to Strengthen Your Presence
• 6  Expressiveness – Leadership Presence through Movement, Gestures and the Use of Space
• 7  Practicing Presence – Strengthen Your (Online and Offline) Presence in Your Daily Professional Life
• 8  Epilogue
• Index