Defining Your Leadership Presence

Let’s start with, what is your “leadership presence”? It is the way you pitch up to lead, the attitude, the energy, the body language, the tone and the demeanour.  It is a version of the authentic you.  How you see yourself, and how you want others to see you.  Although your leadership presence is ideal for you, it is not to be confused with varied opinions on an ideal Hollywood or Wallstreet style leadership presence (charismatic, strong, unwavering, hero…).  Your leadership presence has only one definition, and it is decided by you.

Understanding, defining and living your leadership presence is important because if you don’t understand and own it, the rest of the world will, and it likely will be very different from your own interpretation.  Perhaps even more important than taking control of your leadership presence, is ensuring that it is a clear reflection of a fully authentic you.  There are no short cuts here, and being authentic is more difficult than it sounds.  But the effort can be worth it.  Authentic leaders develop real relationships with followers, which leads to more engaged followers who are better able to develop their followers into leaders (Can you see the real me? A self-based model of authentic leader and follower development: University of Nebraska, Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, Walumbwa  https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/managementfacpub/158/).  In short, authentic leaders can gain followers of their own free will, and are more successful leaders than those given leadership through a superficial hierarchy only. 

Understanding who you want to be as an authentic leader starts with internal reflection and analysis.  This work can be extensive, and often you will need to dig back into your past to fully understand your identity, values, motivations and goals. In this article we will only touch on a couple of key items for consideration, but interested readers are encouraged to do further reading (see referenced items in this article), and potentially to engage a coach, as this level of personal development often is richer and more sustainable with assistance.

Defining your why and your personal Mission Statement (Mühlfeit, The Positive Leader) can be helpful tools as you define your leadership presence.  The why, and a mission statement can help you to clarify to yourself why you get up in the morning, and ideally will identify where/how you add value to others, and to the world.  If your going to lead, you need to add value, or you may find yourself short of followers.  Jules van Hessen, a creative Dutch conductor tells the story of being in the dressing room preparing for a performance when he heard an orchestra delivering a flawless and very moving rendition of the piece they were about to play. He was wondering, is it Apple play or Spotify? He walked into the room where the orchestra, his orchestra was playing perfectly without him. It struck him like a sledgehammer – if they can do this without me, what value do I add?

Perhaps more importantly, is understanding your values.  Your values will guide all your decisions and actions in an authentic version of you.  Going against your values is not sustainable for you personally as it will erode your strength and drive, and others can pick up on inconsistencies in your words, decisions, actions and physical presence when you are at odds with your values. 

The self-awareness required to understand your values, identity, motives and goals leads to exercising of self-regulation.  Here it is important to distinguish self-regulation as helping to keep oneself authentic.  Self-regulation is less about tracking to an ideal version of one’s self than it is about ensuring transparency and an expression of core feelings and motivations.  This type of regulation requires un-biased, balanced intake and processing of information, and responding in a way that highlights your ideal leadership presence.    This view includes not taking it personally which allows you to choose actions that are consistent with your leadership presence regardless of the external circumstances.

Self-regulation is also about taking responsibility for your impact on those around you. How would you want people to feel in your presence? How will you ensure that you leave every person feeling that way? And then practicing to deliver the presence and energy in such a way that you leave a part of that (positive) energy behind every time.

Your leadership presence defines your reputation and your integrity; the things you never want to lose control of because they take years to build and only moments to destroy in a connected world.  In a fickle world that notices everything, you will be in a much better place when you have defined and are consistently living an authentic leadership presence that comes naturally and is consistent to who you are.  Your authentic self is also more likely to energize you and your followers, and make it possible for you and your team to achieve your collective vision.