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What's the Big Deal About Leadership Presence?
by
Carla Kimball
©2008, Carla Kimball
All rights reserved.
Leadership presence are the new buzz words. Everywhere you look, the prevailing view of new leadership says that presence is what we need to shift the planet from where we currently find ourselves to a place where we can survive, thrive and expand. We need people with vision at all levels to step forward, become leaders and take action within their sphere of influence.
In fact, I’ve noticed recently that the term “leadership presence” is appearing more and more frequently in the descriptions of job postings. My Google Alerts have told me that in the last month alone this term has appeared as an important competency in the following jobs: retail store manager, graphic designer, general manager - fund administration, sales manager, managing partner in a law firm, associate director- creative services, regional VP of relocation, loss prevention officer, manager of health and safety.
Clearly, leadership presence is no longer viewed as solely the purview of politicians!
We can easily identify people who have presence. They are confident, natural, relaxed. People gravitate toward them and listen to what they have to say. A person with presence commands attention and as such is seen as a leader
What is leadership presence? It’s something we can sense but it’s often difficult to describe.
We know when someone has it, we can feel it, and we are moved by it. And, when someone doesn’t have it, we either don’t see or listen to them or they bore us to tears.
And, while it might seem that some people just naturally have presence and others don’t, the truth is that we all have presence. It's not something just for the lucky few. Just think of the natural presence clearly visible in newborns and infants. That quality is there like a glowing flame until life events begin to cause them to retract into a protective shell.
The problem is that while we recognize the importance of authentic leadership presence and we can identify the qualities that convey presence, developing our own unique presence is not an easy thing for many people.
So the question is, how do we reconnect with and speak from our essential presence that is there within us but camouflaged by fear, anxiety and feelings of separation? A set of techniques don’t really work if they are imposed from outside. Instead, we must uncover our presence from inside out, lift the veils that hide it and open to its natural expression.
Perhaps the first step is to identify what hides our presence. Next month we'll explore the obstacles that typically get in the way of our presence.
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Carla Kimball, M.A., M.B.A. is a speaking presence coach, workshop facilitator and president of RiverWays Enterprises. Over the past 18 years she has presented and coached on a diverse set of business, stress management and communication topics to thousands of business and service professionals. Client companies include leading financial management, health care, and accounting firms.
Carla offers a selection of regular public speaking presence and presentation skills programs and coaching services for individuals as well as for corporate groups. Carla works from inside-out and helps people become more confident speakers while establishing a strong relationship with their audience.
Carla is a prolific writer on public speaking topics and currently offers a 26 week subscription to The ABCs of Presence in Speaking, Leading, and Life!, a newsletter which presents one article and exercise a week organized alphabetically with a unique perspective on public speaking issues. She has also distilled her approach to public speaking presence into a workbook/audio set entitled the SpeakingPresencesm Toolkit.
Carla is based in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire at the intersection of Interstates 91 and 89 and centrally located to all of New England, including Boston, Western Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine.
(You may freely copy and distribute this article as long as you keep the content intact and unchanged including title, author, copyright notice, text, contact information (www.riverways.com), and this entire notice. )
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We are centrally located in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire close to the intersection of Interstates 89 and 91. As such we are in in the heart of New England and close to Boston and all of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and Maine.
Travel time from:
Albany, NY — 2.75 hours
Boston, MA — 2.25 hours
Brattleboro, VT— 1.25 hours
Burlington, VT — 1.5 hours
Concord, NH — 1 hour
Hartford, CT — 2.5 hours
Portland, ME — 3 hours
Portsmouth, NH — 2 hours
