Mastering the five 'P's of presence

Do you ever ask yourself, “What can I do to make my presence felt?” Leaders and aspiring leaders looking to develop a more influential presence at work often face a conundrum: how to increase professional impact whilst avoiding pitfalls such as missing the mark or evoking overly negative reactions.       

From our wide experience of executive coaching, whatever your work setting – formal or informal, virtual or in person – we observe that people who develop an influential presence think and act intentionally in five domains. 

Building a presence depends upon embracing inclusivity and drawing on shared purposes and values. It also depends upon clarity, consistency and challenge. Sometimes a single intervention can change the direction of a decision or meeting. But true presence develops over time.

So what can you do? It’s not about your physical appearance, or how often or quickly you speak. Our thesis is that anyone can build their presence by developing self-awareness, managing their emotions in the moment and making considered changes to how they interact every day at work. Below we offer a selection of questions and reflections that may give you a head start.

Purpose: what are the outcomes you want to see?

Being clear in your own mind about the outcomes that truly matter will affect how you act and what you say. To bring your purpose to life, consider what contribution or impact you most want to make. What are the challenges or issues facing your community, your organisation or your country that you care about and would like to be involved with?

A strong purpose will have sufficient stretch to be motivating, yet not be so unrealistic as to offer little prospect of change or progress. Steps going forward could include a time-out with your team, allowing space to share individual and collective views on purpose. Or it might include a refresh of the team’s purpose, considering how together you can contribute and have a wider impact.

Preparation: taking time to prepare

Preparation suffers when time is tight. Context is key: one meeting might call for hours of detailed thought, while another might need just five minutes of reflection about the core point you want to make. Consider what type of preparation worked well in the past and how that might be useful to you in the future. What can you do beforehand to show up for a conversation or a meeting being, looking and feeling fully engaged?

Practice: training your instinct

A packed diary can crowd out your broader influence. Take time to “stand on the balcony” and look with perspective at what needs to shift. Questions you could ask of yourself include:

• how well do I make space for other voices into the room?
• what’s the feedback about my impact on the conversation or meeting?
• what type of contributions keep the focus on the strategic rather than the tactical?

Steps going forward could be to experiment more with trusting and deploying your intuitive reactions and emotional awareness. You could also experiment with being two degrees bolder in your contributions than is your natural inclination.

Feedback from colleagues can help you to guard against potential pitfalls that undermine presence, such as believing too much in your own rhetoric, wanting to be the rescuer or the hero, or over-exerting yourself by talking too loudly or quickly. Be wary too that a negative presence can show up visibly in demeanour and body language, as well as in curt comments, especially if you are over-tired or under stress. 

Perseverance: getting the timing right

Judging when to hold back and when to act takes practice, whether in writing, in meetings or participating in a webinar or on a panel. Key questions to reflect upon might include:

• is my instinct to intervene too early or too late?
• what can I learn from those who seem to get the timing of their interventions right?

Sometimes saying nothing is the right approach. Your influence might be coming from your role, your reputation, or your past contributions. Your presence can be felt and your body language observed. Steps going forward could be to apply the “rule of three” to focus the points you make in any intervention. Observe when your heart wants to intervene and your head wants to hold back. Be deliberate in prompting an internal dialogue between head and heart.

Partnership: building a shared way forward

To be successful, any team requires all the players to work together to build a shared way forward with others. Using your presence to build alliances can amplify your influence through joint endeavour and complementary approaches.

Questions to ask yourself might include:

• where might I have a problem with trust?
• what might be holding me back from forming stronger partnerships?

Potential next steps might be to consider how well and how clearly you communicate the underlying reasons for effective teamwork and/or new partnerships. Look to build a clear acceptance of shared accountability.

Keep learning 

Adding to your repertoire is a lifelong endeavour. It can be helpful to reflect on how wise, experienced and authoritative leaders would handle a situation you find yourself in. And it is no less timely to remember what your own life experience has taught you about when to speak, when to compromise, and when to bide your time. Marianne Williamson famously wrote: “As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” We encourage those we coach to be ready to be surprised about the contributions they can make and the presence they can bring. 

Peter Shaw CB and Dame Una O’Brien are former civil servants, now executive coaches with Praesta Partners. A fuller version of their work on presence can be found at www.praesta.co.uk