Do you want to appear more credible during meetings or when proposing ideas to decision makers? Learning to improve your executive presence will increase your confidence and help you stand out from the crowd.
Your executive presence is impacted by many facets of your professional brand. This includes how you look, your attitude, what you say and how you say it. Even your written communications impact your executive presence. How do you ensure you’re putting your best foot forward? The following actionable techniques will help you shine, even if you’re new to your position and/or lack the confidence to speak up during meetings:
1. Stay Out of the Weeds:
When meeting with decision makers, stay focused on the goal. Providing too much detail can result in lots of questions and no decisions. It’s also easy to spend too much time discussing the problems and forget to connect the issues to the overall goals of the organization. If you talk about problems and leave out why this is good for the company, decision makers will not fully understand your needs and will likely not approve your request. The bottom line? Stay focused on the goals and impact to the company, not the details.
2. Active Participation:
When attending a meeting, don’t just sit on the sidelines. There are several roles you can take on, even if you aren’t an expert in the subject at hand. Consider acting as a “Mediator.” When there’s disagreement between people in the room, instead of getting defensive or sitting on the side lines, you want to have a voice and stay involved in the dialog. Listen carefully and at an appropriate point, refine or define what the key issues or challenges are to the group (if they happen to be going in circles). The mediator may also point out the common ground between the opposing parties by asking the question “can you tell us more about that problem?” By interjecting, you’re adding a third voice to the dialog, which tends to naturally calm the energy down. Use a calm, slow pace when speaking.
3. Number One Technique
There is one technique you can implement right now to enhance your personal brand and improve your executive presence. Check out this 90-second video to find out how.
Ready to Learn More to Improve Your Executive Presence?
- Read about our face-to-face customized communication skills training to improve your executive presence.
- Improve your presentation and communication skills on your own time with our cloud-based, AI-driven presentation practice software. Simply login, put on your headset, upload your slides, present to your webcam and receive instant feedback and coaching to learn exactly how to improve.
- If you want more free presentation training videos, visit us on YouTube.
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