Essential Leadership Traits

Essential Leadership Traits

Presence is one of several essential traits that professionals with solid leadership skill demonstrate. You don’t have to be the most outgoing or candid person in the room to manifest leadership presence.  The good news is that you don’t have to be born with presence.  You can develop presence.

Presence can be developed through:

Composure:  Self-awareness, empathy and understanding of others are essential components of leadership presence.  The ability to control your feelings, recognize others emotions, and manage your responses is critical.

Connection:  It’s essential to build rapport with others when communicating this will help them feel at ease.  In order to connect it is essential to understand your personal communication style, your challenges, how to overcome them, and how to read and adjust to the styles of others.

Appeal:  People who personify leadership presence have the skill to attract others to them. This is often achieved through effective listening skills and an ability to “be in the moment” and remain “in the moment.”  As a result, the people with whom you are interacting know that you are focused exclusively on them, and are not distracted by countless other things you could be doing at that instant.   

Confidence:   A key trait of leadership presence is to communicate and inspire confidence by what you say and how you say it.  To look confident, good posture is critical. Next, attention to eye contact is a requirement.  Make sure you only speak when making eye contact and manage your eye contact appropriately when communicating with more than one person — one thought per person is a good rule.  Ensure your facial expression matches your message and that your voice has good pitch, volume, and pace.  And of course, you must look the part.  Select your apparel and accessories carefully.

Credibility:  Not only is your content central to your credibility, but the language you choose to deliver it will sway your credibility.  Filler language such as “um,” “uh,” and “so” immediately detract from presence.  As do reducers like “just,” “sort of,” and “this may not be a good idea but…” all these reduce credibility.  When someone with strong presence speaks, others take note, and there is no doubt of the personal commitment behind their words.

Clarity:  For you to project presence, the ability to clearly communicate is essential.  If your point is unclear, any hope of commanding attention is lost. Create an elevation speech for your message.   Ask yourself, “What is my message in 10 words or fewer?”  If you can’t articulate your message to yourself you are not ready to communicate it to others.

Conciseness:  Being long-winded kills presence.  Just as it is critical to know what you want to communicate, you must be able to do it concisely.  Once you’ve delivered your message and briefly validated it, ask your listeners, “What else can I share with you about this idea?”  This way you will stay on point and only expand on a topic with the content that your listener needs.

Leadership presence is within your grasp. Many leaders develop their presence with a little personal reflection practice and coaching from one who has already developed the leadership trait of presence.