Exceutive Presence in a virtual world

#Executive Presence – what is it and how important is it in a virtual environment? It is about the ability to show up strong with your team, leading by example and inspire #confidence in your team. Some people say you have to be born with it, but many leadership coaches say it is possible to learn the representing behaviors and improve your executive presence with a little practice.

Deidra McGinn who has worked in the technology industry for 25 years and recently founded her own company StepInStepUp where she focusses on lifting others and helping with executive presence, advanced coaching & style coaching, created lots of energy during this session and #inspired the participants with an enjoying interactive presentation. By sharing the executive presences framework everyone was able understand, what executive presence is, and which benefits it can bring. #Coaching

What is Executive Presence

Simply put, executive presence means inspiring confidence, create a higher level of engagement and loyalty from your clients, team members or just the situation you are in. It is especially about how people experience you.

How you act
What people see
What people hear
How you make them feel

Benefits of a virtual executive presence

These difficult #Covid-19 times have disrupted how we work and how we show up every day. We spend lots of time in front of a screen. While this can be very energy draining, it is important to show up well and practice executive presence to take advantage of it like:

Inspire confidence in teams or clients you work with
Maintain #trust, by showing a little vulnerability and sharing how you feel
Get taken seriously, by acting like you would act in an office
Build stronger connection
Increase your ability to influence others

Executive presence framework

The framework consists of four elements which refer to skills you can build while practicing them every day. If you would like to improve your executive presence look for feedback from trusted sources. For instance, ask within your team or people you constantly work with on how your behavior and image is perceived.

Four elements:

#Act is about your behavior – 66% of your executive presence is gravitas, improve your gravitas
#See is about optimizing your professional image – impressions matter, you are visible from the head to the top of your shoulders, wear clothes like you go to the office, watch your colors, watch your posture, smile
#Hear is about how you communicate in the virtual world – it is about how you say it, power of breath, voice, storytelling
#Feel is about what is happening and how you make people feel, show strong empathy, people do not remember what you said but how you made them feel