Amp Up Your Executive Presence
Whether you’re aiming for a promotion, a raise or some other goal, you’ll reach it a lot faster if you take your executive presence up a notch. And a big part of your executive presence comes down to confidence. According to leadership author John Beeson, others want to see that you can “take control of difficult, unpredictable situations; make tough decisions in a timely way and hold your own with other talented and strong-willed members of the executive team.”
To project confidence, you have to fee confidence. Let’s take a look at some strategies I use with my executive coaching clients to boost their confidence. If you try even one of these tips this week, you’ll notice a shift in the energy you bring to work.
Challenge Your Stories
We constantly tell ourselves stories about our experiences, some that mirror reality and others that don’t. How often do your stories undermine your confidence? For example, you might think, “My meeting on Monday was a disaster.” Challenge your story to balance your perspective. How much have you downplayed what you did well? Even if things didn’t go as well as you had planned, was your performance in this meeting an isolated experience or part of a recurring pattern? Review this list of thinking traps to quickly spot the false stories that damage your confidence and rewrite a more confidence-inspiring story.
Notice Your Wins
High performers can be consistently hard on themselves, often moving on to the next project without taking time to celebrate or reflect about what they just accomplished. If this sounds like you, develop the practice of keeping a simple accomplishment log. Whether you take five or 15 minutes a week, write down what you accomplished and its impact. You will realize that no accomplishment is too small to capture, especially as you notice the impact of each one. If this exercise doesn’t sound appealing, integrate a regular practice of identifying and sharing successes in weekly or biweekly team meetings. This will boost your confidence and your team’s.
Review your accomplishments each week to help you notice your results, challenge your negative stories and provide “strategic snapshots” of your performance to others. (Remember, tasteful self-promotion is part of your job.)
Tap Your Best Practices
Are you going through a challenge that’s creating self-doubt? Chances are that you’ve successfully navigated a situation like this before. One of the most effective (and most overlooked) strategies for becoming a stronger leader is identifying the practices that have helped you consistently get positive results in the past — your personal “best practices.” Take five minutes to reflect about a similar challenge that you previously worked through, what helped you in that situation and how you might tweak your approach to help you with the challenge in front of you today. This is one more reason to track your accomplishments. It will help you give advice to your future self.
Decide How You Want to Show Up
Although many factors may be out of your control, you always get to decide how you want to show up. If having a more confident presence is important to you, before each meeting or conference call, ask yourself what that would look or sound like. Pay attention to what that would mean for your tone, body language and engagement – not just your words. If you anticipate pushback or potential conflict in the meeting or call, think about how you can respond in a way that demonstrates confidence. By simply deciding that you want to show up with confidence, you will.
Strike a Pose
Need a fast boost of confidence? Channel your inner super powers. According to research by Amy Cuddy, striking a power pose (like standing in a wide stance with your hands on your hips) for just two minutes raises your confidence by changing your body chemistry.
Ready to Learn More?
If the tips in this article were valuable to you, check out The Leadership EDGE SeriesSM. Each of the titles in the series is a quick read packed with information that will boost your confidence, executive presence and influence.
10 Years of Purpose, Presence and Power
This summer marks the 10th anniversary of Newberry Executive Solutions. In that time, we’ve helped countless leaders get raises, get promotions and amplify their impact through our products and services. To say thank you for your ongoing support, I’m sharing a special series of blog posts with some of the most powerful insights I’ve gained through 10 years of executive coaching (and 16 years in business before that). This week is Part 1 — stay tuned for more!
