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OWN THE ROOM: DISCOVER YOUR SIGNATURE VOICE TO MASTER YOUR LEADERSHIP PRESENCE
AUTHOR: Amy Jen Su, Muriel Maignan Wilkins
PUBLISHER: Harvard Business Review Press
Price: Rs 995
ISBN: 9781422183939
Many communication studies find that somewhere between 70 and 95 per cent of what's 'heard' during a conversation is through nonverbal cues. Whether you intend to or not, you send strong messages to people through your body language and energy. By looking at you, they make assessments about your knowledge, expertise, and competence as a leader. Many leaders, knowing this, focus almost exclusively on their physicality to improve their presence. They hope for a silver bullet that will automatically make them appear more like leaders and they model themselves on a common image: someone who dresses well or stands taller. Sharpening up your "book cover" certainly yields positive benefits, but it won't help you fully realize the impact you want to have as a leader. You need to address the full spectrum of physical elements that drive presence.
The energy you give off has incredible impact beyond how good you look or how crisp your presentation is. Instead of acting out or copying what you think success looks like, physically condition yourself to find an authentic energy that connects with others. There's something incredibly appealing and magnetic about someone who is truly at ease, relaxed, and comfortable in her own skin.
Body language: Manage what your body says
Meet Patricia. As a senior director of new product development in a fast-moving consumer goods company, Patricia played a critical role in determining which products move from product development to the prelaunch phase. At a meeting to decide the fate of one product, she felt her shoulders tense, and she started to shift in her chair. She was annoyed that her colleagues were rehashing a point that she thought they had resolved last week. Why can't they be more efficient? she wondered. As she interrupted the conversation to make her point, she started to speak faster and raise her voice. In response, she noticed her colleagues look down at the table. Some swiveled their chairs away. She knew she was losing them, but wasn't sure how to get them back. Leaning forward on the table, she asked what they thought, but didn't get much of a response.
What is your body telling you and others?
This was not an uncommon place for Patricia to end up in. Her presence sometimes slid to driving voice, as it did at this moment. Over the years, she had gotten feedback that maintaining her composure was a key development area. She had a reputation for being assertive with her body language and raising her voice when she was not happy with the way a meeting was going or with what one of her direct reports was saying. These actions signaled to those in the room that she was not interested in a two-way dialogue. Patricia had been told that she needed to listen better. What she didn't realise the first time she heard that feedback was that she couldn't just listen with her mind, but she had to demonstrate openness with her body. She had essentially lost her audience, not because of anything she had said but because of the energy she gave off through her nonverbal cues. When we worked with Patricia in coaching, we focused on developing an awareness of the message her body language sends. We helped her see that when she raised her voice and started talking faster, she was shutting people out of the conversation, telling them that she would take control from here on out. This isn't what Patricia wanted. In fact, she found herself frustrated with her team, that they held back and didn't assert themselves more. By sharing feedback from the team, we helped her see that while the team could be more assertive, she was causing much of their reticence. They expressed the desire to speak up but explained that they were hesitant to do so. For some, it was about fear, and for others, it was pure annoyance.
This meeting was tough for Patricia. In retrospect, she could see that her colleagues had pushed one of her hot buttons. They challenged her values of efficiency and decisiveness and she was beginning to lose her composure. We worked with her to calm herself down before she fell down that familiar rabbit hole. Patricia developed tactics for when she began to see signs of getting hijacked by her emotions and headed toward a heated discussion. Instead of raising her voice and further driving home her points, she learned to take a deep breath and steady herself by anchoring her foot into the floor. When she did that, she was able to remain engaged with her team, maintain her composure, and prevent her slide to driving voice. Her self-control then allowed for others in the room to contribute to the discussion.
Working with the body and energy is often a foreign concept for leaders. Some hear the word energy and ask, "Is this new age?" or say "I don't want anything too woo-woo." The starting point for these individuals is to build some awareness around their physicalselves and what their bodies communicate to others. Again, videotaping or getting feedback from important stakeholders can be helpful here.
Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence. Copyright 2013 Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins. All rights reserved
