{"id":8923,"date":"2014-09-06T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-06T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=8923"},"modified":"2020-03-30T19:00:08","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T23:00:08","slug":"two-essential-qualities-found-every-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/two-essential-qualities-found-every-leader","title":{"rendered":"Two essential qualities that are found in every leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve probably heard that part of what it takes to get promoted at work,\u00a0advance in your career<\/a>, and inspire others to follow you is having \u201cexecutive presence\u201d or \u201cleadership presence.\u201d But what does that actually mean?<\/p>\n

Years ago, I was invited to\u00a0speak on this very topic at a leadership conference<\/a>\u00a0for a Wall Street investment bank. In a planning call with the conference sponsors, we discussed the talking points I was going to cover.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should start with a definition of leadership presence,\u201d one of them suggested, making me pause. It had seemed so obvious until I was asked to put it into words\u2014but I couldn\u2019t think of one. In a moment of minor panic, I stalled by asking the four leaders on the conference call to describe how they would define leadership presence. Silence ensued. They seemed as stymied I was!<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it like charisma?\u201d asked one. \u201cAnd you either have it or you don\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, one of the youngest managing directors spoke up. \u201cLeadership presence is almost impossible to define,\u201d she said, \u201cbut we all know it when we see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBam!\u201d I thought to myself, and went so far as to ask her if I could use those very words as my opening definition for my conference session. For she had put my own feelings about leadership presence into a succinct non-definition: impossible to define, but we know it when we see it.<\/p>\n

A little more specifically, Kathy Lubar and Belle Linda Halpern, authors of\u00a0Leadership Presence<\/em><\/a>\u00a0describe a leader\u2019s presence like this: \u201cWhen they enter a room, the energy level rises. You perk up, stop what you\u2019re doing, and focus on them. You expect something interesting to happen. It\u2019s as though a spotlight shines on them.\u00a0What is it they have? They have presence<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others have weighed in with their own definitions to attempt to clear up the matter. \u201cThey elicit a natural response to follow them,\u201d says Nina Simosko, the head of strategy, planning, and operations for Nike Technology. \u201cIt\u2019s almost as if they have \u2018leadership pheromones.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In all these examples of definitions, you hear lots of enthusiasm and vivid imagery, but few clues about how to attain the elusive quality for yourself. So you\u2019ve got to feel for\u00a0any young aspiring leader<\/a>, who on his or her performance evaluation gets told, \u201cWe\u2019d love to promote you, but you lack leadership presence.\u201d It\u2019s hard enough to figure out what that means, let alone know what to do next.<\/p>\n

Two Components of Leadership Presence<\/h1>\n

Another expert who has researched leadership presence\u2014what it is and how to build it\u2014is Amy Cuddy at Harvard Business School. (As a follow-up, watch her TED talk on power poses\u00a0here<\/a>, which includes some great tips about body language.)<\/p>\n

It was a light bulb moment when I came across what Cuddy and her colleagues wrote about two traits that are most influential in determining whether a person is perceived as an effective leader.<\/p>\n

The authors explained, \u201cWhen we judge others\u2014especially our leaders\u2014we look first at two characteristics: how lovable they are (their warmth, communion, or trustworthiness) and how fearsome they are (their strength, agency, or competence).\u201d And just like that, they had boiled down the essence of leadership presence into two qualities: warmth and authority.<\/p>\n

Communicating Warmth and Authority<\/h1>\n

I\u2019ve found that one of the best ways to improve your leadership presence is to observe it in a leader you look up to\u2014in person or online\u2014and determine how they convey those two key traits. YouTube can be a great resource to find videos of leaders giving interviews or keynotes, like these:<\/p>\n