He walked in and transformed his team before he even said a word.
The team of 20 was stressed. Agitated. A reorganization had been announced and they didn’t like where it was going. Their tension was palpable, even in the silence as they waited for him.
Evan walked in, stood in front of his team, and calmly looked at each person. A calm moment of simply connecting with each one.
The whole room calmed down. He could feel it go from agitated to still. They breathed a sigh of relief without even knowing why. They suddenly had the feeling everything was going to be okay.
His presence alone had that effect. Later they would say Evan “has a strong leadership presence” that gives them confidence, and that’s why they feel calm and confident in his presence.
Evan didn’t start out that way. I met him several years ago during an in-person Causative Communication workshop. He had a real hard time with the first exercise of learning how to “Be There”, sitting across from someone and simply learning to BE THERE, to be fully present, in front of another human.
Everything jiggled. I finally got Evan to stop his right knee from jiggling up and down, and immediately the foot started. I’d help him stop the foot and his thumbs would go into motion. Then the knee would start again. Evan couldn’t sit still for even 30 seconds. He thought it was going to kill him. He thought it was impossible.
Little by little, with plenty of practice, he mastered the skill and was able to be there for longer and longer periods of time. This is a skill you develop.
That morning, when he finally was able to be fully physically and mentally present, and continue doing it comfortably for an indefinite period of time, that’s when Evan developed presence.
What is presence? If you look it up in a good dictionary, you’ll find that it’s the fact of being present, a state of being in a certain place and not some other.
Their bodies may be present, but people the world over have mastered having their minds be somewhere else. Very few are fully present, fully there. It takes practice.
There’s another definition that applies when you fully master the art of presence, and that is a person’s bearing when it commands respectful attention. Bearing is how you carry yourself, all of your body language taken together as a whole. Real presence commands respectful attention.
The quality of your presence has a huge impact on others. Even more than your words. Your presence tells others how to interpret your words.
Most people focus on their words. It’s all about words, words, words. But the quality of your words and how they are received depend on the quality of your presence.
If you want to transform an audience without having to say a word, this is the skill to master. Do it well and the world will listen to everything you say.
Be the cause!