Not everyone is born a leader or an executive, but developing executive presence can help you empower others and perform under pressure. Since it is a skill, you can learn and apply it to advance your career.

To build your executive presence, follow these eight actionable steps to start making progress today:

Step 1: Understanding The Art Of Nonverbal Communication

As an executive, understanding nonverbal cues your teammates exhibit is crucial. This awareness helps you adjust your message and emotions, making your team feel safe to approach you and share ideas confidently.

Step 2: Improving Your Communication Skills

Every great leader can communicate well with anyone. They must also provide clear instructions and convince the team to follow their lead. However, many people are not good at public speaking, which can make them nervous when speaking in public. To overcome this problem, it is best to speak slowly and foster conversations with your employees.

Step 3: Build Confidence

People with executive presence have immense confidence in their capabilities, actions and decisions. This confidence is also seen in their actions and words. If you lack confidence, it is best to give yourself positive affirmations and identify your strengths so you can use them to build your confidence.

Step 4: Always Ask For Feedback To Foster A Sense Of Appreciation And Openness, Making Your Team Feel Heard And Respected

To become a good executive, you need to accept feedback. Feedback is an excellent indicator of which subjects or actions you should improve or continue delivering. Sometimes, it can be hard to ask for feedback. If you don’t want to know who is giving the feedback, you can collect the feedback through anonymous surveys. Another great way to get feedback is through one-on-one meetings with your colleagues.

Step 5: Listen To Others

As a leader, you also need to listen to what people around you are saying. You must put away all distractions and not interrupt the person talking. You must also give them proper respect by making eye contact and facing them. As an exercise, let the other person finish speaking before you craft your response. You should also listen to them with an unbiased position.

Step 6: Manage Stress Better

The team looks up to their leader, especially in times of challenges. As the leader, you must also be able to provide them with solutions on the fly. But it can be very stressful to handle all these problems on top of the projects you already have. With this in mind, it is essential to create a workspace where stress-relief programs are available and to work with teammates to get help when they feel stressed.

Step 7: Be Active In Taking Risks

A leader is also someone who isn’t afraid of risks and understands how to mitigate their impact across the entire team. You will need to show the team you are not afraid to take risks and motivate them to succeed.

Step 8: Sign Up For Executive Presence Training

It is best to receive proper training to polish your executive presence further. There are many training programs available for anyone who wishes to improve their skills and characteristics.

Building one’s executive presence will be a journey, as you will need to do a lot of trial and error to improve and find your rhythm. But with practice and focus, you can become a great leader that your team can rely on at all times.

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