Absence: The Number One Obstacle to Presence
January 10, 2012
I was at a team meeting recently where a group of us were talking about the leadership training program in an organization employing about 275 people. One person in the group asked the CEO, “What’s the opposite of leadership?” The CEO without any hesitation immediately said, “Absence!”
How interesting! I was intrigued by this view of leadership because I often think of absence being the opposite of presence. It made me start to wonder if presence and leadership are synonymous.
One way to compare absence and presence is to examine the distinction between self-consciousness and consciousness-of-self. When we are self-conscious, we often feel awkward, clumsy and alone, with a sense of separation (or absence) from the outside world. When we are really present, we are quite aware of ourselves in a balanced way as we fully engage in the activity of the moment and we connect to those around us so that we no longer feel separate, alone, afraid.
This is especially true when we speak in public or take on a leadership role. When we are anxious, we become self-absorbed and fearful about looking inept, making mistakes or forgetting what we planned to say. If, instead, we stay aware of ourselves as we focus our attention outward, placing a priority on the people in our audience, becoming open to receiving them, being genuinely curious about them, and thinking about how we can be of service to them, we lose that self-consciousness, we are in-the-moment, and we can then drop into a shared, collective place with our audience. This is being fully present!
Think about a presentation you’ve done when you didn’t feel you were as present as you know you can be, then complete the Obstacles to Presence Check List. You’ll notice that many of these obstacles reflect either an absence from the immediate situation or a degree of self-consciousness.
The first ingredient of rapport is full attention
December 31, 2010
I was listening to an interview today with Daniel Goleman, who, having previously introduced the concept of Emotional Intelligence, is now talking about Social Intelligence. His current work is looking at how the brain is wired to create connection. The sentence that drew me into the interview today was, “The first ingredient of rapport is full attention.”
“Where we put our attention, that’s where energy goes.” This is a statement that comes out of the Eastern contemplative traditions. In any speaking situation there are always multiple demands on our attention. Often it’s our own fear that commands the most attention. But, if we focus on our fear, we actually amplify it because that’s where all our energy goes.
Instead, what we need to attend to is what we want to say, to the technology we are using to deliver our talk, to the questions that are being asked, to the outcomes we want. Most importantly, though, where we really need to focus our attention is on making a connection with our audience.
When I ask participants in my groups to describe the qualities of people who they’ve experienced as having a great deal of speaking presence, one of the most frequent responses is that they felt as though they were the only person in the room and the speaker was speaking directly to them. This is what happens when the speaker gives their full and primary attention on the individuals in the audience. And, this is what then conveys the experience of rapport.
But how can we create that sense of attunement when there are so many competing demands for our attention?
We allow ourselves to relax into the connection by speaking directly to one person at a time using a soft available, receptive, inviting gaze. The gaze doesn’t have to be long, but it does have to be deliberate. We have to give each person our full attention, however briefly. We have to really see the individuals we are speaking to, not the “crowd”. I often tell participants to think of having a cup of coffee with each person in the audience as they address their comments directly to one person at a time.
When we speak with this quality of full attention, we actually slow down our internal rhythms which then help us to relax. At the same time, our audience is drawn in and feels a sense of rapport, of connection, of being fully attuned with the speaker. These conditions, then, increase the probability that people will listen more fully, attend more fully, to what we are saying. And, paradoxically, this then makes it easy for us to concurrently pay attention to all the other things we must focus on as speakers.
Find the haven of your back body…
February 7, 2009
The ability to step back, not get caught up in the fray, see the forest for the trees, is key for leaders in all capacities. When the chaos of an emergent crisis grabs everyone’s attention, it is so easy to jump in with both feet. All our attention gets pulled to the details of the events at hand, and with that, we so easily get pulled out of ourselves. This is especially true when we are making an important presentation. And, in fact, this particular skill is essential for all of us today given the current economic uncertainties that can so easily throw us off balance.
Ideally, it would be optimal if, in the midst of a crisis we could say “Time out!” and then physically step back from the situation to get a “10,000 foot view”. Most of the time we’re so caught up in what’s happening and don’t even remember that this might be a good strategy. But even when we’re aware enough to realize that this is something we ought to do, we don’t always have the luxury to do so – the timing might be wrong, someone might feel slighted, or the issue is too urgent and you need an answer NOW.
This morning my yoga teacher Judy Scribner-Moore, a wonderful yoga teacher in the Boston area, said, “Find the haven of the back body” as we were entering into a difficult posture. This got me thinking (maybe not what I should have been doing in yoga, but there you go…)! What if when we are confronted with all the difficulties that life presents us that take us off balance, what if in those moments, we simply pay attention to our spine, to what our backs are in contact with, to the space behind us? Wouldn’t that provide us with same psychological haven as physically stepping back? And, we could do it so easily without anyone even knowing!
I have often suggested to my speaking clients to include in their awareness the space behind them as they speak, and for some people this has been the key to diminishing their fear and anxiety around speaking to a group. But it occurred to me today that simply changing our awareness to focus on our spine, our back body and the space behind us could also provide a moment of respite (a haven, if you will) and a new perspective in difficult leadership situations as well as in life itself!
Inauguration Presence
January 21, 2009
The epitome of true leadership presence!
Presence is about so much more than the words that we speak. Yesterday we had several exquisite examples of real presence. Barak Obama and Elizabeth Alexander were the most compelling for me.
Barack Obama: Most people pay attention to his words because they are so riveting. I’m curious about how he conveys his presence. Check out the video on YouTube (for some reason I couldn’t copy it to this site). He begins to speak at 2:40 min. Notice how comfortable he is in his own skin, how he carries himself. Notice the silences, the pauses between important points. Notice how deliberate he is as he articulates his words. What else do you see that’s beyond the words themselves that conveys that this man is a great leader?
Elizabeth Alexander: Inauguration Poet (video below)
Watch how she let’s herself fully arrive in front of the audience before she begins. She takes a breath. She looks out at the audience. And, then she begins to speak. She too, in a different way, speaks with such deliberate phrasing. I know she is reciting poetry, but I think that there’s something we can learn about leadership presence from how she delivered those words.
