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Executive Charisma - 6 Steps to Mastering the Arch of Leadership

By D. A. Benton

• Executive Charisma is the ability to gain effective responses from others by using aware actions and considerate civility in order to get useful things done.
  • It’s not just being charming, warm, and welcoming.  It’s a sense of confidence and a sense of personal ease that is overpowering and disarming, but not threatening to others.
  • Charismatic leaders seem to have unique and meaningful insights into the business at hand.  They lead by competence because they’re good at what they do, and they lead by sheer effort in outworking everyone else.  But they don’t lead by fear.
  • PRESENTATION IS EVERYTHING!  You can be fantastic at your job, and achieve good result, but without presentation it’s very limited. 
• Foundations of Executive Charisma: Integrity, Confidence and Full Disclosure
  • Integrity – Am I doing what I promised?  Have I done what I promised?  Check yourself once an hour or at least once a day!  Integrity, like morality and fairness, is often in the eyes of the beholder.  You know whether or not you:
    • Tell the truth and don’t stretch, distort, or come in late with it
    • Live up to your word
    • Worry about being “caught”
    • Worry about your dad / mom or favorite mentor would think
    • Would want your actions to be on the front page newspaper
    • Would be pleased and proud if your children behaved like you
  • Confidence
    • Is a state of mind
    • Is not the absence of fear and apprehension, but the conquering of it.
    • You do not pass uncertainty down to your team members.
    • No matter what is going on around you, you have to be cooler than cool!
    • A leader has to put on a “take charge” attitude, stand up straight, smile, and look people in the eye because a leader has to do the necessary results-oriented work.
    • If you show confidence, people will treat you like you have the required confidence.  If you don’t act confidently, they’ll treat you like you aren’t’.
    • Overconfidence that turns into arrogance will turn around and bite you.
    • You have to talk about a problem like it’s doable.
    • “You play the part before you get the part”
  • Full Disclosure
    • Means being direct, crystal clear, disarmingly open, and straight in all of your verbal and nonverbal communication
    • You tell people your position, and you ask questions to get to know theirs
    • Tell people what they need to know
    • Communicate early and often.
    • Tell people what you want or expect from them or what you plan for them.
    • Ask what they want or expect from you and what they plan for you.

 The Sacred Six Steps to Executive Charisma

• Be the first to initiate
• Expect and give acceptance to maintain self-esteem
• Ask questions, and ask favors
• Stand tall, straight, and smile
• Be human, humorous, and hands on
• Slow down, shut up, and listen

 Step 1 - Be the first to initiate

• Your life is yours when you initiate.  And your life belongs to others when you don’t.
• The first step is taking the initiative in making the first move.  If you wait until others do it, you might wait forever.
• There are many opportunities in your life just waiting to be seized.  You can’t let them go without a try.  You have to take opportunities before you are ready, before you are invited, before you are comfortable, and before the ice is broken.
• You have to go beyond your comfort level in taking the initiative
• When you take the initiative you do something for yourself that no one can ever take away from you.
• Key Suggestions
  • Put your fears aside or at least out of the way
  • Seize the moment; take some – almost any – action
  • Be consistent
  • Say the important but difficult things that need to be said before you’re comfortable
  • Be the first to be pleasant to someone who wasn’t to you.
  • Be the first to ask questions and ask favors

 Step 2 – Expect and Give Acceptance to Maintain Esteem

• How to Expect Acceptance
  • Tell yourself, “I’m Adequate”
    • Stop focusing on your imperfections alone
    • When an areas pops up that you need to get better in you should work on getting better.
  • Behave as though you expect acceptance.
    • If you act as though you belong where you are, doing what you’re doing, no one will question you and you’ll get the support you need
  • Keep at it even when you don’t get it!
    • You expect acceptance, you get it.  You do better; they are reinforced in giving it.  They give more, you do better.
• Give Acceptance
  • To acknowledge one’s presence, one’s contribution, one’s ability, and one’s existence
  • People need verbal, nonverbal, or emotional validation.  The worst insult is to ignore
  • Giving acceptance start with acknowledgement – symbolic and real : a word, a nod, a look , a smile, a touch to authenticase the person
  • Treat others as you want to be treated – with respect and honor.
  • Acceptance is simply conscious empathy.  It’s really try to put yourself in other person’s shoes
  • Giving acceptance does the following
    • Help them maintain their own self-esteem
    • Increase their sense of worth
    • Enhance their personal dignity
    • Maximize their well-being
  • How to Give Acceptance
    • Think others as adequate
    • Treat others as though they are adequate
    • Keep giving acceptance even when others seemingly don’t deserve it.
  • Addressing Unacceptable Behavior
    • “Here’s what I want you to do.”
    • “Here’s the resources you have to do it with.”
    • “Here’s the time frame it needs to be done in.”
    • “Here’s what I expect as a conclusion.”
    • “Any questions?”

 Step 3 - Ask questions, and ask favorsAsk Questions

• As a leader, you have to get people to execute your ideas in a timely manner.
• Getting others to execute is most efficiently accomplished by bolstering esteem and also by using the technique of asking questions and asking for favors as a way to ensure your directions are followed willing.
• Asking questions and asking for favors will transfer positive energy from you towards others.  You maintain others’ esteem while at the same time accomplishing your desired goals.
• Ask Questions:
  • Asking allows you to learn new information, avoid misinterpretation, solve problems, work your active intelligence, and size up people or situations quickly and accurately.
  • When you organize your questions, you can be intellectually aggressive without offending.  You get respect and attention when you are prepared.
  • You become a sounding board and show brainstorming ability
  • People like you better if you ask them things rather than tell them things.
• Questions are NOT intended to :
  • Impress
  • Interrogate
  • Intimidate
  • Dominate
  • Embarrass
  • Put people in a corner
  • “Nail” others on something
  • Catch people off guard
• Question ARE intended to
  • Give acceptance
  • Maintain esteem
  • Focus on others instead of yourself
  • Delegate better
  • Learn
  • Verify what you already know
  • Test what you think
  • Handle surprise and attack
  • Provide small talk
• Key Suggestions
  • Don’t tell all you know; ask what they know
  • Frame comments into questions
  • Do a favor for someone and ask for one before you do another one

 Ask Favors

•  
  • You have to ask favors first, not so much to “get” something, but rather to “give” others an opportunity to help
  • You hand power to them in a disarming open way.
  • If you do a favor first, those people feel indebted to you.  “Giving” obligates, which people don’t want to “owe”.
  • When you ask favors first, you
    • Allow others to be and feel useful
    • Drive reciprocity
    • Save doing it all
  • How to Ask for Favors
    • Ask: “Would you do me a favor?”
    • Keep it simple. Be specific.
    • Thank them.

  Step 4 - Stand tall, straight, and smile

• You are always being watched by someone when you’re out in the public
• How you act shapes people’s opinion of you.
• At work, you might think you get a personal review once or twice a year.  WRONG.  You get reviewed every day.
• It’s an informal, unspoken review that happens in the breakroom, cafeteria, parking garage, hallways, and in meetings.
• It’s a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity.
• “Being a Tad Theatrical” – being aware of and responsible for the effect you have on people around you and through your physical presence.
• Clothes don’t make the man, but they do make a difference.         
  • Dominant colors (black, navy, tan, gray, brown
  • Buy the best quality and style that you can in that color

Stand Tall and Straight

• There are physical behavior patterns expected in leaders that entail posture, demeanor, comportment, and overall appeararnce.
• How to Stand Tall and Straight
  • Do with what you have
  • Life up, suck in, and breathe
  • Decide to live the rest of your life with a healthy, poised posture
  • Life your rib cage off your pelvis. Pull your stomach toward your spine
  • Don’t divert your eyes when you’re talking to someone you’re uncomfortable with
• Handshakes
  • Start with good posture when approaching the person
  • Pause before you reach out so as not to get too close too soon.
  • Clasp palm to palm.
  • Hold on a split second longer than necessary, THREE pumps versus ONE.

SMILE·         Smile even when you’re mad or sad  Step 5 - Be human, humorous, and hands on

• Benefits of this combination
  • Breaks down barriers erected by title, position, or role
  • Needs no interpretation, has no difficult foreign dialect
  • Provides instant communication
  • Lays a groundwork for trust in relationships
  • Increases likeability
  • Helps you get along with a wider range of people more quickly.
• Be Human
  • Cease dealing role to role and seek affinitiy
  • Act with affinity when other’s don’t
  • Don’t overdo it!
• Be Humorous
  • Seek out humor
  • Practice humor always.  Do it before they do and when others don’t.
  • Don’t overdo it!
• Be Hands On
  • Have the right attitude; use good technique
  • Be consistent
  • Don’t overdo it!
• Key Suggestions
  • Volunteer the story about your first job / setback/ success, etc
  • Plan some spontaneity by repeating a funny line you heard on a show
  • Touch the person’s forearm seated beside you at a meeting.
  • Use a two-handed hand-shake when you meet someone.

 Step 6 - Slow down, shut up, and listen

• Slow Down
  • Take on a conscious comportment in your movement, action, reaction, walk, and talk
  • Take time to pre-think the effect you want
  • Take time to choose the words and action that support the effect
  • Purposely deliver those words with corroborating significance in your physical demeanor
  • Slowing down helps you
    • Look confident, competent, comforatable, cool, calm, collected
    • Appear thoughtful, focused, and planned
    • Stay in control
    • Remain unshaken
    • Seem relaxed
    • Be calm, contained, strong
  • HOW to Slow Down
    • Think, Prioritize, and choose
    • Execute
    • Have a mnemonic device to keep you on track.
• Shut Up and Listen
  • Think, prioritize, and choose
  • Execute
• Key Suggestions
  • Stop whatever you are doing at the top of every hour today.  Stand up, breathe, smile, and continue on.
  • When you have 3 things to say, see if one will suffice.
  • Be silent and focus on how far away you can hear some noise right now.