Does it work? I am asked this often. It’s my favorite question. Really. Yes. Here’s a terrific piece of evidence.
I coached a financial services senior leader where her work with her clients was stellar. They loved their results working with her. Her team respected her and found her to be a great leader. The executive leadership team, however, judged her to lack presence.
Cue the coach! Not just any coach – a leadership communications coach who works with leaders to create connection and trust with their stakeholders by complementing a verbal message with powerful physical expression.
An excellent learner who wholeheartedly embraced this work, we met every Friday afternoon for a period of time. Here’s what she reported after one of our sessions.
She and her husband took their two kids for a pizza dinner every Friday night. Her husband asked, “What did you learn in coaching today?”
At that moment she is distracted as she is telling her young son, “Stop blowing bubbles in your chocolate milk.” She had said it three times, yet he persisted. She turns to her husband and says, “Watch this.” Aligning her physical, getting grounded, centered, in breath and lengthening, she now turns to her son (still blowing bubbles in his chocolate milk), “Stop blowing bubbles in your chocolate milk.” With that he looks up and stops.
“That is what I learned in coaching today.”
We worked with the body from a physical expression level. With applications and activities curated from the finest work of Masters in theatre and performance, movement, voice, improvisation, and physical training, she was able to embody her power, presence and command while being at her most authentic self. We cannot think our way into our own powerful Presence. We must move our way into Presence.
I’ve learned that if we want others to be different, we have to be different.
I don’t know any other way to stand in your powerful presence than to be in your body. I have a coach who says, “When was the last time we went to a meeting without our body?”
My client became the de facto parenting expert in her neighborhood as she was now teaching these skills to her friends. If this works with a petulant six year old boy, imagine who else this can effect?
Photo by Jordan Rowland on Unsplash
