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Creating Your Leadership Presence
Marita Gomez

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• Do people pay attention to you when you talk?
• Do they see you as trustworthy?
• Do they look at you in the eye, turn their heads
toward you when you speak?
If they don’t…you have a “presence” problem.

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Our goal today
• Define ”leadership presence”
• The confidence effect
• Steps to create a leadership presence
• Suggestions to elevate your leadership presence in today’s world

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My source of inspiration

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Defining Leadership Presence

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“The ability to consistently and clearly articulate your value
proposition while influencing and connecting with others.”
—— Amy Jen Su; Muriel Maignan Wilkins
Own the Room

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Some people have natural presence.They’re born with it. History tells
us these individuals have the ability to….

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Alter biases…

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Shape perceptions…

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Change behavior…

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Light up a room

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Why is presence so critical?

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Having presence can help us change these unfair data points
• Only 24 percent of CEOs in the US are women
• Women earn 74.5 percent less than male counterparts
• Short men are less likely to lead a Fortune 500 than tall men
• Attractive people are more likely to be hired faster, promoted more often, and
earn 10-12% more than the rest of us
• Men more likely to get hired 5 times faster than women
The world is unfair…

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In job interviews…
Studies have shown that those who exude leadership presence are more
likely to be:
• Invited back for an interview
• Seen as credible
• Can be trusted to do the job
• Promoted

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Steps to creating your
leadership presence
o Facial Expressions
o Body Language
o Voice and Tone

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The link between presence and power
• Certain words like “power” and “confidence” are often linked with leadership
presence
• When we’re present, we’re confident enough to express our true feelings and
opinions
o Our speech, facial expressions, postures and movements reinforce our
confidence and power

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Three ways ”presence” reveals itself
• How do we know who has presence?
o How we appear to others
o What we don’t say
o How we say and how we sound

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Our facial expressions say a lot about who we authentically are.With a
quick glance, we can tell if the person is …

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Likeable…

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Approachable…

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Uninterested

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How body language shapes perception
• How we act with others reveal a great deal about what type of person
we are:
o Arrogant, aloof = unsociable, not a team player, untrustworthy
o Likeable, approachable = trustworthy, team player, credible
o Uncertain, afraid = weak, not leader quality

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Uses open gestures

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Lift the chin,
pull chest forward

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Stands with feet slightly apartStrike a “power” pose

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Confident people use their fingers to express their powerful selves…

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Steepling

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Lean in
Lean in to show interest
and engagement…

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Where you sit at a table projects a certain perception of you as either a
leader, collaborator or follower…

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Sits in the middle or end of the table

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Collaborator
Team Player
Collaborator
Team Player
Collaborator
Team Player
Power Position
Collaborator
Team Player
Power Position
Follower
Not interested
in being here

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Be visible

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Voice communicates power
• Your voice expresses who you are and what you believe.
• Powerful people:
o Vary their pitch volume and rhythm
o Speak a little louder
o Sound more confident

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Building your
Leadership Presence
o Prepare
o Practice
o Be authentic
o Be active, be visible

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Prepare and Practice
• Building a skills set requires:
o Preparation
o Probing – Listen and ask questions
o Execution
o Practice

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Leadership presence is about who you are as a person and
how you appear in front of others. If you weren’t born with
it, you can still attain it by … learning and applying it.