Leadership Presence

How to Bring Your Whole Self to the Leadership Table

Leadership can be a tough place.

Especially in today’s world, challenges can seem to come from all directions: increasing complexity, a faster pace of change, and the sometimes conflicting needs and expectations of different stakeholders.

Leadership is not just intellectual.

Today’s challenges can create strong emotions, physical responses and sensations in the body. The human experience is much more complex than simply what we think.

So what happens when we pay attention to all of that information?

Pat Ogden, a psychotherapist and leading figure in somatic psychology, describes five “Core Organisers of Human Experience”:

• Cognitive – thinking, learning and processing information.
• Emotion – for example, nervousness, anger or excitement.
• Sense perception – what we see, hear, taste, smell and feel through our senses.
• Movement and physiological impulses – the desire to move, sit differently, cross our arms or change our posture.
• Inner body sensation – the sensations we experience inside our bodies. We use language for this all the time when we talk about “gut feel”, a lurch in the pit of our stomach or a fluttering heart when we’re excited.

These different sources of information influence one another and shape how we think, feel and behave.

We all have preferences for which of these we notice most.

Some people pay close attention to their emotions. Others rely heavily on cognitive reasoning. 

Some are very aware of their physical sensations or gut instincts.

In business, we often assume that cognitive reasoning is the only way we think.

But some of the best leaders I know understand how much information they receive from their emotions, physical sensations and instincts – and use that awareness to bring more of themselves to their leadership.

What happens when we’re under pressure?

This awareness can be particularly useful when things are difficult.

Many leaders I work with can become overwhelmed by the very feelings and emotions that also make them effective leaders.

This can happen before an important conversation, presentation or meeting.

Perhaps your heart starts beating faster.

Your breathing changes.

You become aware of tension in your shoulders.

You feel a knot in your stomach.

Or perhaps you notice an urge to speak more quickly, withdraw, become defensive or take control.

These responses contain information.

The challenge is learning to notice them before they take over.

Start with awareness

Even if you already have a good level of self-awareness, it can be useful to explore which of these different sources of information you tend to notice (and which you might be missing).

I suggest doing this with a minor challenge rather than waiting for a major one.

When we are faced with a significant challenge, our habitual responses can become so strong that it is difficult to notice anything differently.

A smaller situation gives us the opportunity to experiment and become curious.

Bringing presence into a difficult conversation

The next time you face a minor challenge or opportunity, try noticing:

• What emotions are you experiencing?
• What are you thinking?
• What are you seeing and hearing?
• What sensations do you notice in your body?
• Is there an impulse to move, change your posture or do something differently?

My interest in this subject comes not only from my leadership and coaching work.

Fifteen years ago, I trained as a movement teacher. I still run a studio and work with several clients each week, helping them to develop awareness of their patterns of thinking and movement so that they can create change.

One of the things I’ve found particularly useful is exploring where we experience sensations in our bodies when we feel anxious or under pressure.

I use an approach adapted from Wendy Palmer’s Leadership Embodiment work that helps me connect with the back of my body and find a greater sense of support.

You can try a version of it yourself.

Think about a recent difficult situation, perhaps a conversation or meeting.

Now imagine that you are back there.

What do you hear?

What do you see?

What do you feel?

What are you thinking?

And what sensations do you notice in your body?

Then bring to mind some of your “supporters” (people who have championed you during your career).

Think of them one by one and imagine them standing behind you.

For me, they tend to hover just behind my shoulders.

Sit with that image for a moment and notice what happens.

What are your impulses?

What sensations do you notice?

Now imagine yourself back in the difficult situation, but this time with your supporters behind you.

What feels different?

What do you notice?

Practise before you need it

Like any tool, this may take some practice.

You may find it helpful to explore it with a colleague, or as part of a coaching conversation.

And it may simply not be the right approach for you at the moment.

That’s okay too.

For me, the important point is not whether this particular exercise works for everyone.

It is about becoming more curious about the information we already have available to us.

Leadership presence is not simply about finding the right words or having the right answer.

It is also about how we show up.

How we breathe.

How we move.

How we respond to pressure.

And how aware we are of what is happening within us.

Our human awareness (and therefore our leadership) is broader than our intellect alone.

Perhaps the question is not simply “What am I thinking?” but also “What else is my whole system telling me?”

Maureen Evans