Presence
Presence
You know it when you see it. In fact, you don’t just see it; you feel it when you are, well, in the presence of a leader with a real, tangible presence. It requires leaders to be fully embodied, bringing the wisdom of the mind and the body together, building the capacity for big picture thinking, inclusiveness, and confident action.
Embody your true potential
Working with me, you’ll find your own unique style of leadership presence that you can access in all situations, whether – 1:1s, team meetings, executive reviews, or all-hands meetings. What is unique about my work is that we actually shift your physical presence and re-shape how you embody your own unique set of leadership strengths and aspirations. This work is heavily influenced through practices derived from the Japanese martial art Aikido and mindfulness, taking you out of your head and into your body.
"Presence at the executive level, especially when working with intense personalities, is a challenge. After joining a new area of the organization where I needed to establish a reputation and raise my visibility, Bob helped me with strategies around getting centered, changing perspectives, and communicating with clarity."
Every body has a story
True leadership presence is authentic and can’t be manufactured by simple frameworks used for helping you as a public speaker or checklists that you follow so that you can have those “radically candid” or “crucial conversations.” Sure, these communication models can be very helpful and may provide leaders useful tactics, if not emotional support for high-stakes communication. However, as a leader, all of the tools and techniques you use must be embodied by you. Without this “in your bones approach,” leaders often try to think their way out of high conflict or high-stakes situations (the executive review or calibration that’s gone off the rails, an upside-down employee review, and the myriad of other politically charged situations that are part of daily life in most organizations). When your survival body (fight-flight-freeze-deflect) is in control, the last thing our mind wants to do is inspire, create, or produce. It wants to survive. The goal of this work is not to undo these patterns, but instead to see them for what they are – the way that we learned to keep ourselves safe at an early age while our cognitive and more rational mind was coming online. Later in life, we find that our original, more emotional, and primal patterns don’t serve us as well, particularly in high-pressure work situations. By examining these stress responses that first show up in the body, leaders are able to regain their centered self quickly and move forward with a more powerful, thoughtful, and ultimately successful response to any situation.
