Keys to Developing the Presence that Compels Attention when You Speak

Welcome to Cultivating Leadership Presence! This biweekly newsletter shares actionable tips, exercises, skills and stories to help you embody leadership presence and speak authentically… so you can lead yourself and others to greatness!

Developing the power of presence will help you compel attention when you speak in groups, meetings and presentations. In this article, I’ll share tips to enhance your presence, connection and enjoyment when speaking to groups.

Phil Jackson, the coach of nine NBA champion teams, said, “True joy comes from being fully present in each and every moment, not just when things are going your way. Of course, it’s no accident that things are more likely to go your way when you stop worrying about whether you’re going to win or lose and focus your full attention on what’s happening right this moment.”?

When leaders speak in front of groups, their attention is sometimes split so their presence is not powerful enough to hold other’s attention. Recall a time when you were delivering an important message and sensed that your listeners were not really paying attention.? You may have been distracted by the tension of being the center of attention, by events happening elsewhere, by self-judging thoughts about your own performance or by thinking the audience may not agree with you.

In that instance, part of your attention may have been on the tension in your physical body. Another part of your attention might have been on mental anxiety and still another part focused on self-judgment that you might not be perfect. With your own attention split in several directions, you were not present and your attention was not focused on your message and connecting with your audience. It’s not surprising that others might not have paid enough attention to you and your message.?

Presence is a sense of being fully here, in this moment, when all aspects of your being – physical, mental and emotional – are focused together on what is happening now. When your attention is that focused, you exude a strong “presence” that others sense. Presence creates a concentrated sense of power that tends to compel the attention of other people. It invites attention.

When I was 35, I was cast as the evil sorceress, Morgan Le Fey, in the musical “Camelot” in a community theater production. My costume was flimsy. One night of performance in front of 200 people, my costume came undone and started to unwind. This costume crisis triggered me into a state of flow, an in-the-moment presence. Time slowed down and everything went into slow motion. I knew what to do to save myself from huge embarrassment. That feeling of presence or flow transformed my performance from acting for the audience into being with them. I acted in a way I had never acted before. I was totally connected with my body, my emotions and my talent. I was also deeply connected with the audience. It was as if I had energetic strings to everyone and I was holding their attention like a magnet. This extraordinary experience lasted the rest of that night but was gone the next morning. I wanted to know how to get back into that state so it set me on a journey. This led to the method I now teach to speakers and leaders to guide them into the state of presence or flow when they speak to groups.

Below are some keys to developing presence to help you capture attention. These keys to the power of presence will allow you to hold the attention of others and enjoy the experience of holding attention. They will enhance your leadership presence.

1. Ground your body to experience the sensation of presence. Get out of your head and get into your body. Cultivate the ability to focus your mental attention down through your body all the way to your feet. Anywhere you focus attention will cause energy to flow into that part. Imagine you melt energy out of your head and let it flow down to fill your entire body, even flowing deeply into the ground below your feet. Grounding your body creates a sense of strength, stability and the awareness of being in the present moment. I’ve written about grounding in my LinkedIn Newsletter #2 called Leadership Presence Starts with Presence.
2. Warm up your body. Before you speak, present or participate in a meeting, make sure you have done enough physical exercise so that your body feels energized, loose and flowing. You may not realize the degree to which physical tension impairs your ability to communicate freely. Actors and athletes know the power of warming up. You should too.
3. Let others see your real self rather than projecting an image. Let go of performing FOR them and BE WITH them. Create a style of speaking based on being who you really are rather than who you think you should be. The more real you are, the more people will be drawn to you.
4. Experience the tension of being the center of attention with acceptance rather than self-judgment. If you experience nervous tension or anxiety to speak in front of others, you have the potential to be a high-impact speaker.? Public speaking anxiety means you have passion energy that is just blocked in your body when you become the center of attention. You are not allowing it to flow freely. Give yourself permission to feel the tension and experience it until it releases into flow.
5. Integrate your real, “in the moment” feelings into the presentation. You have strong feelings! Your feelings are up to the surface where you can use them to create genuine emotional connection with others simply by being real about what you feel. Be real with them so something real can happen in the space between you. Allow them to see who you are inside. Don’t be afraid to say, “Every time I speak in groups, I feel tension because I want to do a good job of communicating with you.” This creates genuine emotional connection with your listeners.
6. Breathe. I mean really breathe. Take deep breaths, fast breaths, slow breaths, until you relax. Breathing helps oxygenate your brain?and relax your body. Spend 5 minutes breathing deeply and consciously before your presentation. Try taking shorter inhales and longer exhales to calm the sympathetic nervous system and get into a parasympathetic state.
7. Receive your “audience” to create magnetic attraction. Receive the flow of attention from your listeners. Use soft eye contact to open yourself to take in people’s attention. Don’t worry about being pumped up for your audience. Instead, allow the connection to build naturally as you receive the flow of their attention. In this way, you pull their attention to you like a magnet. It feels so good to be in receptive connection. What a joy this is!
8. Let go of perfectionism. Give up the idea that you have to be perfect in order to be effective. Effectiveness is not about your performance. Effectiveness is what happens to your listeners as a result of who you are being with them. If they are impacted or changed for the better by your communication, then you have been effective.
9. Choose to love them rather than worrying if they will like you. Extend your love and acceptance to them. Detach from what they think and feel. Give them permission to like you and your message or not. This is a very powerful space from which to communicate. It radiates the power of loving presence and allows them be who they are in that moment.
10. Talk to one person at a time, even in a large group. Make a one-to-one connection. Have a conversation with one person, then another, then another. ?When you are always in connection with one person at a time, real connection is happening and everyone feels connected with. Your attention on speaking with one person at a time almost guarantees they will all pay attention to you.

Each of these keys to presence will enhance your leadership presence and allow you to hold the center of attention with ease and even joy. Practice these keys to presence when speaking to groups and enjoy the feeling of your own presence as you speak. You’ll see that almost everyone is paying attention to you because of your powerful presence. And, for the one or two who are not paying attention, don’t be offended. Just let them be.

Can you recall a time when you spoke to a group, held their attention like a magnet and felt deeply connected with them? What was that like? What did you do or what happened to trigger than feeling?

?If you have a topic or question you would like for me to discuss, please send a message to https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/SandraZimmer/. I’ll do my best to create a newsletter article that addresses your interest. If you’d like to read more about me and my work, please visit www.sandrazimmer.com

?Sandra Zimmer guides professionals to speak authentically and embody leadership presence. Clients say she calms their nerves and magnifies their brilliance, giving them confidence to speak from a zone beyond what they thought they could do. She coaches them to develop physical presence, vocal power, message clarity, genuine connection, storytelling, keynote talks, presentation skills, interview preparation and gravitas.