Leaders Need Actual PRESENCE

I want to discuss a concept in leadership called Presence.

A lot of times people will talk about ‘Presence’ and these days what they mean is that you look probably well-dressed and try to have a certain manner about you that projects power or "leadership".

I’m talking about physical presence, actually being there.

Too many leaders are holed up in their offices reading reports, going to meetings about meetings and not actually being there. But being there is critical for leaders.

A very good case in point is regarding the famous, or infamous, shooting of former President Donald Trump and the people in the audience, and the extreme failure of the US Secret Service on that occasion.

Now the new director of the Secret Service, Acting Director Ronald Rowe, has publicly gone on record saying that he's ashamed of the entire failure, in contrast to his immediate predecessor who was forced into resignation due to her stonewalling and lack of rectitude.

What Rowe did was this: He went down to the area of the shooting, he climbed up on that building, he lay down on that sloped roof and he could see how easy it was to take shots at anybody on that stage. And he said he got up, feeling absolutely ashamed for their failure. It should have been covered.

Rowe has done two things that you absolutely should do as a leader:

One, he was physically present. If this was important enough to consider, it's important enough to go down, be there and see it for yourself. Be involved. Let the people who are involved, your people, know that you take it that seriously for you to be there. So he did that and he took his own impressions. He wasn't taking his understanding third, fourth, fifth-hand regarding the analysis of the situation. He was able to make his own judgments based upon his experience and his knowledge.

Second, what he did was he was honest about it. So instead of trying to pull the wool over people's eyes or pretend, as did his predecessor, regarding that failure or obfuscate in any kind of way, he just said outright, “I'm ashamed of it. We should have done better”. Presumably they will do better in the future.

As a consequence, Rowe now has the confidence of the US Congress and undoubtedly of his personnel and of the US Presidency.

That’s it. That’s the value of presence.

Presence is more than a feeling. It's actually you being there.

Watch the video of this article here - https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/petermclean_leaders-coaching-presence-activity-7227511861745762304-9VY2?

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