Executive Presence

5 Ways Executive Communication Coaching Focuses Your Leadership Presence

Speaking goals to take to Executive Coaching sessions

executive presence coaching
You’ve been appointed to a leadership position, and it feels like you’ve finally reached the summit after a long trek full of intrepid stories about how you overcame limitations, career obstacles, complex personalities, and barriers to success. 

What a great feeling!

Or is it?

What’s seldom discussed is how leaders find themselves exposed to even riskier and taxing terrains upon reaching the summit and securing a role in the executive suite, especially when it comes to building relationships. 

The human body fights to streamline even the most fundamental processes at high altitudes. However, with less air access and higher pressure, basic metabolic processes can fail us, and even the slightest manoeuvre can lead to a rapid fall.

If you’re curious to learn the core leadership tactics that the best CEOs and executives use when communicating to preserve and protect their reputation, you’ve come to the right place!

The Perks of Executive Coaching for Communication

In this post, I’ll outline 5 ways Executive Communication Coaching can rapidly focus your leadership presence. If you’re concerned about how well you build authority, credibility and team engagement, I recommend you fortify your leadership communication. Executive communication coaching will help you showcase your leadership integrity rapidly so you can stop second-guessing your soft skills and expend more energy on managing the organisation and team.

This blog is best digested in 3 steps. First, check the tips below, then stay tuned for a short video tutorial (coming soon). 

You might want to bookmark this page to refer back to later – because it could take more than one sitting!

  1. Read the tactics below
  2. Watch the vlog
  3. If you’d like to work with me and commence executive communication coaching you can get in touch with me here
The most effective CEOs and leaders manage to discover a way to not only streamline their workflow but also streamline their behaviour to protect their personal and organisational interests and responsibilities. Why?

Because it’s hard to breathe at the top when the pressure is on.

executive communication coaching

Why aren’t we having this conversation about leadership?

 

Many articles, memes, and even sitcoms deplore leaders and their fatal flaws. 

The chatter around toxic leaders, low team engagement, organisational toxicity and burnout is trending, but how much attention are organisations giving to training and building socially intelligent and competent communicators in the upper echelons of an organisation? 

Not enough, according to leadership communication researchers. Professor of Organisational behaviour and editor-in-chief of The Leadership Quarterly, John Antonakis emphasises that there is a:

“well-known rift between science and practice in general, including leadership practice in particular.” 

Even more concerning to Antonakis is that organisations still rely on assessment and training rituals for leaders that lack empirical evidence despite the extensive data backing effective leadership competency approaches. 

Leaders need evidence-based executive coaching from communication experts

 

The dominant thread in leadership coaching is mindset, self-affirmation and awareness of your values and principles. Still, your mindset won’t be enough if you don’t have the precision-based skills you need to communicate at an elite level. 

A leader’s most dangerous stumbling block is their inaccurate self-evaluation. 

Leaders are known and even proven by research, to overestimate their performance (Michalsky, 2019).

This fatal flaw is the first step to your reputation downfall if you don’t hold yourself accountable as a leader because you may rate yourself drastically better than your team, stakeholders, and shareholders perceive you. 

Effective self-evaluation in leadership is not about humility but education. 

The best approach is to commence an educational program that will develop executive and interpersonal skills.

Suppose you knew that there is a well-researched set of communication-based behaviours that leaders need to showcase and that you can learn these concrete tactics and thus effect profound organisational and even revenue-based improvements. In that case, you’d want to invest your time, wouldn’t you?

If your ability to communicate effectively is impacted, investing in executive education may be the best solution to build up your speaking skills to secure real world leadership skills.

We need more push for Leadership Communication Competencies

 

Competent executives know the difference between carefully mapped leadership behaviours and taking their personality to work hoping for the best. They are also aware of the importance of seeking feedback, counsel and that advanced training expands their potential and insures against risky power moves. 

With fantastic evidence-based leadership communication strategy and social intelligence approaches for team and stakeholder management, how many emerging and established leaders are gaining best-level practice from experts that read the science?

Here’s where executive communication coaching and presence training comes in.

executive communication coaching

5 Ways Executive Coaching focuses your Leadership Presence

 

The integrity of an organisation’s leaders often determines the pulse of an organisation. Consider how much more effective an organisation can become if leaders use tactical communication to influence, inspire and ensure team performance, well-being and comfort.

Executive Communication Coaching helps you to clarify communication skills that need improving.

Communication is an umbrella term for many activities and skills that enable us to interact successfully with our conversation partners. 

Influential career-based communication depends on five core skills.

To achieve a top-notch leadership presence, I recommend you obtain a formal assessment and training in the following 5 executive communication skills. 

#1 Speech Eloquence fuels Executive Presence

 

Speaking comfort relates to the ability to express your point of view comfortably with every conversation partner, context and topic where required.

Rushes of speech, breakdowns in your message order and croaky, reluctant voice tone derail your leadership presence.

Personalised executive communication coaching will improve your speaking comfort so that you can convey your message expertly in all settings, no matter the pressure level. This will have a positive impact on your reputation management and clarify the company brand voice if you’re speaking at industry events, with the media or want to forge your identity as an industry leader. Your leadership program should incorporate speaking skills into the training program. Personalized coaching that is grounded in verified tactics can be the most useful investment to developing as an effective leader.

#2 Concise and Well- Structured Content positions your expertise & credibility as a leader

 

Logical flow refers to your capacity to develop your message with clarity so that people understand your message. In leadership communication, solid logical flow tactics will increase your executive presence and stakeholder influence and give you tools to present as a visionary and inspirational agent for the organisation. 

Leaders who present information in an accessible and engaging manner to their team and stakeholders gain an advantage in terms of expertise, trust and persuasiveness. Executive coaching with a communication specialist can assist you to employ improved language structure and rhetoric devices to enhance your delivery. 

Inclined to rant, or go off on wild tangents? This will reduce your likeability among team members as well as your rank. 

Speakers that speak with more logic get a cognitive sophistication bias which directly relates to their leadership effectiveness (Silvia & Beaty, 2012).

It can be challenging to sift through all the custom programs promising to give you the leadership development you’re after. Make sure you check that the consultant you work with has the skills to help you improve how you structure your message- skill in this is such an important signal of executive presence. Ensure that your program includes targetted communication training.

#3 Voice Tone inspires, builds trust and secures your reputation

 

Your voice is a social tool that has the power to inspire, influence and build credibility, vital requisites for successful leaders. Poorly produced voice tone dramatically reduces charisma and message integrity and can reduce CEO tenureship.

Your listeners evaluate your interpersonal relevance based on how you sound (Caballero, 2021).

#4 Social Intelligence connects you with your team so that you have genuine impact

 

Integrating strategic empathy & self-advocacy enables leaders to strike a balance between rapport and assertiveness. The ability to pull rank is vital for the effective direction of your organisation. You’ll benefit from social intelligence strategies if you’re shying away from setting boundaries, giving critical feedback or providing performance reviews that develop your team’s skills. How about if you find yourself buckling under your stakeholder’s demands? My executive communication coaching sessions will assist you to sweat less when communicating your non-negotiables so that you can maintain rapport despite offering minimal concessions.

Executive coaching that builds your social intelligence can assist you to maneuver your message adeptly to inspire your team to take action with less resistance, contention and conflict.

#5 Tactical Charisma makes your job easier

 

When led by charismatic leaders, team productivity, work quality, job satisfaction and morale thrive (Michalsky, 2019). Research has confirmed 16 proven charisma tactics repeatedly that will engage your team and stakeholders and provide your organisation with a unique competitive advantage. It’s important to know where you stand when showcasing charisma signals. 

If you’re worried that you’re as boring as a potato mash without butter, my executive communication coaching will train you in empirically verified charisma tactics.

executive communication coaching

Compelling communication is not a fluke.

 

Getting the influence YOU can only dream of counts on you drilling down, planning, and refining your leadership presence and speaking delivery.

All executives should receive a thorough assessment of their communication skills that pivots around the best level research into the ingredients and drivers of effective leadership communication. 

I can assess this for you in a heartbeat through my High-Performance Communication Audit, which will identify precisely where your executive presence breaks down and what performance factors are triggering the disarray.

Strategically signal leadership credibility daily through proven communication behaviours.

 

With enhanced scope by which you can pull rank, make decisions and set the tone of your organisation, reputation management matters more than ever. You should strategically signal leadership credibility daily through proven communication behaviours. 

Most leaders struggle to prioritise participation in the core communication activities that enhance their leadership potential and trustworthiness.

As a leader, you want to ensure that you’re not avoiding critical high-performance communication behaviours that you need to showcase due to lack of skill, time or even decreased comfort. 

My executive communication coaching gives you the tools to refine what you need to communicate to exert maximum influence. 

In my work with CEOs, executives and emerging leaders, I’ll train the leader to integrate a systematic approach to increase or decrease their behavioural participation so that they streamline their communication activities to get the maximal return on their energy investment. Because, if you’re an executive, you’ll know that preserving communication freshness is the main issue. 

The higher your rank, the more time constraints, increased responsibilities, politics and information overload can distract from the vital leadership communication activities you must integrate to protect your impact across all levels of the organisation. Executive communication coaching sessions assist you to streamline the core communication activities needed to secure leadership presence.

Does Your Leadership Communication need Work?

Like all professional skills, high-performance communication can be learnt, especially when it comes to leadership communication.

Meet our High-Performance Communication Audit!

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So who is this audit best for?⁠

  • Anyone preparing for a high-performance communication activity where the stakes are high like job interviews, public speaking events, or managing teams⁠.
  • You if you want to secure your leadership presence in a way that amplifies team motivation, engagement and retention.
  • CEOs, executives and emerging leaders who want to finally dedicate increased precision to their communication style to benefit their organisation and team.

If you’d like to get a comprehensive science-based assessment of your professional speaking and gain elite career communication tools, consider enrolling in my High-Performance Communication audit to uncover the turn-key your speaking needs.

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References

  • Antonakis, J., et al. (2011). “Can Charisma Be Taught? Tests of Two Interventions.” Academy of Management Learning and Education 10: 374-396.

  • Caballero, J., et al. (2021). “Cortical processing of speaker politeness: Tracking the dynamic effects of voice tone and politeness markers.” Social Neuroscience 16.

  • Guyer, J. J., et al. (2021). “Paralinguistic Features Communicated through Voice can Affect Appraisals of Confidence and Evaluative Judgments.” Journal of Nonverbal Behavior.

  • Michalsky, J. and O. Niebuhr (2019). “Myth busted? Challenging what we think we know about charismatic speech.” AUC PHILOLOGICA 2019: 27-56.

  • Silvia, P. and R. Beaty (2012). “Making creative metaphors: The importance of fluid intelligence for creative thought.” Intelligence 40: 343-351.

About the Author

Dr Sarah Lobegeiger de Rodriguez is a Keynote Speaker, Executive Speaking Coach, and Opera Singer who likes to play with words, sounds, and your impact.

Her academic background is in Music Performance, Communication Science and Speech & Language Pathology. She assists executive communication clients all over the world as a communication consultant with strong expertise in CEO, Founder and Entrepreneur communication strategies.

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn.

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