# Executive Presence Part 2: How to Become a Stellar Communicator

Lucy Gernon (00:05.038)
Hi there and welcome back to part two of three of this Executive Presence mini training series. I’m your host, Lucy Gernon. I’m a multi award winning executive coach and I work with primarily women in leadership roles, but some men too, to support you to accelerate your career and your impact, to help you to unlock the belief and potential that lies within so that you can build a life filled with success, balance and happiness where anything is possible. Now,

Something that’s been coming up a lot lately with my 360 leaders club members and with my private clients is the topic of executive presence. And as I explained in the previous episode, which was all about how to build more gravitas. So if you haven’t listened to part one of this training, I would recommend you go back to the previous episode and start there. I was explaining in that training that there’s been a lot of changes over the past decade or more.

when it comes to executive presence and the expectations, I guess, of those that you lead in terms of what executive presence looks like. So before, it used to be very much about, you know, the man, the white man in the suit who has everything under control, who, you know, is able to be really, really polished. And right now there are much more important traits that are transpiring with the modern day, because there’s been so much that’s changed. We’ve got.

hybrid work, right? We’ve got this new generation of, you know, younger, the younger generation, the young ones coming up who now want work -life balance and they don’t want to work 60 hours, 70 hours like maybe we would have as we built our career. So there’s a lot of things that need to change from a leadership perspective in order for you to get the best and the most out of your team because they ain’t burning themselves out. They’re not going to do it for you the way we would have.

So it’s super, super important that you can actually inspire action in your team, but also build trust and confidence with your peers and your senior stakeholders who are, I suppose, assessing you and, you know, as opportunities arise to go, is she up for the task or is he up for the task? Can we actually trust that this person knows what they’re doing and can lead the team to greatness? And that’s exactly where executive presence comes in.

Lucy Gernon (02:26.382)
So in the last episode, we spoke a lot about gravitas and the number one part of gravitas is confidence. And I can promise you that you can become more confident. OK, believe me, if I can sit here and host a podcast and get on stages and coach senior leaders that I would have once looked up to, like I coach CEOs that I would have looked up to as somebody who was, you know, God. And now I am actually their coach. If I can do that.

You can do anything. OK, you can do anything. So today we are going to talk about how to become a stellar communicator. So going back to the Harvard paper that I spoke about where they assessed the new rules for executive presence and they compared the 2012 kind of expectations versus 2022 and beyond. So. Communication has always been.

a foundational element of executive presence. OK, has always been, will always be. And I’m going to unpack a little bit as to why communication is so, so important and the problems and the, I suppose, the mistakes I see so many leaders make when it comes to communication. So let’s start with why communication is important. It goes back to our fundamental human need for safety.

OK? Our brains are constantly scanning our environment to go, am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Can I trust this situation? Can I trust this person? And if your brain starts to detect that, hang on a minute, this person who’s supposed to be leading me or that has everything under control, I’m not really understanding what they’re saying to me. I’m not really clear on what my role is. I’m not really clear on the vision.

or where we’re going, she’s saying all of these acronyms. I have no clue what these acronyms mean. my God, I’m out. OK, so psychologically, that person is probably going to shut down a little bit to protect themselves because they have a fundamental need to feel safe. So inspiring psychological safety is such an important part of communication. It’s also, you know, we’re going to talk about authenticity and all of that in a second.

Lucy Gernon (04:49.998)
It’s also a massive part of that. And it goes back to a couple of things. It goes back to, like I said, the need to feel safe, but also from the science of positive psychology. We know that we have a fundamental need as humans for belonging. OK, so fun fact, I’m actually a positive psychology coach as well. And I love to weave in positive psychology where I can to, which is the science of high performance and well -being and.

We know that that is so, so important. Now, many, many, many times I have seen leaders and even I have watched some of my own clients communicate in ways that I know isn’t landing. OK, so.

If we break down communication, what’s expected is that you have superior speaking skills. So superior speaking skills to the normal average person. You have got to be able to communicate in a way that lands with your target audience. So, for example, I’ve had to learn to be a good communicator. OK, I’ve had to learn the skill of communication.

And rule number one of being able to do that is that you’ve got to speak your audience’s language. So you will regularly hear me say on this podcast, I will say things that I have heard my clients say, so that you know, I understand you so that you know, I hear you and that I see you. And that goes back to inclusion as well. And that sense of belonging. So it’s really important that you really learn how to influence people and.

In my new course, the executive presence blueprint, I have a whole module on mastering communication and charisma. OK, it’s all about master communication and charisma. And I get I teach you my magnetic influence method in detail. I give you cheat sheet. I give you checklists. I give you everything you need so that the next time you’re walking into a meeting where you know you need to be more influential and persuasive.

Lucy Gernon (06:52.142)
You can just pull out the checklist or pull out the training. I’ve made it super simple so that you can action it straight away and feel amazing. And you can grab the course at lucygarden .com forward slash EP. And it is a fraction of the investment of normally working with me because it is a digital self -paced course. However, you’re going to feel if you’re liking this training, you’re going to feel like we’re here together live because that’s how I like to teach. OK, I like to be interactive with you, too.

So don’t worry about that. You’re going to get amazing value from the course. So the other thing then when it comes to communication is you’ve got to be able to have command of a room, which has always been the case. However, you now have to be able to command a Zoom room or a Teams room or a Google Hangout, whatever software, WebEx, whatever you use. You have got to be able to run a meeting virtually.

OK, super, super important. And again, in my course, I teach you exactly how I do it, how you can create your own signature style so that when people come to your meetings, they’re like, thank God it’s with her or with him because he knows or she knows what she’s doing. The next thing when it comes to communication is active listening. Now, if you’re multitasking, please come back to me. A really big mistake.

that I used to make for years until I learned to become a coach, until I trained to become an executive coach was I spoke more than I listened. I thought if I just had something to say, it would make me important. And what I’ve realized and as a coach, what I’ve realized even more is the more you actively listen, the more you are empowered to

respond more thoughtfully. OK, so one of the traits is you have got to have what’s called a listen to learn orientation. So I used to listen with the intent to respond. How can I get in my point? It’s about being smart and the best executives and the best senior leaders I see are the ones who actively listen. And again, in my course, I am teaching you all the things you need to do to become a better active listener.

Lucy Gernon (09:12.526)
It is not something that we naturally do as humans. It’s not something that you can just do overnight. It is a skill that needs to be practiced. But you’ve got to understand how to do it first. And you’ve got to really understand the steps to actually become more present and how to actively listen when your mind is racing and you want to jump in with a question. OK. And again, in my course, the Executive Presence Blueprint, I teach you exactly how to do that. The next thing when it comes to communication,

is that you have to have the ability to read the room. It’s about being able to pick up on body language, even on a Zoom room. It’s about using your emotional intelligence, your spidey senses, your gut, your intuition to be able to scan a room very quickly and get a sense for what what the feelings in the room are and what’s actually happening. OK, super, super important.

And again, in my course, I get into lots of stuff on body language that I’ve learned as a coach. I would consider myself an expert in body language for sure. Not only from a coaching perspective, but I’m very highly intuitive anyway. And I’ve been trying to think like, how can I teach this? I can’t teach this in a podcast. So I’ve decided to pop that into the course, too. The next thing from a communication perspective that’s super important is keeping it real. It’s about being authentic. It’s…

Great leaders know that it’s OK to say, I don’t know, I don’t have the answers or to share what’s on your heart as opposed to, you know, playing by some old corporate outdated rule book. OK, it’s so important that you learn to be yourself. And again, in my course, that’s exactly why I’ve created the whole training on personal branding so that you can actually define like, well, who am I? Like, who am I really? It is a big question.

And in the course, I break down lots of really simple ways that you can begin to be more authentically yourself, because I promise you, when you are just you in all of your glory, warts and all, people will love you. When you’re putting on a facade or a fake, you know, a face, a mask, people can smell that a mile off and that does not instill trust, because if you can’t show up authentically and

Lucy Gernon (11:35.886)
deliver what’s real, how do they know when you’re telling the truth and when you’re not? Or how do they know when they can trust you? Which part of it? Who are you really? So important to be yourself. It’s more important than ever before. OK. And then finally, I’ll finish up with this this one, which again, I’ve touched on already. It’s about the use of body language. So we’ve touched on the fact that you need to be able to read a room and look at body language. But it’s about using your body language appropriately.

So things like eye contact, like I’m doing now, you can see I’m, if you’re watching the video or if you’re on the podcast, I’m kind of moving my hands. I’m allowing my energy to flow through and just naturally moving. Whereas a lot of the times I’ve seen some leaders who have gone to, you know, some other communication training and they’ve been told to do this with their hands or to regularly move their hands and they look quite robotic.

So in the course, again, I talk a lot about body language and how to really, I suppose, lean into your energy to be able to use your body language appropriately. So just to summarize, you can and you will become an amazing communicator. You’ve got to have superior speaking skills. You’ve got to be able to command a virtual meeting as well as an in -person meeting. You’ve got to become a more a better active listener.

You’ve got to be able to read a room to be authentic, to be yourself and to use your body language appropriately so that you can build trust, so that you appear more confident, because confidence instills trust. Trust leads to opportunities. Opportunities lead to recognition. And I know that is what you want. So that is it for this part of the three part training.

Tomorrow on the next episode, you can listen to it. And we are going to be talking all about answering the question, what’s more important? Is it being authentic? Is it appearance? Which is it? Come back to the next episode and listen. And in the meantime, you can check out my brand new course, the Executive Presence Blueprint at lucygarden .com forward slash EP, where I’m teaching you everything I know about executive presence in a super simple.

Lucy Gernon (13:56.174)
super actionable, super easy way. You’ll get lifetime access to the course so you can go back to it time and time again. You can go back to the cheat sheets. You can go back to the checklist. You can go back to the training so that the next time that you need to walk into a meeting and communicate with confidence, you will have a step -by -step guide there on me as your little Mrs. Motivator in your pocket telling you you can do it because you absolutely can.

So go check it out, lucygernon.com forward slash EP and I look forward to seeing you in part three of this training.