The Challenge

Leader Presence requires being other-aware and self-aware. It requires the proper mind-set, skill-sets and system-enablers to project strong leadership and sustain it as long as necessary. Most people who become leaders, whether they are promoted into that role or join a new company in that role, are confronted with the challenge: how to project a Leader Presence.

Imagine being a member of a company for several years and serving as a senior manager. The C-level person to whom you report is leaving and you've been promoted to a C-level leadership position.

Your challenge is to get the group to perceive you as a leader and not just a member of the group.

Experience has taught you the operational needs of the group. Working with the past leader, you have a sense of the leadership needs – what the group needs and what the leader has to do to meet those needs. But the mindset, skill-sets and system enablers (e.g., management tools) that got you this far, aren't necessarily the leadership skills, talents and perspectives that are going to work for you in the new role.

Moreover, you need to shift people's way of relating to you – from manager to leader. This requires a concentrated plan-of-action in which people "see, hear and feel" your Leader Presence. And it usually has a time-limit.

Indeed, for new leaders, the time-limits have become engrained in our culture. CEOs are given 90 days often to project their Leader Presence; U.S. Presidents have their "first 100 days".

The challenge is to clarify the goal, develop a process to achieve it, and implement it ASAP, before counterproductive habits and attitudes by leader and group members become institutionalized.