If you’re a new leader stepping in from a transition, a new CEO, a new regime of leadership, there’s a certain window of time that you have to establish yourself as confident, commanding, real, strategic, and with vision. This is a very short window to establish yourself. Now, I don’t want to over scare you with this idea, but I have been getting pulled into two CEOs that are transitioning in as the new CEO, and there’s sometimes they’re partway in, and they’re landing a little flat. It’s not too late to bolster and refresh.
So, a classic example is shareholders’ meetings or owners’ meetings, partner meetings, whatever you call them. Sometimes they’re quarterly; sometimes they’re once a year, but those are the moments where the new leader steps up and shows their strength. They share their vision, their ideas; they make their asks of you, and the team either aligns or doesn’t. A lot of times, they listen; it was a good presentation. They’re like, “Yay, that seems nice,” and then they go about their work.
A true leader is actually trying to change behavior to get people to get behind their strategy and execute it with them. This can be done, but it requires presence; it requires confident presence. Some of the ingredients that augment confident presence are authenticity, openness. A leader who can show vulnerability is different than one who can’t, and sharing openly creates flavors of this confidence.
So, you have a window, and maybe a few times within that window, to reset that perception. I’ve seen it happen. So, my one example of success, which I want you to have on your radar: A CEO came to me and had already landed a little – okay, not bad, not exactly flat, but just okay. And he wasn’t sure, “Will people want to follow me? Do people see me that way?” Well, we worked on the next shareholder presentation. We worked on it several times and got him to an entirely different place.
I got to be there when the shareholder presentation occurred. I was in the front row, and I saw the people coming up to this person afterward, and it was the coolest thing ever because the first person was moved to tears, a little choked up, clamping a little, choking out their words. And what they choked out was, “I will follow you.” Exactly what he wanted.
So, if you’re a new leader in transition, think about the shareholder presentation and the other big presentations where you share your vision and align the team to you and your ideas and your asks, your initiatives, your strategy. And to do that, you want to pursue the presentation power of confident presenting.
No Comments yet!