Authenticity

Leadership Presence
by Kathy Lubar, Belle Linda Halpern

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When people hear us define presence as connecting authentically with others, they say something like: "I can understand how leaders might learn some things from actors. But how can we learn to be more authentic from people who lie professionally? After all, isn't that what acting is really about at the end of the day? An actor steps onto a painted set and pretends to be someone else by performing rehearsed actions and reciting words written by others. What could possibly be more inauthentic?"

There are two answers to that question. Just as actors play a variety of roles, we all play roles, as people and as leaders. How many roles do you play each day of your life? Manager, parent, spouse, engineer (or some other profession), Scout leader, churchgoer, citizen. Do you behave differently in each role? Are you therefore faking it? No, beneath all those roles is the same person: you. The same can be said of actors.

That leads us to the second answer, which has to do with how actors do what they do. A century ago, it was typical for actors to demonstrate emotion through exaggerated, stylized sets of gestures, vocal intonations, and facial expressions. Look at some early silent movies, and note the back of the wrist held to the forehead to indicate distress, or the furrowed brow and clenched fists to portray anger.

Then a pioneering Russian teacher of acting, Konstantin Stanislavsky, taught that a more accurate and engaging approach would be for actors onstage to actually experience the emotions they were portraying. Thus, to portray a character's anger, for example, an actor should find real anger within himself and express that in his performance. In short, he claimed that the emotion needed to be authentic.

Actors worry about the authenticity, the "truth," of a portrayal almost more than anything else. F. Murray Abraham, a well-known stage actor, acting teacher, and winner of an Oscar for his portrayal of Salieri in Amadeus, speaks of the actor's search for truth:

What you have to do is find the truth, because that's the essential element that is the middle of all art. It's the middle of acting, whether it's for the camera or on the stage.... It's the center of our lives.... Once you capture the truth in your own terms, nothing can happen that will bother you.

It's a paradox of the theater that, in order to pretend, the actor must be real. That need requires the actor to delve inside himself, because the only way an emotion can be authentic is if it comes from within the actor. Actors, consequently, are probably more aware of authenticity than anyone else, because they've studied it, and themselves, so carefully. Over the course of this book, we'll examine how actors approach this demanding part of their craft and what leaders can learn from them. It's a crucial part of presence.

Presence and Leadership Presence

Because it's about connections between people, presence is useful for anyone who engages with others. That's virtually every one of us. Connecting authentically with the thoughts and feelings of others can only improve and deepen our relationships. You don't have to be a leader to enjoy the benefits of presence.

But leaders, in particular, need presence, because at its core leadership is about the interaction, the connection, the relationship between a leader and the people she leads. When we talk about leadership, you may think first of those in organizations who have positions of formal authority the CEO, the director of marketing, the supervisor of customer service, and so on. The people in these positions are leaders by definition. Maybe you're one of them.

What we say about presence for leaders obviously applies to them. But when we talk about leaders, we include anyone who tries to foster achievement and positive change in any group of people. It can be a family, a PTA, a social club, a volunteer organization, a huge government agency, or giant corporation. A leader is anyone who tries to move a group toward obtaining a particular result. You don't need a title to lead.

But with or without a title you do need presence.

Leadership is about results and outcomes, and so leaders want the hearts and minds of others directed toward some purpose, some result desirable for the group or organization. Presence is the fundamental way a leader can engage the full energies and dedication of others to a common end.

This use of presence we call Leadership Presence: the ability to connect authentically with the thoughts and feelings of others, in order to motivate and inspire them toward a desired outcome.

The elements of Leadership Presence

Combining our years of theatrical and performance experience with what we've learned from teaching presence to leaders of all kinds, we've developed a model of Leadership Presence. In that model we break Leadership Presence down into four elements, each of which represents both a state of mind and a way of behaving.

Here are the four elements of Leadership Presence: We call this the PRES model.

The PRES Model of Leadership Presence

P stands for Being Present, the ability to be completely in the moment, and flexible enough to handle the unexpected.

R stands for Reaching Out, the ability to build relationships with others through empathy, listening, and authentic connection.

E stands for Expressiveness, the ability to express feelings and emotions appropriately by using all available means words, voice, body, face to deliver one congruent message.

S stands for Self-knowing, the ability to accept yourself, to be authentic, and to reflect your values in your decisions and actions.

Leadership Presence is more than the sum of these elements. When we're around someone with Leadership Presence, we feel it and know it as one thing, not the accumulation of four related but disparate skills.

Each element possesses both an interior and an exterior aspect. The interior aspect has to do with the state of mind and heart from which each element springs, while the exterior aspect has to do with the behavior that reflects and reveals the interior aspect. Focusing on the exterior and ignoring the interior is like being courteous without caring. It may work for a short while, but its hollowness soon becomes obvious.

The four elements are a convenient way to teach and learn Leadership Presence because each builds on, and gains power from, the preceding element. They're cumulative. Being Present is the first step. Reaching Out and Expressiveness cannot work in practice unless you are fully present in the moment, focused, completely there. Being Present allows you to effectively reach out to others, to really listen and to see things from their perspective. Expressiveness is certainly possible all by itself. But unless it builds on a foundation of being present and Reaching Out, it will only lead people to think of you as loud or flamboyant. To be Self-knowing, to know where you came from and what you stand for, to be authentic, enables you to integrate all the previous elements of the PRES model in your interactions with others.

Copyright © 2003 by Gail Evans, Published by Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., all rights reserved, reprinted with permission from the publisher.

About the Author

Kathy Lubar and Belle Linda Halpern, cofounders of The Ariel Group, have instructed more than 30,000 executives from hundreds of companies through their workshops. Lubar is a professional actress and cofounder of Boston's New Repertory Theater.

Belle Halpern performs nationwide as an actress and singer and has taught music students at Harvard University. Both live in the Boston area, where The Ariel Group is based.