Leadership Presence Dramatic Techniques to Reach Out, Motivate, and Inspire

by Halpern, Belle Linda; Lubar, Kathy

• ISBN13: 9781592400171
• ISBN10: 1592400175
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-13
• Publisher: Gotham

Summary

With a foreword by Warren Bennis, author of On Becoming a Leader, Leadership Presenceis an innovative, proven approach for helping leaders in every field develop the leadership skills necessary to inspire confidence, command respect, motivate teams to reach higher goals, and build credibility. For over a decade, Belle Linda Halpern and Kathy Lubar have applied the lessons and expertise they have learned as performing artists to the work of The Ariel Group, helping to improve the leadership skills of tens of thousands of executives at major companies around the country and the globe, including General Electric, Capital One, and the Coca-Cola company. In Leadership Presence, Halpern and Lubar make their time-tested strategies available to all leaders, from high-profile CEOs to young professionals seeking a way to move up. Halpern and Lubar teach leaders: * How to handle tough situations with heightened confidence and flexibility * How to build relationships to enhance collaboration and business development * How to express yourself dynamically to motivate for results * How to integrate personal values into leadership communication to inspire those you lead, increase team effectiveness, and build stronger client relationships. Sharing the skills of the true performance experts, Leadership Presenceis the cornerstone of dynamic and authentic leadership.

Author Biography

Belle Linda Halpern and Kathy Lubar cofounded The Ariel Group in 1992. They currently instruct over 5,000 executives a year through their workshops. Halpern has performed worldwide as a cabaret singer and has taught music in workshops and at Harvard University. Lubar has worked as a professional actress for many years, and cofounded the New Repertory Theater in 1984.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Foreword	xiii
Prologue	xvii
Presence: What Actors Have That Leaders Need	1	(14)
The Ariel model for Leadership Presence and its benefits within organizations
INTRODUCTION TO ACT I: BEING PRESENT	15	(62)
The ability to be completely in the moment and flexible enough to handle the unexpected
Being Present in the Moment	21	(28)
Conquering fear, distraction, and pressure in your daily performance
Being Present in Action---Flexibility	49	(28)
Handling the unexpected by using improvisational techniques
INTRODUCTION TO ACT II: REACHING OUT	77	(52)
The ability to build relationships with others through empathy, listening, and authentic connection
Reaching Out and Empathy	85	(20)
Empathy and getting the best from those you lead
Reaching Out and Making Connections	105	(24)
How to authentically reach out and connect with anyone in your world
INTRODUCTION TO ACT III: EXPRESSIVENESS	129	(62)
The ability to express feelings and emotion appropriately by using all means of expression---words, voice, body, face---to deliver one congruent message
Emotion Drives Expressiveness	137	(22)
Leaders express emotion to set the tone for the organization
Expressiveness Using Voice, Body, and Story	159	(32)
How to align every means of expression to communicate a clear, compelling message
INTRODUCTION TO ACT IV: SELF-KNOWING	191	(62)
The ability to accept yourself, to be authentic, and to reflect your values in your decisions and actions
Self-Knowing, Self-Reflection, and Explicit Values	201	(24)
Finding values in your life stories and making them explicit to your organization
Self-Knowing and Authenticity	225	(28)
How to build trust and credibility through authenticity
Epilogue	253	(6)
Notes	259	(6)
Index	265	(12)
About the Authors	277	(2)
Speeches, Workshops, and Coaching in Leadership Presence	279

Excerpts

Prologue Executive presence is so important to our success as consultants. I believed if our consultants could speak with clarity and confidenceoif they could find their voiceothen they would show up as credible advisors, capable of assisting our clients with their most challenging problems. Your impact went much deeper than that. With your guidance, we worked on our connections to each other, on making vulnerability safe, and most of all, on being authentic in whatever roles we playedoas consultants and leaders. We moved from playing our roles to being those roles. Judi Rosen, then Managing Director, CSC Index Eastern Region WE FOUNDED THE ARIEL GROUP IN 1993, AND IF YOUiD ASKED US then what we were doing, weid have said we were teaching leaders to be better communicators. We thought the skills and techniques weid learned as professional actors and performers would be helpful.They were, and The Ariel Group prospered. But as we worked with more companies and more leaders, we began to realize that something beyond better communication was going on. The use of dramatic skills and techniques was leading to something richer in the lives of people we worked with. Two women attending one of our corporate programs for a giant financial services firm had been struggling for months to complete a budget. They couldnit resolve the issues that kept them apart. In our program they did a listening exercise together over lunch. That evening, fueled by their newfound understanding of each other, they put the budget together in less than two hours and sent it off to their boss in London, who happily approved it without change. Better listening skills? Certainly. But their newfound ability to collaborate went beyond listening. We worked with the executive team of a software company. They were preparing to present an important new strategy in a town meeting for all employees, and they wanted to do it in a way that broke the mold of previous presentations. Rather than the old PowerPoint slide show, they wanted to model a collaborative and cohesive spirit among the executive team, to communicate how the strategy needed to be implemented throughout the company. Not only was the presentation more powerful and creative but, as a result of our work, they told us afterward they had inever before been this cohesive, except during two criseso9/11 when we had a large contingent of people in New York and during a major workforce reduction.i Better presentation skills? Of course. But their teamwork inspired the organization too. We deliver our work as volunteers in a Boston-area program for prison inmates called Houses of Healing. One of the inmates in the program was a man whose street name was Nitro. When he was asked in an exercise to illustrate his life story, he drew a chain of railroad cars climbing a steep mountain. Each car was another event from his life. As he began to describe each car, he dissolved into tears. By the end of the program heid changed his street name from Nitro to Patience, as he understood, for the first time, that he had the power to create a life for himself beyond drugs and violence. Greater self-confidence? Yes. But personal transformation too. As we saw these moments of change, and countless others like them, we began to understand the power of the concepts we were bringing from the theater. It wasnit just communication. It was about authentic connections between people. The two women making a budget found a way to connect with each other. The executive team making the strategy presentation found ways to connect with company employees in a new way. Nitro found a way to connect with himself and in the process became Patience. Weive found these kinds of transformation everywhere as weive worked with a diversity of private and public organizations. From U.S. Customs officers to senior partners at a major accounting firm, from scho