As I wrap up a week connecting with lifelong friends and colleagues at Ellucian Live, I sense more deeply than ever the richness of life that emerges when we are fully present. I’ve written about presence before, and two years later, I find its impact deepening my journey and my clients’ as well.
Somewhere along the way, someone decided to insert the word “Executive” before the word “Presence.” In this simple act, they created a term that has become overused and is fairly ambiguous. More importantly, as this phrase emerged, we lost sight of the gem it contained. The gem of presence.
Framed by the ‘executive’ modifier, presence can become associated with gravitas, authority, or commanding a room. Having presence. Presence becomes something we do, like so much else in the professional world.
The true power of presence, in all aspects of life, does not emerge out of doing. It arises from being.
Doing Presence vs. Being Presence
Take a moment and consider the difference.
What does it feel like to do presence with someone else?
What does it feel like to be present with someone else?
When I contemplate the former, I am drawn to my days as an executive. Commanding the room by dressing for success, saying things that impress those around me, projecting confidence, and giving off an energy that inspires those around me to follow me.
When presence is something I am doing, my brain naturally moves to how I respond next to what is being said. How am I holding myself? Am I exuding this mysterious quality of executive presence?
When I contemplate the latter, it’s not about me. It’s about the world around me. When I am being present, my attention is on the person I’m with. The natural world around me. When I am talking with someone, I’m not thinking about what I will say next. I’m hanging on their every word. Drinking it in, letting it wash over me, and giving that person the gift of every fiber of my being. When it’s time for me to talk, I trust that in the moment, the right words will come out.
An Invitation to Notice
How often do you take the time to be fully present? I invite you to take just one day and pay close attention to your presence.
When you eat a meal, are you present to the food you’re eating? If you’re dining with others, are you present to them? Or are you looking at your phone? Is there a TV on in the background?
As you talk with your partner, your children, your friends, or your colleagues, do they have your full attention? Or are you multi-tasking, scanning your phone or your computer, responding to an email or a Slack message? Or perhaps your brain is off somewhere else, thinking about the next meeting or some other distraction, and the words are not sinking in.
When you attend a meeting, do you give it your full attention? Or are you working on a separate project, half-listening for any mention that might prompt you to pay attention and respond?
Paths to Presence
Executive presence begins with being fully present. Not a doing. A way of being.
I didn’t learn this lesson until after I’d left the corporate world and shifted to coaching. As an executive, I can look back and see I was fairly present, but it was unconscious. As a coach, my role is to create a space for exploration, enabling my client to find the answers within themselves. To do this well, it’s all about them. Listening isn’t just about hearing the words they are speaking. There is the tone of voice, the body language, the facial expression that isn’t aligned with the words coming out of their mouths. And there is the energetic component — what I am sensing in my body as my mirror neurons react, triggering intuitive insights.
Every interaction with another human is an opportunity to practice presence. Another path is being present with yourself.
When I began meditating, the goal was to reduce stress. It was a mindfulness practice, building the muscles to regulate my nervous system, allowing me to return to a calm state more quickly. Years of that practice also strengthened my presence. The simple act of sitting and focusing on your breath is a practice of presence. It can be quite frustrating when thoughts pop up unexpectedly, but that’s the point. As we get better at letting those thoughts float through our brains and out again, returning to our breath, we’re building the same muscle that allows us, in conversation, to resist the urge to get distracted by what we want to say next and instead stay focused on what our conversation partner is saying.
A third path opens when we turn our attention to the natural world.
Recently, I visited a botanical garden. The last one I visited was in Nashville back in 2023. Most of these visits have been spent admiring the beauty of nature — learning about the plants, marveling at the diversity. This trip included plenty of that as well, but I naturally brought a much deeper presence. This visit was less about the “doing” of finding and identifying the plants I thought were beautiful. I was being present with the plants.
And something remarkable happened.
As I walked through a greenhouse filled with lush greenery, my body was flooded with energy. So much energy, everywhere I walked. The experience was nearly overwhelming, bringing a connectedness and a presence to these plants I had not experienced before. I am sure this same energy has been available to me at every other botanical garden I visited. I just wasn’t present enough to sense it.
Putting It Into Practice
As we become fully present, we begin to exude the magical gift of executive presence. Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
When you are fully present with someone, they feel heard. They feel understood. That is the true gem at the heart of executive presence.
Presence strengthens with deliberate practice. Here are a few ways to begin:
- Pick one interaction a day and bring your whole self to it. A meal, a meeting, a conversation with your partner or child. Put the phone away. Close the laptop. Let the person or the moment have all of you.
- Notice when you slip into doing presence. Catch yourself rehearsing your next response, managing your image, or scanning the room for how you’re being received. That’s a cue to come back to the person in front of you.
- Build a pre-interaction ritual. Before a coaching session, a meeting, or a meaningful conversation, take sixty seconds to breathe, settle, and remind yourself why this person or moment matters. Let that intention shape how you show up.
- Sit with your breath. Even five minutes of meditation a day builds the neural muscle you will draw on in every conversation that matters.
- Practice presence in nature. Walk through a park, a garden, or the woods with no podcast, no phone, no agenda. Let the world move through you rather than moving through the world.
- Reflect. At the end of the day, notice where you were most present and where you were not. Let that awareness shape tomorrow.
I am an executive coach and consciousness coach with software executive roots in higher education and EdTech. I coach because I love helping others accelerate their growth as leaders and humans. I frequently write about #management, #leadership, #coaching, #neuroscience, and #arete.
If you would like to learn more, schedule time with me.