Seeing Yourself As Others Do - Authentic Executive Presence At Any Stage of Your Career

By Carol Keers

Book Overview

Others see your blind spots. Learning what they are and what you can do about them gives you a distinct advantage. Since 1986, Change Masters has individually coached thousands of established and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1603162518
• ISBN13: 9781603162517
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Significant Pursuit
• Length: 205 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Attention Smart People!

If you ever wondered why your amazing brain power has not propelled your career or personal life into a life fulfilled, you might want to consider the message in this book. Your intellectual horsepower will not necessarily make you an effective manager or leader of your team or your family. 'Authentic executive presence' could and should be taken very literally. People will not follow someone they don't trust. And, if no one is following, you aren't leading. Work, family or otherwise. If you want to successfully communicate with others, this book is for you. The book drives home the point of how to actively listen to someone and that all audiences are a little different. If you are managing for results, getting a five year old to clean her room make take a little more finesse than getting a new young college graduate to understand the importance of getting a haircut before a job interview. It's all about perceptions, and usually you only get one shot. The book drives home the importance of credibility, leverage, relationships, setting expectations, inspiration. We thought this book was so powerful that initially we asked only our management team to read it, and subsequently made it a requirement for every new employee who joins our organization. It takes years to change perceptions, so we thought it best to start our new folks on the right track, right away. C.L.E.A.R.L.I., Carol Keers and Tom Mungavan #Seeing Yourself as Others Do# are the real deal.

Invest in yourself - easy read, yet touches many meaty topics.

Some of the "self help" books drone on about a single topic or two for the whole book. This book is an easy read but touches on some really key points that will help any Leader/Manager/Speaker/Teacher/Student/Job Seeker. A big part of what you learn in this book is awareness - awareness of what your body, your voice, your words and your actions say about you and thus - "how others see you". By gaining this awareness you can learn from the many stories and tips in this book to improve how you are seen by others. (and how you interact with others). This book will help you with: Connecting with your audience, Inspiring/motivating others, Listening, Crafting meaningful/concise messages, Relationship building, Expectation management..(lots more check out table of contents). You'll find many tips that will help when speaking, leading or particpating in meetings which can help you feel much more confident and effective. The topics in this book range from strategic to tactical, board room to meeting room to kitchen table. It is one of those books that will leave you thinking and 'watching others' as you become more aware yourself. Plenty of things you can try right away - at work or home. I've given as gift to graduating students, my up-and-coming managers and seasoned leaders. I always get great thanks for a meaningful read.

You can't control how others see you, but you sure can manage it.

Most of us have a very different view of ourselves than others have of us. Whether we have a positive or negative view of our appearance, demeanor, or personality, we do not have the right or ability to have others see us in the same way. How they view us depends on which aspects of our lives they see, their own life context, and whether they have interacted with us personally for a length of time or have just heard about us from others. Yes, first impressions do matter and most of us have no idea how we come across in those instances. Carol Keers and Thomas Mungavan have provided a very helpful guide to understanding this important part of our interactions with others. This book provides techniques and exercises that help you change those perceptions in ways that allow you to manage this important key to your professional and personal success. The book has nine chapters and I found each of them to be valuable. The first is an introduction to the idea of perception and its very real power to affect our lives. They introduce the first of their acronyms - CLEARLI, which helps you remember what you need to project to have what they call Authentic Executive Presence. The acronym stands for Command, Leverage, Expectations, Audience, Relationship, Listening, and Inspiration. Reading this section and applying it will more than repay you for the book all by itself. The rest of the chapters take you through the pieces of CLEARLI in detail. Chapter 2 talks about the power of communications and helps you develop a solid style. Chapter 3 is about Charisma and the use of your voice and keeping control of your body, voice, and nerves under stress. Chapter 4 helps you see your opportunities for influence and how to start with the `low hanging fruit' in your life. They also offer a nice primer on politics. Not to make you Machiavellian, but to help you be more aware of what is going on so you don't step on land mines and can use situations to help you rather than get hurt by them. Chapter 5 provides valuable insights on how to properly set and manage the expectations of others - both at work and in your personal life. I liked the section teaching you how to learn from your anger rather than feeling the need to express it or getting into trouble by losing control. Chapter 6 teaches you how to make a compelling presentation and how to connect with your audience. For many people, making a presentation is something to get through, but these authors show you how to make it an opportunity to build your credibility with those in your audience. Chapter 7 is about managing relationships including those that happen at a distance. They also talk about healthy conflict versus the poisonous kind most of us experience and the benefits of forgiveness and letting go of the stuff that isn't going to get better anyway. Chapter 8 teaches one of the most important tools any executive can have; the ability to listen and listen much more than you talk. Cha

Understanding the effect you have on others...

Trying to figure out how others perceive me in the workplace is something that's very high on my list of concerns. The book Seeing Yourself As Others Do: Authentic Executive Presence At Any Stage of Your Career by Carol Keers and Thomas Mungavan goes a long way in helping to clear away those misconceptions and blind spots. It also gives you the tools you need to come across the way you need to in many different situations. Contents: Introduction - Perception is Reality; Communication Foundations; Command of the Room with Charisma; Leverage Influence and Power; Expectations, Strategic and Tactical; Audience Connections; Relationship Competence, Locally and Remotely; Listening Engagement; Inspiration, Motivation, and Praise Based on the title, you may think this is focused more towards the executive branch of your organization. Not true... There's plenty of material here that pertains to the way you interact at any level and in any situation. Executive presence is the ability to be viewed as one with authority and presence, someone who is authentic in their personality and who can connect with and inspire those around them. The acronym CLEARLI is used by the authors to explain that quality - Command, Leverage, Expectations, Audience, Relationship, Listening, and Inspiration. Once you understand that your impression of yourself is not reality, that the reality is perception that others have of you, you can start to build up those skills and remove those blind spots that are holding you back. For me, I took a lot away from the chapters on using your voice effectively as well as becoming a quality listener. Communicating effectively with others is far more than just the words you tell them. It's the pacing of your words, the emotion and variation and body language. I need to understand how to control that much better. In addition, my skill at listening to others can stand some significant improvement. So often, you can communicate at a much higher level by shutting up and listening to the other person. Instead of trying to figure out what you're going to say next, focus on what the person across from you is trying to say. I need to work harder to get past that superficial level of understanding that comes with not completely focusing on that other person. This is an easy read, well-paced and completely applicable to where you live. Time spent thinking about these concepts can have a dramatic effect on your personal and professional relationships.

The key to success in modern business is the quality of your professional relationships.

One of the hardest things for humans in authority to do is to examine themselves from the perspective of others. Doing so makes you vulnerable and leads you to unknown territory, both of which can be unsettling if not outright scary. However, it can be critical to the functioning or even survival of an organization, as any form of self-delusion on the part of a high level executive can be devastating. As the authors point out so well through statements and case histories, the key to success in modern business is the quality of your professional relationships. If they are sound, based on mutual trust, respect and honesty they are the fundamental currency that buys you effectiveness, loyalty and the continuation of those relationships. This is often equivalent to the continuation of the business. The good news is that most of those relationships can be created and nurtured in relatively simple ways. Taking an interest in the personal lives of others, expressing concern for their feelings and giving out compliments on a job well done all build the business equivalent of "street cred", a commodity that is critical to high performance. Unfortunately, many executives believe that effective managerial performance is achieved only by being authoritative to the point of dictatorial. That is a false premise; respect is not developed by inculcating fear, as that is a path to weakness on the part of employees. From that point on their first thought is to make sure they don't make the boss angry. In this book the authors debunk that premise and focus on the need for the honest and frank exchange of ideas. The best leaders are willing to expose themselves; the person that claims to always be right is the most unbelievable person of all. I strongly recommend this book as a tool in the education of all rising and potential executives.