The Charismatic Leader: Why Great Leaders Create Calm
In a leadership role, the energy you project—whether to one person or many—is often reflected back at you. Calm tends to foster calm, while agitation, anger, or aggression can provoke the same response.
That’s why a good indicator of strong leadership presence under pressure is the ability to keep your cool—to be a calm, still point around which other people can revolve. The more you are able to remain calm, the more you—and the people you serve—are able to think, reason, and communicate effectively.
Is this easy to achieve?
Not exactly.
Our inclination is to get sucked into other people’s stories, drama, and emotion, or to allow our own fears and limiting beliefs to pull us into fight or flight.
It takes will and practice to prevent yourself from being tugged and tipped into someone else’s combative or crisis state.
It takes a desire to start and remain calm—to be calm.
What Do I Mean by Calm?
On the homepage of my website, I describe myself as someone who “helps leaders and their teams communicate and present with a calm, confident Charismatic Presence.” I deliberately use the word “calm” in that description.
Here’s what I DON’T mean by “calm”: passive, emotionless, detached, or lacking energy.
Here’s what I DO mean by “calm”: grounded, present, actively open to the moment at hand—even when the circumstances around you are working to pull you off-center.
Why Does It Matter for a Leader to Project Calm?
When pressure rises, people look to their leader not just for guidance on what to do, but for cues on how to respond.
Since a leader’s internal emotional state affects everyone around them, a leader who cannot regulate their emotions may not just feel stressed, but project stress—which can turn urgency into panic.
Conversely, a leader with a calm executive presence provides space for team members to find their own center so they can think more clearly and take action more effectively.
And this isn’t only true when you’re navigating a difficult conversation or leading people through a challenging situation.
The same principle applies when you step in front of a room to deliver an important speech or presentation. Your audience takes its cues from you, too. When you bring a grounded, calm presence to the room, you create the conditions for them to settle in, listen, and connect with you and your message.
And make no mistake: calm doesn’t mean dialing down your energy or enthusiasm.
You can be passionate, animated, funny, forceful—even fiery—and still be centered. In fact, the more grounded you are in your own calm center, the freer you are to bring your full energy to a presentation without letting that energy tip into nervousness, frenzy, or overwhelm.
Find Your Center—and Know How to Return to It
Great leaders (and speakers) create calm for themselves—and, in turn, for others—because they know their center, begin from it, and know what they need to do to return to it when something or someone pulls them away.
You are the only person who knows what your version of being grounded and centered feels like. This means you need to do specifically what it takes to help yourself feel calm and centered.
One of the centering practices I teach my coaching clients is F.B.I.: Foot. Breath. Intention. Find the floor with your feet. Bring your breath into your belly. And reconnect with your intention—what you are there to do in service to the people in front of you.
You can use this practice before you step into the room—and when you’re thrown and need to reconnect with your center.
F.B.I. is one way to return to center. Yours may be different.
Developing practices like these is an important part of cultivating leadership presence under pressure.
What Might Work for You?
Whatever practices help you find and return to your center, don’t wait until the pressure is on to use them.
That’s where R & R & R—Ritual, Routine, and Repetition—comes in. Establishing and routinely engaging in practices that help you feel grounded, prepared, and centered makes it easier to begin from that place—and to find your way back to it when the stakes are high.
Your practices might include F.B.I., meditation, physical exercise, prayer, affirmations, mantras, visualization, vocal warm-ups, rehearsing out loud, or something entirely your own. What matters is knowing what helps you find your center—and making those practices part of how you prepare.
The next time you step in front of an audience to deliver a high-stakes talk or kick off a challenging meeting with your direct reports, remember what the people in the room really need:
Not a leader who is perfect or has all the answers.
Not a leader who is going to fan the flames of their fear with their own.
Not a leader who is dialed so far down emotionally that they can’t connect
with themselves or others.
They need a leader and speaker whose calm, centered presence helps them connect with their own center, so they can think clearly and act effectively.
They need a leader who is willing and able to be their still point—the calm center around which they can revolve.
They need a leader who doesn’t just find calm.
But who creates it.
