Oh that is so interesting!! I totally get what you mean. I have heard lots of “vocal fry” which really weakens presence, and a lot of the upward inflection at the end of a sentence even when it isn’t a question. I think that is called upspeak? It makes the speaker sound uncertain when they are not, and weakens the power of the speaker, in my opinion. The whole smiling voice all the time thing is downright weird. I had a colleague once who adopted a second grade teacher voice when outlining a lot of important detail. She was whip smart but it diminished her credibility. I actually told her (people were talking about it behind her back) and it ruined the relationship and she never spoke to me again. That was maybe the last time I ever gave someone unsolicited feedback with the best of intentions. Thanks for sharing your experience!

I have a colleague who does a podcast and she’s taken to heart some of the radio tricks, such as smiling while talking. That’s great for a podcast or improv, but it’s highly distracting while listening to on a conference call. When she is talking about serious stuff but you can hear her smiling voice it creates dissonance and I think of that as another descriptor of executive presence: aligning composure and bearing with the situation and context.

The reason I love the “Advice Column” format is exactly because I think a lot of folks want to play that little game…what would I say?, and then what did she say? Do I agree? Disagree? I love when people post additional ideas for the writer too!
Thanks for the kind words.

Love this – so smart. Marshall Goldsmith also talks about that in his book What Got You Here…

But today, I was so completely stumped… I could feel Bubble’s frustration and bewilderment, and I had nothing to give or share, and I felt bad.
I felt so inadequate, I just wanted to get away, and when I DID finally read your advice, I realized that I WAS THE HAPLESS BOSS.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

I was stopped AGAIN with your first sentence; it was so beautiful that it literally brought tears to my eyes.

I wish I had a friend like you…

What a beautiful and timely thing to say!

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this woman was a gemstone in the tool section at Home Depot.

I’m sure you’re familiar with Maya Angelou’s quote about people always remembering how we made them feel…well, if Bubbles feels half as good as I do…

So glad that I took the time to read that today; have a great day!

Hapless no more

PS: the practical advice was really, really good too!)

In my career I noticed that many of the more respected leaders let their team members do the talking and saved their input for last, or as an escalation point. That seemed to give them more gravitas, because they only weighed in on the really important issues or to back up their team members. To put it another way, it gave the impression that they were focused on strategic direction and the most important issues and their team were handling most of the day-to-day decisions (with their coaching and support, of course). I tried doing this and found it difficult at first (because I have an opinion about everything!), but with practice I got better at it and then I actually did have more time to work on more important stuff. As a bonus, when I was ready to move, one of my team members was ready to succeed me.