Disclaimer & Release of Liability: Reader discretion is advised. May cause involuntary eye-rolling (whatever you’re looking for might be back there), fits of giggles, a raised eyebrow, a chuckle, or an involuntary desire to consult a higher power. Proceed with a sense of humor and wonder. You have been warned. Author not responsible for liability or lost or damaged items or sanity.Gather 'round, working stiffs, and let me regale you with tales of a potent, enigmatic force that can make or break careers, cause subordinates to swoon, and fill mere business casuals with an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. I'm talking, of course, about Executive Presence - that seemingly magical aura exuded by high-powered bosses that screams "I'm better than you, and you know it."
For those not acquainted with the rarified upper echelons of the corporate world, Executive Presence is the ultimate "it" factor that separates the spray-tanned captains of industry from the hopelessly un-present cubicle-dwellers doomed to vape in obscurity. It's what allows a CEO to sweep into a room and immediately command the nervous respect of both the board and any nearby ficus. It's the reason that Boring Meeting Guy's anecdote about his mother-in-law's bunion dies a sad death when the door opens and The Presence strides in, eyes narrowing as the humidity of your un-present aura sets off his excessive perspiration detector.
Now you may be thinking: "But Infamous Writer Person, I already have a giant ego and frequently bloviate about my own excellence - doesn't that count as presence?" To which I respond: Oh ye who are wise in the ways of self-importance yet naive in the true depths of impressiveness, having presence is so much more than just being a completely unlikable blowhard.
No, true Executive Presence requires the disciplined mastery of an array of skills ranging from power dressing to power pointing to power clearing one's throat in a manner that causes the weak to soil themselves. It is the Shaolin mastery of douchebaggistic business arts. Let me elucidate:
The Power Outfit
We begin, naturally, with attire. The irrefutable truth is that people judge books by their covers - and if that cover looks like a slobby self-published paperback, you'll be lucky to get displayed on the bathroom bookshelf at a truck stop Arby's.
To truly exude presence, you can't just throw on last year's boxy Statement Suit and a novelty tie from the unkempt mall kiosk where you buy your sulfur-scented beard pomades. You need an ensemble that doesn't merely drape your body, but declares to the world "I'm unimaginably wealthy, my tailors are European purse-makers, and I holiday on venusian rocket yachts."
We're talking bespoke power suits with demilitarized shoulder latitudes that could easily double as military aircraft runways in a pinch. Dress shirts and oxfords of such exquisitely Egyptian pedigree they could only have been spun from artisanally combed dragon chest hair. And accessories - oh, the magnificent accessories! Like a Rolex encrusted with diamonds mined by orphans in 19th century Portuguese Macau. Or a sleek tungsten pencase large enough to house the main stage props for a traveling Broadway production of The Mikado.
The Power Entry
With your power vestments complete, you've already cleared the impressiveness outer defenses. But catching the attention of the easily impressed masses requires a tactical power entrance befitting your elite standing.
Do not, I repeat, do NOT simply wander into the room like a cat searching for an unattended can of tuna and a sunbeam to defile. You must arrive with the meticulously choreographed gravitas of a figure skating android programmed by the 1980s Soviet robotics division.
A proper power entry demands you first locate the visual hub of the room where diagrams of ROI are being projected onto the world's most joyless icebreaker presentation. Next, you'll need to arrange for a drumroll crescendoing into the brassy chanted liturgical text of the musical overture from The Prince of Denmark's Lament, with the precisely timed opening of the oak double-doors coordinated to the climactic brass blat.
Only then, with the unmistakable opening strains of Hamlet's haunting act one prelude heralding your glorious emergence, do you at last stride into the room, sleeves perhaps billowing supernaturally in the AC vent-powered wind machine gust you had IT preset beforehand. Power Stance deployed, you stare imperiously towards the nearest non-threatening corner as the symphonic bombast reaches its swelling peak, your steely gaze signaling everyone present to remain glacially frozen like so many well-tailored Pompeiian stockbrokers.
The Power Presence™
So far, so massively impressive, right? Well you'd be forgiven for thinking you've already harnessed the intangible vertex of presentialness. But what about vocal projection? Body language? Simply having an imposing physical form means bupkis if you then proceed to squeak out your dialogue in a reedy whisper croak as you fidget with your day planner and lint roll like an herb.
To lock in true, undeniable Executive Presence, you must absolutely dominate every micromovementality, from the distribution of your powerless masses to the practiced angles of your power stancing. Speak in a granite baritone that seems to materialize from the most tectonic subterranean plate of your diaphragm. Never betray the slightest uncertainty or fracturing of the imperial facade - unless, of course, one of your power lackeys’ dares jostle a butter dish during the power pre-game bruncheon, at which point they'd best brace for a frothing, red-faced explosion of molten verbal magma.
When someone challenges one of your conclusive edits or ill-founded proposals, don't just counter with a reasonable counterpoint - savagely fork their argument like a heavyweight MMA fighter jiu-jitsuing a plate of steaming hot rebuttal noodles into their dumb, unmuscular fact hole. And for Omnipresent's sake, stop shifting uncomfortably and playing with your dangly keyboard gimmick when the C-suite drops by - arrange to have a lectern, briskly brought in and fanned into position by your team of lackeys, from behind which you can imperiously motion and rhythmically strike to accent verbalities and periodically slam closed the laptop you had noisily shut by a pageboy dressed as a medieval friar.
Exhausting? You bet. The maintenance of a truly petrifying presence is a ceaseless, heart-plundering slog without respite - which is precisely what will drive the feckless majority of the unworthy directly into the cardboard El Camino flatbeds hitched behind the VPs' Bentley convoys. But for those of you with the fortitude and vanity to maintain your Presence at all times, the rewards are glorious: promotions, fear, a new summer home in Alsatian vineyards for your collection of rare, monogrammed hand towels.
Because while others toil in the ill-ventilated soul quarries of the corporate mundanity mines, those who have mastered Executive Presencing are destined to reign supreme, radiating pure impressivity until, in a generation or two, "President" sounds too commonplace and we're all answering to the imperious "Board-Overseen Planetary-Fiefdom Optimus."
Ah, such tremendous power and importance to eventually wield responsibly! I can hardly wait to exercise my unarguable impression of supremacy while issuing a pompous, booming protestation: "Someone fetch the Folio-Sized Weekly Itinerunculatory at once, I've a staff treatise on Appropriate Throat-Clearians to present...!"
So remember, working masses: you may never be as awesomely present as I, but with dedication to your presensity craft, the photocopier whirrers and Assistant-Style C-Suite Liaisons of this world may someday perceive you as marginally more present than Evian Poland Spring. And that's about as impressively as one could hope for.
Folks, you just spent valuable minutes lost in the caffeinated catacombs of my brain. I can't promise profound wisdom or even a shred of sanity, but I hope the deranged ride was worth your while.
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