Vital Importance of Having Executive Presence on Zoom
Executive presence is key on Zoom or any video conferencing platform. How you present yourself, and your skill at leading a meeting, says a great deal about your leadership in general. Make the right impression in every virtual meeting with strategies that have proven essential to many of my clients in managing the transition to remote work. Developing your executive presence by making the right impression in virtual meetings will help you be seen as a commanding leader. If you want to master the three domains of executive presence (Gravitas, Authority, Expression), utilize Joel’s Executive Presence book.
9 Tips for Excellent Executive Presence on Zoom
Learn the 9 techniques that people too often overlook about executive presence in Zoom videoconferencing, and brand yourself as someone who is a strong leader.
1. Frame yourself professionally.
There are a few key rules for how to present yourself professionally in a Zoom video conference. Your executive presence will become apparent from the beginning when you follow these guidelines:
- Center your face and shoulders on the screen in every virtual call. Viewers shouldn’t be able to see below the top of your shoulders.
- Position the camera directly in front of you. Investing in a webcam that’s detached from your computer can allow you to find the best angle. The wrong angle can look sloppy—we’ve all seen people on Zoom chats who tower over their screen.
- Post bullet points on what you want to say behind your computer, at eye level with the camera, so you can refer to them easily without looking away. Posting the meeting agenda here will help you keep everything on track as well.
- Smile into the camera—and make sure your eyes are smiling, too.
2. Use more facial expression.
Body language is vital for effective communication, but in a video meeting, participants can’t see your body language nearly as well as they can in person. That means your facial expressions have heightened importance in a virtual meeting.
Constantly searching for clues about how other participants think and feel about an idea can leave people feeling drained, leading to a phenomenon called “Zoom fatigue.” But by making it easier for others to read you, you’ll help bring new energy into the conversation.
On Zoom, without the advantage of being able to clearly read body language, participants’ brains are overtaxed with trying to interpret far more subtle cues. Attention is constantly divided between the images of the different participants—a bit like multitasking on turbo drive.
3. Check in with participants before the meeting begins.
Use the pre-meeting time as people trickle in to chat informally with participants. Too often on Zoom calls, people just sit there awkwardly after greeting each other, but this is a great chance to check in with them about how they’re doing or share something amusing about your day.
4. Make strong eye contact.
Don’t let your eyes wander. In the video realm, looking at the camera is the equivalent to making direct eye contact. Looking at the images on the right side of the screen will make it seem like you’re avoiding eye contact. This takes some getting used to, since it’s natural to want to look at people’s faces while you’re talking, but work to make this a habit.
5. Vary your tone and pacing.
Pay attention to your cadence. Do you tend to rush through what you’re saying on Zoom, since video conferencing makes you feel awkward? Practice speaking at a moderate pace, slowing or speeding up at times for effect, and pausing after an important point. Radiate executive presence on zoom by speaking in a loud, clear voice, fully articulating your words.
6. Connect participants’ ideas.
In a virtual meeting, it’s harder than in real life to stay focused on the topic at hand, remember the points different participants have made, and see how these ideas connect. When you masterfully link people’s ideas together, drawing conclusions or just emphasizing that they’re working in a similar vein of thought, you’ll boost your aura of leadership while helping the meeting run more smoothly.
7. Write down key points.
Though you can’t use a whiteboard, you can share key bullet points to bring home the central ideas you want people to remember using slides or screen sharing. Think about the call to action you’re making, and write it out as succinctly as possible. Write the key objectives of the project you’re introducing. Jot down action steps that you delegate during the meeting. You’ll help everyone pay attention and retain that information.
8. Be a good host.
Reiterate the purpose of the call to keep everyone focused and on-task, and convey excitement in your voice for what you aim to accomplish together. Smile and welcome everyone to the meeting, creating a sense of warmth and putting people at ease.
9. Introduce a ritual.
In real life, people engage in daily rituals without even realizing it. They chat with coworkers as they come into the office, or before a meeting. Start a ritual in your Zoom meetings, such as doing a go-around where each person shares how they’re feeling or tells the group one aspect of remote working that they like and one that they find challenging. You could also have fun with the question, asking people to share one funny or surprising thing that happened to them that week.
As you master these techniques for showing your executive presence in video conferencing on Zoom, you’ll also hold more effective meetings. And as you go the extra mile to lead skillfully, you’ll increase people’s trust in you.
If you want to increase your executive presence, contact Joel for executive coaching.
