What is Virtual Executive Presence and How To Get It
Executive presence in a virtual world is a critical skill that can significantly impact your ability to inspire, influence, and empower others. Whether you’re a leader, an aspiring leader, or a salesperson, it’s essential to develop a strong virtual executive presence alongside your in-person skills. However, many people are finding that what worked for them in face-to-face interactions isn’t always as effective when communicating in a virtual world.
How Executive Presence is Obscured in a Virtual World
Executive presence involves a combination of verbal and nonverbal cues, such as credibility, confidence, empathy, and transparency. Unfortunately, when communicating through a camera, many of these signals can be distorted or obscured, which can affect how others perceive you. That’s why it’s crucial to develop new skills to convey the same level of executive presence online as you do in person.
One of the most powerful ways to convey confidence and credibility is through direct eye contact, but few people use this technique effectively during virtual meetings. With many participants opting to keep their cameras off, it’s also essential to engage your audience confidently, whether they’re visible or not. Additionally, virtual audiences tend to be more passive, so it’s necessary to develop tactics for increasing interaction and engagement remotely.
What is Virtual Executive Presence?
When communicating through a camera, your nonverbal communication is limited to just 20%, which can change the dynamics of your message. That’s why developing virtual executive presence means learning to optimize the 20% that the camera captures by understanding how your audience perceives you on their screen.
While traditional executive presence skills are still valuable, they don’t always translate effectively to a virtual or hybrid world. To succeed in remote communication, it’s essential to adapt your skills to the unique challenges that virtual meetings present. By doing so, you’ll be able to convey your credibility, confidence, empathy, and transparency effectively, inspiring and empowering your audience no matter where you are.
How To Express Virtual Executive Presence
Traditional executive presence skills that don’t take into account these and other unique communication challenges leaders face in a virtual or hybrid world will fail.
Learn more about how to develop your Virtual Executive Presence skills here.
