The Power of Presence by Kristi Hedges - Book review

The Power of Presence

Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others

By: Kristi Hedges

Published: November 18, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 0814417736
ISBN-13: 978-0814417737
Publisher: AMACOM

"Executive presence begins in your head. It resides in how you think about yourself, your abilities, your environment, and your potential", writes communications expert, entrepreneur, and certified leadership coach Kristi Hedges in her empowering and career building book The Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others. The author describes the critical importance of executive presence for business and career success, and provides an effective blueprint for developing a strong and confident presence for anyone.

Kristi Hedges understands the importance of of leadership presence in today's highly competitive business, career, and employment markets. The author offers compelling evidence that improving one's personal presence, regardless of of their personality or position, greatly increases the opportunities for success. Kristi Hedges provides research based evidence that simply having the required skill level is no longer sufficient. Without a presence that creates respect and attracts others, a very highly qualified and skilled person will be overlooked and not provide their ideas and talents fully to their organization. The author points out that leadership and presence enhancing skills can be learned by anyone, while building on their own individual strengths.

Kristi Hedges (photo left) recognizes that a person's inner mind must be combined with the outer impression given to others to form their authentic presence. The author dispels concerns that executive presence is some sort of act or manipulation. Instead, Kristi Hedges demonstrates that the most effective and confident form of presence is in complete alignment with their own inner beliefs and principles.

To achieve that authentic presence, Kristi Hedges shares her I-Presence™ model for the development of leadership presence. The three principles of the I-Presence™ are as follows:

* Intentional: A person's beliefs must match their internal and external messages, body language, and self confidence.

* Individual: Leaders must have the ability to connect with others at all levels.

* Inspirational: Leaders must learn how to inspire and motivate others as visionaries.

For me, the power of the book is how Kristi Hedges combines the theoretical framework of her I-Presence™ model with the practical tools and techniques to develop one's latent executive presence skills. Unlike many books that recommend adopting the entire system, Kristi Hedges reminds her readers that even developing one area of executive presence will provide a powerful and positive impact on their careers. The book is filled with exercises, and useful chapter takeaways, that can be practiced and applied both immediately, and over the longer term. The author also backs up her concepts with real world research data that underline their effectiveness and value.

I highly recommend the very engaging and hands on book The Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others by Kristi Hedges, to anyone seeking to improve their personal leadership and executive presence, to enrich and enhance their business, career, and personal lives. This book will increase your confidence, your ability to inspire others, and help you to rise much higher in your career or profession than you had ever dreamed was possible.