All the world’s a stage for managers with presence

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. And get your game face on.

Someone who worked closely alongside Greg Dyke, the former director-general of the BBC, told me how he would visibly gather and prepare himself before entering a room full of staff. Even at the end of a long day of meetings, a leader who gets very little “face time” with colleagues has to make the most of every encounter. Mr Dyke’s skill as a motivator of people became apparent with the mass walkout of staff protesting against his resignation in 2004.

Managers are responsible for monitoring how other people perform. But perhaps the job of management starts when managers give some thought as to how they perform — that is, how they come across and present themselves.

Why are some bosses apparently so casual about, or unaware of, the impression they make? Charlie Coode, founder of Coode Associates, a consultancy, observes that while people may get promoted because of their technical or specialist skills, as they rise up the business a different set of skills will be required.

“Leaders are watched and interpreted,” he says. “In more senior roles, your ability to build relationships is more important than your technical skills. So how do you come across, how are you perceived?”

Deeds are more important than words. “Leaders may have teams of people crafting internal comms messages, sweating away over the words, but then pay little attention to how they act,” Mr Coode adds.

Sometimes managers are urged just to “be themselves”, in the name of authenticity. But this is bad advice. If you are authentically brutal or a sociopath then you are unlikely to prove a good manager.

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, in their book Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?, offered a more subtle take. Managers need to be “authentic chameleons”, they said, able to change and adapt. Their advice is: “Be yourself. More. With skill.”

Herminia Ibarra, a professor at London Business School, has also considered the slippery business of being authentic. There is a problem with just “being yourself” — “We are as many different selves as the roles that we play, in a situation in which we have to perform,” she tells me.

Prof Ibarra says that career transitions will require you to do things differently, including how you present yourself.

Being a good manager may call for behaviour that is not habitual or which does not come naturally to you. “If it’s not habitual, you know what, we’ve got to change . . . It’s not a case of ‘fake it til you make it’, but it’s ‘experiment until you learn’,” she says.

Indeed, the title of her recent book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, makes that point. The behaviour may have to change first, before the thought processes do. You cannot think yourself into a new way of being.

For the ultimate advice on performance where better to go than the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, which has run courses for professionals for 20 years under its commercial arm, Rada Business. Claire Dale, its leadership programme director, may use the language of theatrical performance but she reinforces everything the business gurus say.

Ms Dale underlines the need for “embodied leadership” — feet firmly on the ground, but with other physical aspects on top: gut (the source of your energy and excitement), heart (source of pride and optimism that can radiate out from you), and head (where thought, clarity and awareness reside).

Much of this requires mastering physical skills such as effective breathing. “If your breath is all over the place, so are your thoughts,” Ms Dale says. Good performers “hold their space”. Your (physical) confidence can grow. “Act with your new status but bring people with you,” she adds.

This is not “play-acting”: it is showing up consciously and forcefully, helping you to be more effective. When developing a role, professional actors might ask: what is my intention, what is needed from me here? These are good questions to ask yourself before an important meeting.

Equally, the versatility and range actors develop echoes the adaptability managers need to have.

Even the more staid politicians recognise how important a good performance is especially in a moment of crisis. As the former UK chancellor Alistair Darling tells Peter Riddell in the latter’s new book 15 Minutes of Power: The Uncertain Life of British Ministers: “How [do] you project yourself — what impression do you give? Do you sound calm and measured, even if inside you may think, ‘Goodness, I’m flying by the seat of my pants here’? But how you come across is terribly important.”

Managers should take heed: it’s showtime, folks.