Executive Presence and Influence Programme Onboarding

In the Launch Week, you will find guidance on how to make the most of the course, information on course completion and certification requirements, and an overview of the journey you will take over the next 8 weeks You will learn how to navigate the platform and about the different functionalities available.

You will also find out about the “Action Learning Project”. The ALP is an integral part of the online course It offers you the opportunity, through weekly assignments and reflections around the programme content and your leadership role, to build your own Influence Action Plan.

Note: In order to successfully pass this course, you must complete your ALP to a high standard This is one of the most important components of the course. 

The first step in having greater presence and influence is to look at the concepts that help craft relevant, memorable and impactful messages. This entails understanding how the human mind makes sense of content and ideas. We will explore what makes someone an effective communicator and how they make their ideas not only reach their target, but stick.

Learning Objectives:

• Discover the anatomy of ideas and messages—why do some ideas stick and others don’t?
• Explore how to engage, persuade, and inspire your audience, regardless of whether they are clients, bosses or team members
• Map out these principles to make ideas sticky across a variety of contexts including interpersonal communication, personal branding, marketing and publicity, public pitches and organizational change.
   

Body language is a universal medium of communication and influence. Across nations, cultures and organisations, your body language shapes the way your message is perceived. Commanding attention, and conveying competence and trustworthiness is contingent as much on how you say things as it is on what you say.

Learning Objectives:

• Discover which body language cues signify power, confidence, trustworthiness and competence
• Learn to adopt and deploy these cues to command a presence that is powerful yet also warm and inviting
• Explore what executive presence looks like in virtual settings
• Using a video-case and a practical self-awareness exercise determine the steps you will take to become more mindful about your own presence and the style that you aspire to have.
   

Strong long-term relationships and business outcomes are built on trust. But trust needs to be earned – and losing it can be highly costly. As we strive to influence others, our efforts can actually have the effect of undermining trust. To build, nurture and sustain high levels of trust over time we need to be hugely mindful about the dynamics of trust-building and the requirement to be transparent in terms of information-sharing.

Learning Objectives:

• Take a deep dive into the psychology of trust in business relationships
• Define trust and determine the criteria we use in evaluating someone’s trustworthiness?
• Discover how to build trust quickly and how to repair trust when it is impaired
• Learn how to establish trust that signals credibility, benevolence, and integrity.

In this module, we will help you develop and apply interpersonal persuasion skills and will highlight the importance of strategy formulation and managerial agility. Importantly, how do you influence without formal authority especially influencing “difficult” people.  We will also consider how observation and reflection can improve your understanding of diverse cultural or social landscapes, and how that can inform your strategy and approach in any given influence situation.

Learning Objectives:

• How to influence without formal power
• How to persuade difficult people
• Avoiding common persuasion mistakes
• How to win hearts and minds
• Evidence-based, simple, and costless techniques with real-world examples.
   

When people perceive another as being charismatic, what are they paying attention to? What makes a leader charismatic? Unlike the use of formal authority to influence (i.e. hard power), charisma attracts others towards you — it’s soft but extremely powerful. In this module, we unpack the psychological foundations of charisma and illustrate practical ways leaders can become more inspirational and charismatic. We will explore the science of interpersonal attraction and emotional intelligence.

Learning Objectives:

• Understanding the attraction of charismatic people
• Learning to be charismatic
• Science-backed techniques to become more charismatic by drawing on research in person perception and the psychology of attraction
• Exploring how to become more emotionally intelligent by learning about self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, reading  emotions and relationship management
• Type I Leadership: Introverted Charisma.
   

The final weeks are for you to synthesise your learning from the programme into a compelling Final ALP Assignment submission. You will also have the opportunity to exchange feedback on the Final ALP Assignment with your peers. No new course content will be released in these weeks.