Presence Check

What is presence, really?

Presence isn’t volume. It’s whether the room changes when you speak. At senior levels it comes down to a few visible habits: staying steady when things go badly, making your point plainly, making people feel heard, and being in the rooms where decisions about your area are made. Most leaders are strong in one or two and weaker in the rest.

Take Presence Check: fourteen questions, about five minutes. Answer for the last month.

What does the test look at?

Four dimensions, three or four questions each:

• Calm under pressure. How steady you stay, and look, when a room gets tense.
• Clarity. How plainly you make your point and land a decision.
• Listening. How fully people feel heard when they talk to you.
• Visibility. How often you, and your team’s work, are seen where decisions are made.

What do I get at the end?

A presence profile with all four dimensions ranked, your strongest dimension with what it does well and its trade-off, and the one with most room to grow, each with one thing to try on Monday. The dimension names are our own and still a draft.

Presence Check is built for the people in the rooms you lead to rate you anonymously. Team mode is coming. For now, you rate yourself.

How is it worked out?

Each dimension has three or four questions, answered from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Five of the fourteen describe the opposite habit, such as “I stay quiet in meetings where I know the answer”, and are flipped before scoring. Each dimension’s average is compared; the bars show all four.

The questions, dimensions and advice are a draft written with AI and are waiting for a coach’s review. Treat the result as a mirror, not a verdict.

What should I read or take next?

Read what executive presence really is for the wider picture. See how far your mood travels with Ripple, and how your own team sees you with Blind Spot. Every tool for this stage is on the Senior leaders page.