Today belongs to those individuals who can handle opportunity, and who can act as if they deserve it! In this, one is referring to leadership and power in a person to communicate and persuade others with ones own personality and ability. It is about the science of “making impressions” and “controlling” others perceptions about you in gaining “instant acceptance” of you as a person and your ideas and thoughts.

In other words, you must look the part and act the part in which you cast yourself. You must take on the persona of a leader, and be perceived to be one. You must be able to control the perception among others with whom you are interacting or dealing with. The respect and acceptance accorded to you can be either  enhanced, or destroyed, by the way you present yourself. People, like diamonds, have value, but it is only after they have been cut and polished that the world will pay for that value!

Presenting yourself well

In all this, two fundamental aspects need to be accepted and then worked upon suitably.  First is your own God given personality – complexion, face, body; and the second is your grooming, poise and your training of yourself to look and behave better. The first you may not be able to do very much about. The second is entirely  in your hands to enhance your personality and behaviour for “instance acceptance”.

Ours is a wide-open world today. Of concepts, attitudes, behavior and image. Amongst the most important determinants of how successful you will be is not just your qualifications, or your ideas, or your experience. It is also the way you interact with others: in mind and personality and behaviour. It is it is often those who have the right “soft-skills” or “peoples skills” that become the movers and shakers, the winners and the successful. Because their “presence” inspires confidence and respect among others.

Every moment that you are in the presence of other people, they are making dozens of conscious and unconscious decisions about you. Especially when they are meeting you personally for the first time. These decisions are based on your personality, poise and personal  etiquette. A lot depends on how you put yourself in sync with the people around you and how you project an aura of confidence and the power to be accepted by others. The right image of yourself, naturally.

For instance, if you are one of the three executives for a senior management position in your organization being considered for a promotion. The other two candidates are your peers, equal in age, and background with the company, and as eager as you to get ahead. As you see it, you have the best track record, and the best chance at the promotion. Unfortunately you don’t get it! You try to figure out why, and what went wrong. Your spouse says it is just “bad luck”. May be so. But don’t bet on this fact. Your two competitors may simply have done a better job of selling – themselves!

At the senior managerial level, it is often the little, personal things that derail a career by revealing interpersonal problems and giving conflicting messages concerning competence and trust. There is no reason for you to be kept unknowingly at a career disadvantage when the reason for it can be readily identified and the problems corrected, thereby enabling you to successfully pursue the next level of opportunity. Good executive style must become an instinct, and be your most powerful tool as you make your way to the top of your organization and profession.

Reasons for your being accepted

Studies show that there are three reasons why anyone buys your ideas, and what you say, or accepts you as a person:

1.      You are perceived as being honest (trusted and trustworthy)

2.      You are perceived as knowledgeable (know your onions)

3.      You are perceived as being genuine (have my interest to heart)

These reasons become the basis for judgment about you made by others, and are made in the first few minutes of the meeting with you, in any situation, and are rarely, if ever, they are changed. The ability to break through this and enter and capture the mind and heart of others represents the greatest power – your passport to power – that you can possess.

Your communication and personal image

The factors for success in enhancing acceptance and right perception by others are twofold in successful interpersonal relationships. First, how you communicate information; and second, projecting the right image of yourself.

As the knowledge class of today has discovered, if you do not develop your communication skills, and fail to breakthrough the barriers of the “silent judgment” you are destined to live as a second-class citizen, while others take your information, ideas and dreams and communicate them to their advantage.  You must recognize the implications and opportunities you face, and become a member of the knowledge class. You must search for a deeper meaning of pride, dignity and control of your life to successfully engineer consent and acceptance of you by others.

People who get respect and are instantly accepted are also those who “look” respectable. Their clothes fit well and are contemporary, they are poised and confident, and project a generally good image of themselves. This image is vital in the corporate world. How you dress, how you walk, how you talk, what you do with your eyes and hands, how you ask questions and get the right response is not to be ignored. This gives you the power you need. You are treated according to the part you play, and the way people perceive you playing the part. When people see you they make instant decisions about you, and these decision control their behaviour towards you. To bemoan such impressions as superficial is to spit in the wind! Perceptive men and women accept the reality that people do make such judgments and use that knowledge to their own advantage wherever possible. When you learn to package yourself well it gives you the advantage – a skill easy and a must to learn.

You must never allow anything you do, or say or wear to interfere or conflict with others perception of you, as a person of ability, value and strength. This makes for the difference between being accepted and respected, or being rejected and ignored.

Remember in the theatre of life it is an open casting call for all! Many hear the call, but a few are chosen for it. Those who are chosen understand that the right perception is the passport to your success and power!