FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LEADERSHIP PRESENCE:
Dramatic Techniques to Reach Out, Motivate, and Inspire

By Belle Linda Halpern and Kathy Lubar,
Cofounders of The Ariel Group
With a Foreword by Warren Bennis, author of Becoming a Leader

"In Leadership Presence, Halpern and Lubar reveal what great leaders have always known: that the secret to having a commanding presence isn't about personal power, but about empowering others. Its inspiring stories will speak to anyone who interacts with others. It will be especially useful for experienced leaders who feel they aren't coming across as powerfully as they'd like."

--Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager® and Full Steam Ahead!

Presence. Great actors have it. Great politicians have it. Great business executives have it. Some people create a “buzz” without saying a word. Mohammed Ali, Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey, Martin Luther King, Lee Iacocca, Audrey Hepburn, JFK…they all undeniably have it. But what is presence, exactly? Are you simply born with it, or can you learn to develop it and successfully apply it to your business practices?

Belle Linda Halpern and Kathy Lubar, co-founders of The Ariel Group, an international training and consulting firm for senior executives of Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric, CapitalOne, and the Chubb Insurance Company, show how leaders can develop presence through techniques traditionally used by actors. Halpern, an international cabaret singer, and Lubar, a professional actress for many years, reveal their innovative program in a new book, LEADERSHIP PRESENCE: Dramatic Techniques to Reach Out, Motivate, and Inspire (Gotham Books: October 13, 2003; $25.00, hardcover). “We help leaders to stretch beyond their personal comfort zones, to be more expressive and flexible, to reflect on who they are and what they stand for, and to find their authentic leadership voice,” the authors explain.

For more than a decade, Halpern and Lubar have worked with tens of thousands of leaders, from major corporations to government agencies, non-profits and educators. They found that for the actor, as well as the leader, professional success fundamentally depends on the quality of one's individual Presence: the ability to connect authentically with the thoughts and feelings of one's audience.

“We tend to assume that some people are born with presence and some are not. In fact, presence can be learned. Actors spend a great deal of their professional life training in the fundamentals of presence,” Halpern and Lubar declare. “The book, based on ten years of our work at The Ariel Group teaching Presence to leaders worldwide, shows how all of us can develop and hone our leadership style and apply it for success in a range of situations. This applies not only to people in positions of authority, but also to anyone who lacks formal authority but wants to see things change.”

More than a book about charisma (a trait given a black eye with the fall of corporate giants who possessed it) and much more than a set of presentation skills (which tend toward a one-size-fits all approach), LEADERSHIP PRESENCE is about techniques for motivation and inspiration that are proven for actors but new to executives. Halpern and Lubar’s proven plan is The PRES model for Leadership Presence:

· P—Being Present. Being fully in the moment and flexible enough to handle the unexpected.
· R—Reaching Out. Having the ability to build relationships with others through empathy, listening and authentic connection.
· E—Expressiveness. Expressing feelings and emotions appropriately by using all means of expression-- words, voice, body, face -- to deliver one congruent message.
· S—Self-Knowing. The ability to accept yourself, to be authentic and to reflect your values in your decisions and actions.

Leadership built on the PRES model, say the authors, becomes less about one's self, and more about shining the spotlight on others. It becomes an inspirational experience rather than one about personal power. Like great actors, great leaders create and sell their audience on an alternative vision of the world – a better world in which we all play an essential part. LEADERSHIP PRESENCE ensures that leaders of all statures and capacities can learn how to better inspire and communicate in their fields of work.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Belle Linda Halpern and Kathy Lubar co-founded The Ariel Group in 1992. Their company currently instructs over 5,000 executives a year through workshops and individual coaching. Halpern has performed worldwide as an actress and singer and taught music in workshops at Harvard University. Lubar has worked as a professional actress for many years and co-founded the New Repertory Theatre in 1984.

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LEADERSHIP PRESENCE: Dramatic Techniques to Reach Out Motivate, and Inspire
by Belle Linda Halpern and Kathy Lubar
Gotham Books
Publication date: October 13, 2003
Hardcover, 288 pages,
ISBN 1-592-40017-5

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