6 Tips to Become a Commanding as a Leader

Being able to command a group of people is a skill that only certain people have, and it’s one that can be immensely useful for anyone in a leadership position. If you can command a room, then you can get people to listen to your instructions, you can build respect, and you can help to establish calm when there is a panicked atmosphere.

So how do you do this?

1. Use Body language

In one study, participants were asked to rate speakers who they thought were highly charismatic. In almost every case, those participants rated the people who spoke with the broadest gestures and most movement as being the ones who were truly charismatic.

This is because we actually use body language for the lion’s share of our communication. Therefore, when you gesticulate and move around the room, it ensures that your body seems congruent with what you are saying.

This in turn makes you seem much more interested in what you are saying, and much more genuine in it.

At the same time, taking up more space makes you appear more confident and dominant while moving around more will make you easier to pay attention to.

2. Speak from a Place of Emotion

The mistake many people will make is to try and “fake” this charisma by forcing themselves to move unnaturally. Unsurprisingly, this seldom works and instead only makes you appear more insecure.

That’s why the best way to be more charismatic and to use your bodylanguage correctly, is to truly believe in what you’re saying. Moreover, you need to really believe in what you’re saying.

One way you can do this is to tap into a powerful emotion whenever you speak. When you think about how important, exciting, infuriating, or endearing something is, you will be able to convey that same emotion to your audience.

And great communication is about transmitting emotion as much as it is about transmitting words.

3. Use Silence

But while pacing and gesturing can get you a long way, you can also command a room with the power of silence. Next time the office is raucous and you want attention, try standing silently in the corner of the room with your arms crossed.

This will have an unsettling impact on the team and slowly they will become silent and pay attention to. It takes a huge amount of presence to be able to silence a room this way, and huge confidence to do so without opening your mouth.

4. Deliver Instructions So They Will Get Followed

While this might look-alike a very simple part of the job, it’s in fact an area where there is a lot of room for inaccuracy – and this can seriously undermine your effectiveness as a leader. Read on then, and we’ll discuss how best to provide instructions so that they are followed correctly.

5. Be Clear and Concise

The first and most important rule when it comes to providing instructions, is to be as clear and concise as possible. That means reeling off the points in a bulleted list that outlines each step that a person needs to take. This will in turn ensure that they aren’t confused, and it will be especially important during high-pressure situations.

In fact, wherever possible, a great idea is actually to provide some form of a checklist. Countless studies show that when you provide a professional with a checklist, they will tend to complete much better work. This is because they can’t overlook or forget an important step. This is not only useful for beginners, but also for the highly trained who can sometimes become complacent and forget important steps.

6. Explain the Why

Using lots of detailed and simplified instructions might sound like you’re talking down to your employees or team members. It certainly does run this risk!

That’s why it is so important that you make sure that you also explain why you are giving any instructions. When you do this, you are giving the people listening to you with more respect and responsibility, which will help to motivate them to do better work.

More importantly, though, explaining why someone should do something will help them to better understand what you have asked and it will reduce the likelihood of error.

At the same time, when you give these kinds of explanations, you also provide your listeners with the ability to make their own decisions about how work gets done – which allows them to be more creative AND to work around problems.

If you are tasked with following a specific instruction with no idea why you need to do so, then you won’t be able to adapt to challenges that come up. But if you know what the end goal is, you can think outside the box and find an alternative option to reach the same point!