 Do you ever think about your superhero alter ego and what that might be whether it's you know If you have a superhero you are a superhero What's your alter ego in real life or vice versa in real life once you would be your? superhero power or Image that you would want to present You know most of us don't have to make that kind of a choice in our lives We're not gonna have to lead that dual life of being a superhero But in a sense we almost do have that dual existence as it relates to the workplace for many of us, right? So I mean we present a particular image or we try to present a particular image or put on a particular sort of Display is at work so that we are taken seriously and seen as a professional This is something we call Professional presence and it's something that we need to think about even now as we're engaged in in college If you're studying in college or you know if you're just starting your career to think about What's the image that you're going to portray and what's gonna be your alter ego at work again to clarify not talking about? Leading two separate lives or or being false, but what parts of your personality and What can you do in the workplace to present the best possible version of yourself and the best possible image of yourself? So to start I want to take a look at what we mean in terms of professional presence We're talking really about professionalism. So what do we mean by professionalism? Professionalism is essentially the conduct aims or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person Now note that this could be different depending on your profession depending on the work environment that you're in professionalism will look different and may Be required to behave differently But in some degree degree there is a sense of professionalism in whatever career fields you're gonna end up in There are going to be standards are going to be Expectations for how you dress and how you behave and how you speak and so we want to keep that in mind in terms of professionalism professionalism is important in workplace for a Lot of different reasons including some of these that it creates boundaries. It creates an atmosphere of improvement amongst the colleagues and employees it enhances a sense of Accessibility it can mitigate conflict when people are professional in the workplace They can lead to increase job satisfaction because of reduced drama and reduced conflict and things like that They can also lead to a lot of personal growth. So there are a lot of different reasons that professionalism is important So what are some of the qualities of our professional or of professionalism? first of all Competence people expect you to be competent in the field that you're working in they expect you to have an understanding of what Your job is What the skills are that are required there and be able to be able to perform those the skills Skillfully essentially right to do a good job They expect you to know what you're doing and have competence in in the field that you're working in They expect you to be ethical expects you to be honest. They expect you to be on time They expect you to be responsible with it with the company resources and what's your with the resources that you're Granted and that you're using so ethics are of great concern in terms of professionalism They expect you to have Fundamentally solid communication skills that includes things like interpersonal skills the ability to work well with others and get along well with others That's not necessarily mean you have to be best friends or you have to be the world's greatest communicator But the ability to engage with others and to work effectively with others to a certain extent some Basic presentational skills will probably also be expected of you Communicating with the you know with a group about your product or about your service that you're providing and so forth So just communication skills in general which includes listening and don't overlook that as a communication skill the ability to listen effectively But a professional is also reliable. They're reliable in terms of just I mean from the get-go getting to work on time Staying for the appropriate amount of time getting the amount of work done when you're meeting deadlines So you're expected to meet deadlines and be reliable in that sense and getting done what you are Required to have done in the time that you're supposed to have it done being reliable in all of those ways at the most basic level Your appearance is another quality of professionalism. Are you dressed for the job? Are you dressed appropriately for that job? Does that mean you always have to be wearing a suit? No In fact, I love that my job rarely if ever requires me to wear a suit It requires a certain degree of formality in my dress But not a suit and tie and I like that about it other jobs may require a uniform if you're an HVAC technician There may be a uniform required for your job. So so but maintaining that appearance of Is important to the sense of professionalism both for those you work with and the customers that you're serving and so forth And then just some general social skills again You do not have to be best friends with everybody that you work with but you should have enough social skill to say good morning How are you? Is there anything that I can help you with and have those you know types of skills that you can In coexist with others and in a reasonable way in in the workplace where you're gonna be spending a lot of time with these people So now that we have an idea of what professionalism is Let's take a look at how that translates into professional presence and what we mean by that in terms of professional presence Professional presence starts and we're gonna kind of funnel this down Based on you know the different components of professional presence starting with what we call gravitas communication and appearance Those are things that have come up as we discuss professionalism But in terms of establishing a professional presence for and a professional identity for yourself These are important things when we say gravitas were really Signaling signaling that you have the confidence and the credibility to get your point across and to create buy-in For your co-workers and from your co-workers and from your clients and so forth from your superiors and supervisors But you have the sense of gravitas the sense of being taken seriously and people having confidence In you and that they can have confidence in you you have the basic communication skills as we talked about you have them The bearing and also the speaking skills to establish confidence and credibility to stop help establish that gravitas And then the appearance it's not just how we look but how we present ourselves how we behave non-verbally and And how we keep our work area and so forth all of those things sort of go into the foundation of Establishing professional presence as well these things then lead to things like trustworthiness competence Authenticity they feed into these things and help you establish that you are trustworthy that you are competent that you are authentic And all of those things then you don't kind of like it funneling it down into presence These are all things that will eventually lead to enhanced professional presence, and that's what we're shooting for That's what we ought to be aiming for So how do we go about doing that then? How do we develop this sense of professional presence? Well first of all we have to cultivate confidence in ourselves and in others You know that others have in us so and we do that from those things we talked about through gravitas communication appearance Those are things that will cultivate confidence and if we believe in ourselves first of all that's where it starts So we have to call cultivate confidence within ourselves We have to dress the part and look the part so that we feel the part But also then that will help cultivate confidence that others have in us and help us establish that professional presence with others When we can do that when we can cultivate confidence in that way We also need to communicate well this has come up a few times now not surprising in a communication course right that and in a series of communication videos that we would talk about communicating well, but again this extends into not just communicating well in terms of Being able to have a conversation with your co-workers and it's your clients and things but also Some basic Presentational skills some really effective listening skills are really important So I'm just just being a well-rounded communicator and developing that communication competence that will help us stand out as as being Professional in the workplace We also need to dress and then act the part You know depending on how we dress that's how people are going to treat us That's how we're going to behave ourselves So when we dress the part of a professional then we will have their confidence and have confidence for ourselves when we don't When we dress sloppily and show that we don't care and don't take care of ourselves Then that other people will pick up on that as well But when we look the part regardless of whether your job requires you to wear a uniform That uniform ought to be put together well and ought to be maintained and as cleanly as possible And y'all look professional in that sense or if it requires you to be a little more dressed up in a business sense You know in business formal wear whatever it is We ought to dress and act the part that is appropriate to our profession Remember you know we to kind of dip back into the superhero idea That there's a there's the person and there's a persona We need to differentiate between a person and a persona. There's us or there's Bruce Wayne, right? They the the billionaire whatever, you know playboy or whatever you want to call him There's Bruce Wayne the billionaire and then there's Batman the persona of Batman that he takes on and those are two different things Obviously in a superhero sense, that's one thing But you know if we look at the the journey of Stephen Colbert for example who now has this successful late-night show But but you know many people got to know him as part of his persona on the daily show and then through the Colbert rapport That that he was this kind of goofball really right wing kind of Faux newscaster right that the but he's that was a persona that he put on that's not who he really is now We see Stephen Colbert as really this the person that he is as opposed to the persona We ought to be able to differentiate between those things when we have us as a person But then we have the persona that we ought to wear at work again This is not about being false or wearing a mask or doing anything like that It's about what parts for ourselves do we really let out and and to make ourselves the most Confident and and viewed as the most professional person we can be in the workplace So we need to at times again differentiate between the person and the persona me as a person My preference is to wear concert t-shirts and gym shorts everywhere. I go But in the workplace and my workplace as an educator as a professor That's not really something that's gonna let itself well to being taken seriously by my students or by my colleagues and things So so I dress apart. I mean these are my clothes. I'm comfortable wearing these things It's not something I wear just around the house necessarily but but it's a part of the persona that I put on as professor Rocky to to Play that role so to speak it's part of me, but it's the part that I bring out and let shine in that professional role Another thing we need to consider in light of today's Modern technology and the way that we communicate today is our digital presence So we now not only have to be concerned with how we look in literally in the workplace How we're dressed how we're behaving in the workplace But also online both inside and outside of the workplace if you think employers aren't looking at your digital footprint Then you're nuts and if they're not then they're irresponsible because they want to know what you're up to how you're representing their organization First of all, whether you're at work or not So they need to give it on and they you know need to know what kind of people that they're hiring and what kind of people they're employing So we need to be aware of our digital presence and how we appear in the digital world as well So in keeping in mind the digital presence. We're talking about things like our email. Are we using? Especially in a professional sense our email Should be professional it should be it should contain proper grammar and and punctuation to start and then it should use full words And it should be language that's appropriate for the workplace So we need to maintain professionality in our emails We need to maintain professionality in our text messages as they pertain to work if we're texting with the boss or a colleague or something Keep that in mind as well. We're not texting with our buddies We're not texting with our family or friends We're texting with people for work keep that appropriate for that You know, just imagine you're face-to-face with that person and that everybody in the office can hear you With your text messages and remember that these things all leave a digital footprint So it's potentially everybody will see this at some point. So we need to be aware of social media What are we saying online? How are we portraying ourselves? And there's this idea of you know free speech and I'm outside of work and so forth But yeah, but you are also representing their organization if people know you work for them And especially if you're talking about the company About the organization that you work for We need to be aware of these things that the companies are concerned about this and that they pay attention to these things And it could have an impact for us in the in the workplace And then how we use collaborative software This is becoming more and more common in different organizations to use things like Google Drive or teams Microsoft Teams or OneDrive or whatever using Slack How are we using this collaborative software? I can this is an extension of the workplace and so we need to keep our involvement their professional needs it responsibly We need to again watch our language watch our nonverbal watch our Punctuation and grammar and just the basic things like that So that we're using these things in a professional way and being seen and taken as a professional in those regards as well so Long story short we need to start now thinking about how we're going to behave and how we're going to put ourselves together that Put us in a good position to be seen as professional and and to be taken seriously. It's hard to earn that credibility back So once it's gone, it's kind of hard to earn back So we ought to set that bar high from the beginning and look to maintain it there It's much easier to maintain those high marks of professionalism than it is to to gain them back once they've been lost If you have questions about professional presence from anything else related to Communication in that regard in the workplace or outside of the workplace Please feel free to send me a message be happy to chat with you about it that way shoot me an email or something That'd be great and in the meantime I hope that you will begin now giving thought to your professional presence the way that you want to be seen in the Workplace and the way that's going to allow you to be more effective in the workplace and begin Being thoughtful about how we put that professional presence together and what we display in our workplace and establishing that professionalism