Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence Hardcover – Illustrated, April 9, 2013

I highly recommend "Own the Room" to any professional out there, but also to anyone looking for a chance to change or reboot one's personal dealings with a partner, spouse, or child. What resonates most with me is the emphasis on accepting that whatever we start out as can only be enhanced and developed rather than starting from scratch in order to become a more effective leader or partner.One of the reasons I chose to write this review is to point out that although the examples and stories in "Own the Room" mostly center around the business world, I found all the anecdotes, the drills and the framework of creating a Signature (Leadership) Voice through ACE (Assumptions, Communication and Energy) itself very applicable toward my experience as an educational leader in a public school system. While reading this book, I found many reasons to pause and reflect on my experiences with various stakeholders connected to the particular school I work at, and have discovered already how the exercises that are presented in each chapter are helping me to evolve as a leader and as an educator.I would also like to comment that while reading "Own the Room", I found myself analyzing my own personal roles as a wife and a mother of two daughters, also as a daughter to my parents and a daughter-in-law to my parents-in-law. It has been thought-provoking to realize that I have patterns of behavior/communication that lie within one particular "presence quadrant" that is referred to in the book that differ depending on the role...and therefore, very engaging to now have exercises to help me evolve in the roles I've named above.If I could sum up in one sentence what I have stated thus far, it is that this book is a must-have for your collection; it is a reference you will be able to utilize time and again as you strive to adapt and develop in whatever leadership/partnership role you have in your life.

I ordered this book with the hope of gaining insight on how to enhance my presence when meeting with the principal's of my client firm. The appeal of the book was Amy and Muriel's assertion that leaders are not just born, but also can be made. Naturally, they make it clear that developing the presence of a leader is neither an overnight process nor particularly easy. Only through diligent, conscientious effort can we really expect to make the desired progress toward effective leadership.Thankfully, this book provides a highly practical step-by-step system for carrying out this diligent effort. The authors utilize a series of thought-provoking drills and exercises that first help the reader to self-diagnose his natural tendencies/biases when assuming a leadership role. While those natural tendencies may have worked well in lower level roles, the authors make a compelling case for developing a "Signature Voice" to be truly effective when interacting with the most senior executives. A Signature Voice is truly personalized and authentic. It finds the appropriate balance of advocacy for oneself and for the team/organization that you represent. The system outlined in the book for discovering your Signature Voice is intuitive, realistic and, most importantly, achievable. I have already begun to incorporate many of the steps in my own day-to-day interactions and have seen immediate results. Own the Room is definitely worth having handy for on-going reference.

Increasingly I find myself coaching executives for whom the development need identified, either by them or their superiors, is executive or leadership presence. While a number of books have been written on the subject most offer suggestions on managing the "window dressing" aspects of presence i.e. posture, clothing and use of voice.Own the Room: Discover your Signature Voice to Master your Leadership Presence by Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins offers something different. The authors define leadership presence as the ability to consistently and clearly articulate your value proposition while influencing and connecting with others. They believe that leaders with an effective presence have developed a `signature voice' which they define as a leadership presence that is confident, authentic and effective across a variety of situations and with diverse audiences.The book begins by addressing three myths (or to my mind three excuses for not taking action): "You are who you are"; "One size fits all" and; "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The authors point out, quite rightly, that the skills and ways of being that got you to this level in your career may not be those needed at the next level.Myths dispensed with, the authors go on to introduce a four-quadrant model (they are consultants after all) to enable you to assess your current effectiveness, including which quadrant you are currently most comfortable in, and guide the development of your signature voice. They follow this up with what they term as ACE conditioning which stands for assumptions, communication and energy - the three areas which need to be addressed in order to build a signature voice.While the book hangs off these two models, the suggestions and examples are both accessible and practical. Each chapter includes drills and action steps and ends with a `What to Remember' section which is amongst the best of its kind that I've seen. The book also follows the journey of two composite characters John and Terri who are used throughout the book to illustrate various points along with a cast of other characters. The stories of these two characters bring the model to life, so much so that one client after reading the book phoned up and introduced himself as `John'.The Appendix offers a Signature Voice Toolkit to enable you to develop a customized action plan to help address generic issues of presence or to prepare for specific situations.The book also approaches the issue of our `book cover' i.e. what others see on the outside including the messages our body, clothing and energy give off, thoughtfully presenting it in the context of executive endurance rather than simply dressing for the part.This book doesn't dilly-dally with the window dressing of executive presence although it doesn't ignore this either. Rather, it talks about building a signature presence from the ground up, starting with who you are, what you value and what your strengths are and then layering on how you communicate and the impression you give to ensure they align.The book is well written, practical and grounded in leadership presence being first and foremost an expression of your authentic self. Although as another client pointed out sometimes the four quadrant model and the ACE conditioning method don't always hang together as neatly as the they might, the ideas presented in the book offer a sound road map for any leader wishing to develop their leadership presence.