Electrons of Leadership Presence

The science of confidence & awareness in action

5 min read2 days ago

Inspired by Rick Voirin, Vid Deva, Paul Landraitis, the whole Macrina crew at Camp Lucy & Slalom…

The Arena

You enter the room, big meeting, high stakes. All eyes are on you. The air is thick with decision-making and distractions. You’ve prepared. You know your data, your strategy, your ask. Your voice is steady. But as you start to speak, something feels off. The room isn’t leaning in. Someone glances at their phone; another swirls the last bit of coffee in their cup. The room isn’t following your lead the way you imagined. Do they feel your presence? Do they trust your leadership in this moment?

And then there’s the second layer — the noise inside your own head. The split-second self-checks, the unconscious judgment, the creeping doubt. Do I sound smart enough? Are they with me? That inner critic is a sign you’re not fully here. Their nervous system senses the dysregulation in yours. They sense you are focusing on the part of you that doesn’t fully believe in yourself, so why should they? Your habitual, self-protection mechanisms (outdated success formulas) aren’t helping you.

You notice — it’s not about trying to hold the room, but focusing on the charge you bring into it. You notice — it’s not just about what you say, but what you embody and signal. You notice — it’s about being here, fully, alive with purpose. You notice — you don’t just want leadership presence, you need it. In that split second, you celebrate noticing, pause and re-engage.

Leadership presence isn’t about charisma, technique, or status — it’s about awareness in action. And awareness in action is the capability to create and sustain meaningful connections. It’s shifting from tunnel vision to a broader, multi-modal, more receptive perception — seeing beyond the obvious, catching the deeper currents of the moment and the depth of the humans present in that moment (including you). Presence amplifies your impact, strengthens relationships, and upgrades the entire system.

This article explores the physics of leadership presence — how being actively present today changes our brains for tomorrow. Learning to be more present, gives your future selves (and everyone following your lead) an advantage.

Awareness & Connection

At its core, leadership presence is built on awareness and connection. These are the raw materials of creativity, adaptability, innovation, and influence. Every moment you fully engage with, every detail you let land, sends a pulse through time, shaping what you’ll remember and how you’ll respond in the future.

Being present isn’t just about engaging right now — it’s about encoding reality in a way that your future self, and your team, can actually use. The more present you are now, the more responsive and generous you can be with the people in front of you. More electron bond sharing, more charge, more connection, more expansion, more growth — this is leadership presence and unbeatable confidence in motion.

Spotlight & Floodlight Awareness

Most of us operate with a narrow, pinhole view — focused, yet missing the vastness of what’s available. There is a multi-dimensional awareness spectrum available using all of our senses. Leadership presence requires shifting across the entire range of awareness to tune in more fully:

Spotlight: focused awareness, zeroing in for precision.
Floodlight: open awareness, expanding to sense the whole system — the patterns, the unspoken, the ripple effects.
Flexible awareness: follow something loosely. If attention is drawn away— let it go there, notice and come back.
Natural awareness: (meta-awareness) being aware that you’re aware.

Great leaders (with practice) can fluidly navigate the awareness spectrum, sensing/noticing the undercurrents of a conversation, reading a room, and noticing subtle shifts shaping culture in real time. Presence isn’t just about hearing words; it’s about holding space for someone’s full existence. Social learning is a dance of signals, and leadership is knowing when to zoom in — and when to open up.

Engrams: Encoding High-Fidelity Leadership

In neuroscience, an engram is the physical and neural imprint of a memory — an experience encoded in the brain that shapes future perception and decision-making. But here’s the catch: your brain doesn’t store memories like a hard drive; it reconstructs them every time you recall them, remixing, compressing, and expanding.

That means the quality of your initial encoding — how present and aware you are in the moment — determines the accuracy and usefulness of what you’ll remember later. What you don’t fully experience today is lost — it’s a distortion gap for tomorrow. There’s a secret in the present moment that you are going to want your future self to remember. Think of it like this recurring question:

Hey, “Right-now You,” what are you going to want “Future You” to remember so they can be even more ready, even more effective at taking care of what matters most?

Leadership presence is about encoding moments with high fidelity (engrams) — ensuring that your future self, and your team, can rely on them as accurate, valuable resources. The sharper the awareness, the better.

Valence: The Physics of Leadership Connection

In physics, valence determines an atom’s ability to bond. In leadership, it’s the psychology of attraction — the charge between us. Leadership presence isn’t just about personal confidence — it’s about bonded confidence. The kind that forms through deep awareness, shared energy, and the strength of connection. When you show up fully engaged, you create an environment where others feel seen, supported, and capable of more.

Are you a weak signal, static-filled, only half-here? Or are you fully engaged, generating energy, syncing into the larger system of learning and adaptation? The quality of your awareness/presence magnifies or limits your valence — the strength of your ability to connect, influence, and shape outcomes.

Leadership presence is about co-regulating, co-creating culture, and finding the collective intelligence within a group. A leader’s charge is contagious (for better or worse).

More Electrons & Fewer Limitations

More presence = more electrons to bond with.
Less distraction, drama, drag = stronger connections.
The system upgrades when we upgrade the quality of our attention.

What signals are you sending?
How much of life are you actually seeing & letting in?
What future self are you equipping?

The Validation of Being & Becoming

Charisma isn’t magic. It works because it validates the existence of others — without dimming your own. No energy is lost; it’s amplified through attention, attracting and sharing electrons in real time. That kind of covalent bonding validates who we are and encourages who we are becoming.

The leader’s responsibility isn’t just to be followed. It’s to be worthy of following. Presence, attention, and the willingness to truly see the other, to be ourselves and to be prepared to be amazed — these are the invisible forces that expand what’s possible and magnetize us all to move forward with purpose.

Are You Fully Here?

I’m glad you’re here. But are you fully here? I’m working on being more present, and I/we need you to be fully here too.

The future — yours, mine, ours — is counting on it.