Improve Your Executive Presence
When you walk into a chaotic room, can you get control and be a commanding presence? Do people take you and your opinions seriously?
You need executive presence to develop influence and drive results. This is true whether your role is managerial or an individual contributor. Executive presence is about your ability to inspire confidence and this ability, if wielded well, can supercharge your results and your career.
Inspiring confidence in others, and developing influence, will not occur instantaneously just because you walked in with the correct lighting and cool theme music (cue the Rocky Theme!). There is no magical switch to throw to turn on your executive presence. Developing executive presence takes time and will grow and be felt based on people’s interactions with you over time. While step-change improvements are possible, in general, executive presence will rise gradually with the total of interactions people have with you.
Building a presence is akin to building a personal brand. Many positive interactions over time will drive the brand up, while negative interactions can rapidly deteriorate the brand. Therefore, building executive presence requires not just a one-time effort, but a true shift in the way you behave in the workplace – a new way of doing things! So, be deliberate, patient, and consistent.
Below are several methods and tips for improving your executive presence. As you implement these concepts, remember your audience. The three groups that you need to be able to inspire through your executive presence are;
Your subordinates – do they want to follow you?
Your peers – do they see you as a capable and reliable partner who can help them and the team?
Senior leaders – do they believe that you have great potential to drive improvements?
What is Executive Presence?
Many people have the misconception that executive presence is related to having organizational authority. Actually, anyone can develop executive presence and needs to do so if they want to wield influence. Positional authority may cause subordinates to take more notice initially, or even to be more respectful when that leader walks into the room, but it doesn’t mean that the leader’s opinions will be taken seriously, or that they will be able to influence their audience in meaningful ways.
Executive presence is also sometimes misconstrued as the ability to charm your audience. While charm may be an enviable characteristic and even useful in shallow ways, it is insufficient to make a lasting impact.
True executive presence is independent of organizational authority or the ability to charm or flatter. Executive presence has three components;
1. Gravitas
Do people take you seriously? Will they trust in your opinions based on your personality and self-confidence? When you render an opinion, do people dismiss it because you often play the clown or do they listen, because they are convinced you know what you’re talking about and are serious about solving problems? You do not need to become a spray can of ‘fun repellant,’ but you need to be seen as serious when it matters. When the problems get tough to solve, those who are known to buckle down and be serious about solving the problems will be in demand. This is gravitas.
2. Communication Skills
Listening empathetically and then speaking concisely with confidence, is a required leadership skill. Your ability to fully listen and your appearance of self-confidence will give you the window to speak and convince people to listen. Your ability to be concise with a compelling argument will ensure that your audience hears your message. Data and facts need to be used effectively in support of your position and to convince your audience to take you seriously.
3. Appearance
Does your appearance fit the image of a leader in this workplace culture? To be taken seriously, you need to match your appearance to the expectations. If the workplace is business casual, showing up in sweatpants and a hoodie won’t work - neither will arriving in a tuxedo. The trick is to know what to wear and when and then, wearing it with confidence!
The Impact of Unconscious Biases
The development of executive presence and influence has a natural enemy – the unconscious biases of your audience. Unconscious bias is the natural inclination of individuals to unknowingly create mental stereotypes to organize their image of groups. Leaders must be self-aware of their unconscious biases, however, the reality is that many are not!
Many people hold fast to their preferred mental image of a leader, reinforced by a lifetime of examples that fit their unconscious stereotype. People who fit this mental image will meet less resistance in being seen as having great executive presence. This does not mean that people outside of this illogical stereotype cannot become great leaders or influential!
Someone who doesn’t fit such an illogical stereotype absolutely can develop executive presence and wield tremendous influence. Conversely, there is nothing inherently special about the group of people who do meet the stereotype: They simply may have an unfair advantage to start.
As workplaces provide more education on the value of diversity and people become more aware of their own unconscious biases, this advantage will be lessened. As organizations promote alternative images of leaders, and the leadership pool diversifies, people will naturally come to broaden their viewpoints and erode their unconscious bias. Meanwhile, we need to understand that unconscious bias is a real factor that needs to be overcome.
No one ever said the world was fair. It sucks that it isn’t, and certainly, we should all strive to do our parts to make the world more fair. Understanding that biases are real will help you figure out how to improve and how to succeed.
How to Develop Executive Presence
Let’s look at what we can do to improve our executive presence. As with any improvement process, you need a baseline of performance, so start by evaluating where you are now. A figurative, and literal, look in the mirror will be helpful here. Ask yourself: Do you take yourself seriously? If not, why should anyone else?
You can ask some trusted colleagues to give you honest feedback. A professional coach could also be of immense help here. Don’t get frustrated with the feedback. Get deliberate with planning your path to success and commit to action!
Once you know where you stand, and have considered the input, there are some general paths to improving your executive presence. Here are a few;
1. ALWAYS demonstrate emotional control
When problems occur, do you react emotionally, or do you pause, and then react in a logical and controlled manner? I list this first as it is the most important leadership skills lesson!
If you react with negativity, sarcasm, or any response that isn’t helpful, why should anyone listen to you or take you seriously? A key leadership skill is knowing when to take a deep breath to separate your response from the stimulus of the moment.
It is certainly okay to acknowledge adversity, sadness, or difficulty: Doing so simply demonstrates your humanity. But then, you must quickly move to a constructive response that is consistent with your values and helpful to get the organization on a solid path forward. For more on this topic, see my article Accountability – We own our Behavior and Attitude!
2. Listen to understand, not to respond
If you want people to listen to you, start with truly listening to them!
You must listen with empathy and genuine curiosity with your full attention, to understand someone else’s world. They will see you as being more serious if they feel you are taking them seriously. Listening empathetically also demonstrates curiosity, maturity, and self-confidence. Most people listen from their own perspective, just waiting for a chance to jump in, give their own viewpoint, and listen to the self-pleasing melody of their own voice.
We instead, as the listener, need to encourage the speaker to paint a full picture so that we can fully appreciate and understand what it is like to be in their shoes. If part of that picture isn’t clear to us, we should ask clarifying questions, not just fill in the missing parts with our own experiences, opinions, and beliefs.
Being able to summarize back to a speaker their perspective and feelings accurately brings great credibility and respect and will boost your gravitas significantly.
3. Speak concisely and compellingly in a confident voice
Communication is a two-way street, so once we understand the other person, we need to be understood.
If you state something like you believe what you are saying, it will come through, and be taken more seriously. Speaking confidently is not a natural skill, even when you have solid data supporting your position. It takes practice! Practice confident vocal control. Speaking slowly and clearly (but concisely!) will give the appearance of a more considered opinion. Be particularly aware of your intonation and volume at the end of sentences - do you sound confident, or do you sound like you are questioning yourself?
Fortunately, many organizations exist specifically to help individuals develop better speaking skills. Practice makes perfect - so practice!
If needed, give a speech about your childhood pet turtle or any other topic to a mirror (audience of one!). When you do speak publicly, have someone video you. Do an honest assessment of your performance on the video. Would you listen to the ‘you’ in the video? Would you take yourself seriously? It is often the case that you will be a more accurate critic of your video performance than anyone in the audience willing to give you feedback since most people likely aren’t paying close attention and/or don’t want to hurt your feelings.
Learn from each experience and take action on those learnings!
4. Have solid integrity
When you say something, mean it — and follow through on your commitments. Doing otherwise undermines trust, and trust is required for executive presence. Someone who cannot be trusted will not be seen as serious.
Even small commitments, when missed will drive down your gravitas and personal brand. A good example of this is being on time, and actively participating in, meetings that you say you will attend. Actively participating includes avoiding multi-tasking! You will destroy your gravitas if you are seen doing other activities when you should be actively paying attention and participating in a group meeting.
Integrity also means being prepared for meetings or discussions. ‘Winging it’ seems like a popular approach, particularly as people try to multitask and jam too much into their calendars. This unpreparedness will be noticed and will diminish your executive presence and your general influence. Follow the old Boy Scouts motto and ‘Be Prepared’!
Sarcasm is also an enemy to people seeing you as having high integrity. Sarcasm is saying the opposite of what you mean, using vocal intonations to hope the other person catches your meaning. Avoid it! Too often it leads to confusion, particularly in a multicultural setting where sarcasm just doesn’t translate.
5. Be more formal
Your formality and appearance need to match the expectations of the work culture, but aiming for a position that is slightly more formal than average will help you be seen as more serious. Consider matching someone in the organization who has a high executive presence.
Being formal does not mean avoiding having fun and laughing at good jokes. Participating in gossip, however, is never going to help your gravitas - so avoid it! If you are gossiping, you give the rest of the team license to do the same, and only ill will come from that.
Conclusion
Executive Presence is a skill that can be learned by anyone and does not rely on positional authority or charm. Some people will enjoy unfair advantages at the start due to meeting certain illogical societal stereotypes, and common unconscious biases. These unfair advantages can be overcome.
Getting honest feedback, developing a specific plan with SMART objectives, and then executing that plan, will increase gravitas, improve your communication skills, and establish an appropriate leadership appearance.
Executive presence, like a personal brand, is built deliberately over time. So get started with your plan and be consistent in your efforts!
See video below for more tips on improving your executive presence.
Do you want more tips or guidance to improve your executive presence? Take the Executive presence course or get an experienced coach to assist you in fulfilling your career ambitions.
