Executive Presence—there is no one right way
Executive Presence in The Me-Suite
“I want to have more executive presence.”
I love it when clients ask for help improving their executive presence. Executive presence is often the key element holding us back from a career milestone. Plus, a desire to work on executive presence demonstrates an impressive level of self-awareness and drive.
The challenge with executive presence is that there is no single, one way to show up. What works for others, won’t necessarily work for you, authentically.
Think about the leaders in your life that you experience as having strong executive presence. Some of these leaders may be towering at 6’4” with a booming voice and quick to make the room at ease with well-timed humor and handshakes all around. Others may be 5’4” with a softer voice, quietly listening, nodding, asking the perfectly-placed question with eye contact that makes someone feel included.
There are as many ways to exhibit executive presence as there are people present. At the same time, executive presence requires some universal truths:
Be intentional about the experience you want the audience to have with you. Individuals perceived as having executive presence are creating an experience for their audience with intentionality. In-person, video, phone. Small teams, large groups, 1:1s. They are thinking through their various actions that will influence the audience experience, such as:
How do I enter the room? Do I take my seat? Which seat? Do I first walk around and greet everyone?
What do I do when I join the Zoom? Do I come on-camera? Do I acknowledge all the faces who have joined? Do I pop a question in the chat to engage?
What key messages do I want to land in that interaction?
What do I want the audience to think and feel after this interaction?
Do my body language, tone and words match my intention?
Do what’s in your control to combat the nerves. Many times when someone asks for help with executive presence, they are referring to their lack of confidence public speaking and/or speaking up in a group. If it’s self-confidence holding you back, consider:
Embrace visualization. Performance athletes, musicians, and surgeons visualize the big event before doing the big event. FMRI scans prove that our brain activity when we visualize us doing the activity is the same as when we perform the activity. Visualize yourself walking into that room, walking up to that mic, handling that Q&A.
Ask a trusted colleague for help in the moment, in real life. They can help draw you out if they see you’re having trouble interjecting in a discussion. They can observe your nervous breath or ums and ya-knows, and share feedback on improvements they see you’re making.
Consider “power posing” from Amy Cuddy’s book and TED Talks on Presence.
Practice. You may experience someone else’s strong executive presence as natural, spontaneous, comfortable, it-comes-so-easy-for-them, but the truth is that person has likely been practicing and being thoughtful about how they show up for quite some time. Certainly, some people are more comfortable in front of a group than others, but that does not mean they have better executive presence. Practice what you want to work on. Using your hands more effectively? Not wandering on the stage? Not reading the script? Making eye contact? Not reading the slides? Controlling your breathing? Handling Q&A?
You can read about executive presence (like you’re doing here, right now), but you can’t grow the muscle without intentionality (the thinking) and the doing. Identify a few interactions that are coming up in the next few weeks, and plan how you’ll shop up differently to build up your version of executive presence.
There is no one definition of Executive Presence. There are only people and how they show up to create an experience with their audience. Perhaps we should just call this People Presence.
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