Learning and development (L&D) professionals need executive presence to develop influence within their organizations and effectively drive the capabilities of their leadership teams.
Executive presence is about your ability to inspire confidence. If L&D professionals lack executive presence, the change initiatives and programs they are leading will not take root and the organization as a whole will suffer as a result.
Inspiring confidence in others, and developing influence, will not occur instantaneously just because you walked into the room with the correct lighting and proverbial musical effects. There is no magical switch to throw to turn on your executive presence. Developing executive presence takes time and will be felt based on people’s interaction with you over time. While change improvements are possible, in general, executive presence will rise gradually as the felt sum-total of interactions people have with you. So, be patient and consistent.
Essentially building 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!
What Is Executive Presence?
Many people have the misconception that executive presence is related to having organizational authority. In fact, anyone can develop executive presence — and frankly needs to do so if they want to wield influence. Positional authority may cause employees to take more notice initially 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, it is insufficient to make lasting impact.
There are three components to true executive presence, and they are independent of positional authority and personal charm. They include:
- 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 really listen because they are convinced you know what you’re talking about and are serious about solving problems? Note that you do not need to become a can of “fun repellant,” but you need to be seen as serious when it matters. When the going gets tough, those who are known to buckle down and be serious about solving the problems will be in demand. This is gravitas.
- Communication Skills
Listening empathetically and then speaking with confidence, in a concise manner, is a required influencing 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 support your position to convince your peers and seniors that your plan will work and is the best possible way forward.
- Appearance
Does your appearance fit the image of a leader for this workplace culture? You need to match your appearance to the expectations. For example, if you’re giving an important presentation, make sure you’re dressed in a way that conveys professionalism. The trick is to know what to wear when, and then, wear it with confidence!
The Impact of Unconscious Biases
The intentional 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 perception of groups.
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 simply need to understand that unconscious bias is a real factor that needs to be overcome.
How to Develop Executive Presence
As with any improvement process, you need a baseline of performance to measure against, so start by evaluating where you are now. A look in the figurative, and literal, 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. Don’t get frustrated with the feedback. Get deliberate with planning your path to success and commit to action.
Remember that executive presence is like your personal brand; it only builds over time. So, your action plan really needs to be about changing your habits and mode of operation. Here are some general paths to improving.
Always demonstrate emotional control.
When things go wrong, do you react emotionally, or do you pause, and then react in a logical and controlled manner? 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 stimulus from response.
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 the organization’s values and helpful to getting the organization on a solid path forward.
Listen to understand, not to respond.
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 and give their own viewpoint.
We instead 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 filters.
Being able to summarize back to a speaker their perspective and feelings accurately brings great credibility and respect and will boost your gravitas significantly.
Speak concisely in a confident voice, and speak compellingly with supportive data and observations.
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, even when you have solid data supporting your position, is not a natural skill. It takes practice, so practice confident vocal control. Speaking slowly and clearly (but concisely!) will give the appearance of a more considered opinion.
Many leaders seek formal vocal training to develop a strong speaking voice. Practice will help anyone improve!
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. Even small commitments, when missed will drive down your gravitas and personal brand. A good example of this is being on time to, 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. Sarcasm is 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.
Be more formal.
Watch your appearance. 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. Look at how your boss, or boss’ boss dress. Consider matching someone in the organization who has high executive presence.
Conclusion
Executive presence is a skill that can be learned by anyone and does not rely on positional authority. Training and development leaders and professionals need to increase their executive presence in order to have their opinions, ideas and recommendations taken seriously.
Getting honest feedback, developing a specific plan and then executing that plan, will absolutely increase gravitas, improve your communication skills, and establish an appropriate leadership appearance. Use these tips to get started — and stick to it!
