3 Ways to Build Executive Presence - 1

TLDR: Executive presence is different from personal or professional presence. A functional definition of executive presence: "Comfortably drawing and holding attention while delivering a business savvy message." Read ON! for the 3 ways you can build your executive presence.

Hang on! It's going to be a wild ride as I take you beyond mere reliance on the conventional advice women receive about cultivating executive presence. You'll be glad you did.

Personal Presence

There has been little critical thinking behind most of the books and articles about executive presence that are directed toward you. This conventional advice is important, but incomplete. I say this because, according to recent articles I've reviewed, around 96% of the advice given to women on how to develop executive presence would also apply to actors, motivational speakers, preachers, politicians, teachers and others who stand before the public. This basic advice includes:

• How to Be: candid, sincere, confident, calm, passionate charismatic, thoughtful, courageous, warm etc.

• How to Speak: deep voice, succinct, avoid qualifiers

• Non-Verbals: posture, eye contact, gestures, facial expressions

• Audience Engagement: engage others with respect, know your audience.

• and my all time favorite (sarcasm font) How to Appear: get a makeover, look polished

This advice is useful because it will help you comfortably and credibly stand in the spotlight. But because advice is basic and applies across professions, it cannot and will not help you develop executive presence. Instead, following this advice can best be considered a way to develop a level of personal presence.

Professional Presence

As you've grown in your career, you have tapped into and enhanced your personal presence. But to progress beyond career-start and emerging leadership roles, you have also had to focus on being a credible representative of your profession.

For example you have had to learn to authoritatively speak the language of engineering or HR or manufacturing, etc. In other words, you have developed your professional presence.

Professional/technical content or messaging is what differentiates you from a preacher, teacher, politician. While someone might use their personal presence to preach about the bible, teach quantum physics, or gain our vote; you need to be able to make a case for using one material over another, why a vendor's HRIS will meet the organization's needs, or the current challenges with lean manufacturing. You can think of this as adding technical/professional messaging to the non-verbal, non-content verbals and audience guidance that are elements of personal presence.

Secondly, as you have advanced, you must develop a comfort with inserting yourself into discussions with colleagues, defending your position, challenging and/or building on those of others, and speaking at professional conferences. Your ability to comfortably draw and hold attention becomes a make-or break element of her professional presence and beyond.

Executive Presence

What, then, differentiates executive presence from professional presence?

Here we come to the importance of Business Savv, The Missing 33% and the ability to speak the Language of Power (this is the language of financial and non-financial outcomes to be discussed. Look for #LanguageofPower )

Executive presence demands that your client looks beyond her profession to the overall business and cultivates the ability to deliver a business-savvy message. This deep connection to and ability to discuss the business, its key financial and non-financial metrics, the external forces and inner activities at play are what confer that elusive - and often unhelpfully defined - gravitas that is described as a key element of executive presence.

Based on what's been discussed, here's a definition you can use to measure against and probe more deeply if you've received the frequently given advice, "You need executive presence" or "You need to improve your executive presence."

Executive presence is the ability to comfortably draw and hold attention while delivering a business-savvy message.

This definition incorporates all the key elements of personal and professional presence with the required focus on messaging that speaks to the overall business, its financial and non-financial targets, its strategy and all the related elements of the strategy

What's a Woman to Do?

1. Watch Executive Presence in Action

Watch this CNBC interview, with Corie Barry, CEO of Best Buy. It is a great example of strategic acumen and use of the language of outcomes. Discuss:

• What are her forward-looking messages about cash, growth, return and customer?

• How many external forces does she discuss and what metrics does she attach to them?

• What internal initiatives are elements of the strategy?

• What metrics does she have at her fingertips and why?

2. Think about and take action on these questions:

• How strong is my personal presence? Is it good enough (perfection is impossible) or do I need work on my ability to be, speak, use non-verbals, etc?

• How comfortable am I drawing attention to myself before I speak?

• How comfortable am I holding attention on myself as I speak?

• How effectively do I communicate a business-savvy message (about the business, its financial story, its strategy) using language related to cash, growth, return and customer/consumer metrics?

In the final analysis - whether you are seen is having executive presence rests in the eyes of the beholder. Some people will never see or only grudgingly see a woman as having executive presence. The most you can do is to work on the elements and to seek feedback from trusted others.

3. Ask your manager or others:

• How adequate is my personal presence? Do I need work on her ability speak, use non-verbals, etc?

• How specifically could I do a better job of drawing attention before I speak?

• How specifically could I do a better job of holding attention (p.s. for women, this usually means be more succinct)?

• How can I improve her ability to deliver a business-savvy message?

Remember, don't let perfection get in the way of progress. Get "good enough."

Learn MUCH more here in Part Two

Catch you next time.

Susan

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