Executive Presence

Key Concepts

The executive presence (EP) code

“We learned that EP rests on three pillars:

• “How you act (gravitas)

• “How you speak (communication)

• “How you look (appearance)” (p. 5)

“One thing to note at the start is that these pillars are not equally important—not by a long shot. Gravitas is the core characteristic. Some 67 percent of the 268 senior executives we surveyed said that gravitas is what really matters. Signaling that “you know your stuff cold,” that you can go “six questions deep” in your domains of knowledge, is more salient than either communication (which got 28 percent of the senior executive vote) or appearance (which got a mere 5 percent).” (p. 5)

GRAVITAS

GRACE UNDER FIRE

“In a crisis, you can lean into the wind, acknowledge your shortcomings, and rise above them; or you can take cover. You can acquire gravitas, the cornerstone of a real leader. Or you can demonstrate that, no matter what your actual title, you really don’t deserve to be in charge.” (p. 20)

SHOWING TEETH

“CTI research finds that 70 percent of leaders consider decisiveness to be a component of EP for both men and women, second only to confidence in a crisis, making it a core aspect of gravitas. Being able to make decisions isn’t so much the issue as needing to appear decisive in public—the difference, again, between doing the job of a leader and looking like one as you’re doing it, between demonstrating competence and exuding presence.” (p. 23)

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

“Speaking truth to power, as more than 60 percent of our respondents affirm, is a potent affirmation of leaderlike courage. The higher you go in an organization, the more impressive you are when you demonstrate you have the spine to share your convictions.” (p. 26)

“Make sure, however, that when you challenge authority, you’re coming from a core of unshakable values. Anything less and your actions will be perceived as insubordination and/or arrogance—the opposites of gravitas.” (p. 26)

DEMONSTRATING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

“A hefty majority of our respondents see EQ as very important, with 61 percent noting its importance for women’s executive presence, and 58 percent noting its importance for men’s. And here’s why: While decisiveness and toughness in a leader signal conviction, courage, and resolve, when untempered by empathy or compassion these same characteristics come off as egotism, arrogance, and insensitivity.” (p. 28)

RIGHT-SIZING YOUR REPUTATION

“Managing your personal brand is almost a job unto itself, lest it be managed for you by people who don’t hold your best interests at heart. You’ve got to be proactive in asserting who you are, what you stand for, and how you’d like to be perceived.” (p. 32)

VISION AND CHARISMA

COMMUNICATION

“In the arsenal of communication traits that confer executive presence—from how you stand to how you deliver your message—superior speaking skills above all mark you as a leader. Assertiveness and an ability to command a room emerge as critical tools as well. But less obvious things—such as your ability to read the room or banter with colleagues, even the way you hold yourself—contribute to your effectiveness as a communicator. These six behaviors boil down to one thing, really: How powerfully do you connect with your audience? How quickly can you engage your listeners, and how long can you keep their attention? Effective communication is all about engagement.” (p. 48)

ACCENT

GRAMMAR

TIMBRE AND PITCH

“The research is overwhelming. Not only does the sound of your voice matter twice as much as what you’re talking about, as the 2012 Quantified Impressions study of financial spokespersons found, but a voice in the lower-frequency range will encourage others to see you as successful, sociable, and smart, according to a 2012 study published in the Journal of Voice.”

COMMAND A ROOM

ESTABLISH CONNECTION

DELIVER YOUR WORDS AS A MUSICIAN DELIVERS NOTES

“A musician’s impact lies in the rests,” she explains. “It’s the moment where you establish the tension and the seduction. Don’t be afraid of silence.” (p. 56)

USE NARRATIVE

DON’T SNOW PEOPLE WITH DATA

GET RID OF PROPS

“As our focus groups affirm, constantly referring to lists, reading your notes, using eighty-seven PowerPoint slides, shuffling papers or flip charts, and putting on your glasses the better to see what you’re reading are all actions that detract from your gravitas because they focus attention on your lack of confidence. If you cannot command your subject, you certainly won’t be able to command the room. Know your material cold so that you needn’t rely on notes, and needn’t rely on your glasses to read notes.” (p. 59)

BE SUCCINCT

“‘Executive presence is not necessarily about being formal or abundant in your communication, but rather straightforward and brief,’ says Kerrie Peraino, head of international HR for American Express. ‘The more you keep speaking, or explaining yourself, the more you cloud or dilute your core message.’ Women seem especially prone to this blunder, she observes, perhaps because they’re less sure of how they’re perceived and seek to prove their expertise by overselling their case.” (p. 60)

ABILITY TO READ A ROOM

“To command a room, you’ve first got to read it. Sensing the mood, absorbing the cultural cues, and adjusting your language, content, and presentation style accordingly are vital to your success as a communicator, and succeeding as a communicator is vital to your executive presence.” (p. 65)

“In this regard, professionals of color may hold an edge. In focus groups we conducted, countless participants confirmed that being a minority is itself a relentless exercise in reading others in order to anticipate and overcome reflexive bias or unconscious resistance.” (p. 66)

HUMOR AND BANTER

“Not everyone can pull off a funny story at the lectern, but everyone can learn to banter at the water cooler.” (p. 68)

BODY LANGUAGE AND POSTURE

“Never underestimate the communicative power of body language. While 21 percent of senior executives we surveyed recognize that how you hold and carry yourself affects your EP, anecdotally the evidence around body language suggests a much greater impact. ‘People gauge your EP the second you enter a room: how confidently you walk in, how firmly you shake hands, how quickly you make eye contact, how confidently you stand,’ observes Deloitte’s Adachi. ‘In those initial seconds, you’re going to be judged on what they see, not what they hear, and your body language and poise are what they see first.’” (p. 69)

APPEARANCE

BEING POLISHED AND GROOMED

“As one leader put it in an interview, ‘You’ve got to look as though you tried, that you pulled yourself together.’” (p. 82)

“Good grooming is not just about making a polished first impression: It’s about signaling to your competitors, and yourself, that you’re in total control.” (p. 86)

“Achieving polish comes down to this golden rule: Minimize distractions from your skill sets and performance.” (p. 87)

PHYSICALLY ATTRACTIVE, FIT, SLIM

“The most important thing you can do, our qualitative data shows, is to signal fitness and wellness. It’s not how much you weigh, but how resilient you seem that enhances or detracts from your executive presence—because leadership is demanding.” (p. 89)

“Telegraphing fitness is all the more important if you’re heavyset and female, because women, our research affirms, suffer more from fat stereotypes than men.” (p. 89)

SIMPLE, STYLISH CLOTHES THAT POSITION YOU FOR YOUR NEXT JOB

BEING TALL

BEING YOUTHFUL AND VIGOROUS

“If you cannot impress everyone with your obvious vitality, then at least make sure you minimize signs of age and downplay any infirmity.” (p. 96)

Women and people of color often don’t get direct feedback on their executive presence

“Unvarnished, concrete feedback on your appearance, communication skills, and gravitas is hard to come by. It’s especially hard if you’re female, though your chances improve slightly with a same-sex boss.” (p. 108)

“For similar reasons, people of color don’t get the feedback they need to develop their EP: Fearing discomfort as well as discrimination litigation, senior executives told us they would sooner pass over multicultural professionals lacking executive presence than have an honest conversation about their shortcomings. In particular, people of color don’t get unvarnished feedback about hair, clothing, and body weight, according to our survey results.” (p. 110)

Because of bias women must walk a tightrope when it comes to their executive presence 

“Since the early 1970s, when social scientist Virginia Schein showed that both male and female managers perceive leadership attributes as more likely to be held by men than by women, studies have repeatedly confirmed that we associate masculine attributes with leadership suitability and feminine attributes with serve-ability—“taking charge” skills being the province of men, and “taking care” skills being the province of women.81 Despite research showing that gender is not a reliable predictor of how a person will lead, we persist in vetting leadership candidates on precisely that basis.” (p. 129)

“The trickiest EP terrain a woman must navigate concerns her gravitas, where the forceful-but-unlikable chasm yawns the widest. A woman who shows teeth, for example—who is decisive, assertive, and willing to hold her ground—risks being perceived as a bitch, or noncooperative (‘not a team player’).” (p. 138)

Leaders of color face added pressure to minimize their difference and conform

“The results of our national survey in 2012 brought this conflict into sharper focus. Forty-one percent of professionals of color said they had felt the need to compromise their authenticity in order to conform to EP standards at their company. White respondents also conceded they felt the need to conform, of course, but people of color were significantly more likely than whites to feel this tension.” (p. 150)

“Everyone we surveyed or spoke to affirmed the importance of authenticity, pointing out that no leader can win or retain followers without it. Everyone also agreed that succeeding in any organizational culture demands that you make accommodations to that culture. Even straight white men will be obliged to conform, whether by dressing more formally than they’d like or reining in their happy-hour jokes or purging their Facebook walls of incriminating photos.” (p. 156)

“Hence it may be helpful to discern where assimilating is tantamount to “playing the game” as opposed to ‘selling out.’” (p. 157)

Quotables

“The irony, of course, is that this entire discussion centers on image, not substance. Whether we’re talking about appearance or gravitas, we’re focusing on what we’re signaling to the world rather than what we’re really accomplishing.” (Prologue)

“It is executive presence—and no man or woman attains a top job, lands an extraordinary deal, or develops a significant following without this heady combination of confidence, poise, and authenticity that convinces the rest of us we’re in the presence of someone who’s the real deal. It’s an amalgam of qualities that telegraphs that you are in charge or deserve to be.” (p. 1)

“One distressing outcome: our survey respondents generated a list of appearance blunders for women that’s literally twice as long as the list they generated for men. It would appear that women are judged, and found wanting, on many more visual attributes than men.” (p. 98)

“Hillary is also a standout example of the Goldilocks syndrome—but many less illustrious women struggle with the perception that they are either too much or too little, never just right. The majority of women being considered as potential “leadership material” hover in that layer just below top management, what’s known as the marzipan layer because it’s so rich with talent—and so sticky.” (p. 128)

“Given these significant costs, why do professionals of color take such pains to rein in or paper over who they are to accommodate the expectations of their Caucasian peers and superiors? Because when you trumpet your difference, or make no effort to mute it, you are even more likely to become a target of unconscious bias or even overt discrimination.” (p. 154)

“Ordinary mortals can crack the EP code.” (p. 169)

“If EP is learnable it’s also doable. You don’t have to be some kind of genius and ace all top picks across the three categories of gravitas, communication, and appearance.” (p. 170)

“Figure out what is negotiable—and what is not. In your drive to crack the EP code, don’t compromise your authenticity to such an extent that it puts your soul in play. It will make you miserable and will also backfire, because in the end gravitas rests centrally on your true identity.” (p. 170)