How to successfully manage your executive presence
This Calvin and Hobbes image always stuck with me. True, you won’t know with definitive certainty what will happen until it does, but you should still plan when possible. This includes mapping out your executive presence and planning to present yourself in the best light to achieve your goals.
What is your executive presence? How do you handle professional challenges and disputes? Do your words and actions get the desired results?
Executive presence is the ability to inspire trust, command respect and lead with authority. It is a combination of :
- Personality
- Vision
- Emotional Intelligence
- Confidence
- Composure
- Appearance
- Communication / Voice
- and more!
And how you express the above will change depending on who you are, your role, your sector, and your location. The most important thing to remember is that it should help you reach your goals. Your goals could be professional or personal, or even a mixture. That's for you to decide. But carefully consider what changes you can make to ease the path to your desired outcome.
So let’s break down the roadmap to success into 5 steps.
What are your goals?
A question I ask my clients is what is your legacy? This matters because it should be guiding your strategic plan for your life. Your executive presence is used to help you achieve your goals. If you do not have a clear goal, how do you know what your executive presence should be like.
What is your current executive presence?
Do you carry yourself as the leader you would respect and that you would follow? If the answer is no, what needs to change? Be honest with yourself. Emotional intelligence starts with yourself, and how honest you are with the varying dimensions of your life to yourself. If you cannot communicate this to yourself, then you can bet that it is not coming across with those that you would like to influence. If you do not know what your current executive presence is, ask those around you. If you are concerned they won’t give you honest feedback, I can do a 360 assessment for you.
What do you want to highlight and what would you prefer wasn’t obvious?
In order to get the right results, you need to know your “brand”. Which skills or experiences are you trying to highlight? If it’s in your physical style, how do you want to look in the mirror? Yes, executive presence also includes fashion. There is a lot of psychology around this. No matter who you are, we all judge people when we first see them, before they even speak. What does your first impression say about you? If there is something you want to stop doing that you feel is negatively impacting your executive presence, make a note of it when it happens. Whether you call this a list, log or journal, just jot it down! Then, at the end of the week, review your writing to see what your triggers are, how often they occurred, how you responded, and how you would like to respond. Then practice saying the words in your safe space, even before the triggers occur. The reason this is important is so you do not become flustered at a critical period. Let it become muscle memory. Understand that you will slip-up along the way. That’s okay. The main point is that you are making progress in the right direction.
Who is your audience?
The above exercises are from your perspective. It is critical to know yourself before you even begin to contemplate your audience. Next, take all the questions about yourself and try to answer them for your audience. What motivates your audience? If you don’t have the answers, how will you go about finding it out? This isn’t to suggest that you must do everything for them and ignore yourself. This is precisely why 60% of this work is about you. But if you do not know your audience, you will not know what resonates with them and your message won’t land the way you would like.
Develop the plan
The fun part! Develop a plan, including accountability metrics, so you maintain your achievements. I recommend starting with the most exciting part. Whatever that is - introspective work, meditation, fashion, research - just start somewhere. Write down your results and let the dopamine hit motivate you to continue with incremental movement. Think of a diamond shape when you’re developing this plan. Start with yourself, the top of the diamond. Then expand outwards to assess the various components of your executive presence, including which you are already excelling at, and which you can work on. This is the phase that involves considering others. Then, gather all that data and refine it into a plan that is manageable and incremental.
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