Two people walked onto the stage.

She walked in confidently. Gave a warm smile to the audience. Her posture was straight and looked relaxed. Her humor was soft. She seemed like someone you’d like to know.

As she spoke, she was direct and clear. I could “see” the direction she was describing. Without thinking about it, I found myself just believing that what she described was possible.

He followed. I knew him. He’s a great guy. Solid character. Lots of management experience. He walked in with his head down. He was dressed in the ever popular, “middle-aged teen” look. He is humorous. Self-deprecating. People liked that.

They liked him. It took him a while to get through the humor to his point. To describe his vision. When he did, it was packed with qualifiers. In what was likely an attempt to be humble, he kept minimizing the vision, the value it would bring or if he could even make it happen. I found myself agreeing with him.

At the end, it was clear that they were both nice, competent people. Only one seemed like someone I’d trust in a senior leadership role.

Perhaps we’re thinking of the same person.

Only one had Executive Presence.

One of the most important leadership qualities is nebulously called, “Executive Presence.” It is a topic that is missing from business schools. Leadership programs almost never discuss it. Your mentor is unlikely to bring it up. It won’t be found on a job description.

But people are looking for it.

In most cases, it is a required trait.

If you don’t have it, you can expect to experience a “ceiling.” A limit in your advancement as a leader.

The weird thing about it is that having it doesn’t even mean you can lead.

But if you want to be effective at a senior level, you need it.

What is Executive Presence?

Executive Presence is someone’s ability to quickly cause others to trust in his or her ability to lead.

It’s a perception that, “This person can do this. This leader can lead us there.”

That’s it.

It’s a perception about yourself. That you helped create.

If you have it, it results in an increase in influence.

Your voice is heard more quickly and regarded more highly.

You are able to create buy-in, agreement, and partnerships more easily.

People will want to follow you. People will want to work with you.

Something about you gives people confidence. They believe if they stick close to you – good things will happen.

It’s an enabling trait.

What it is not.

Executive Presence is not actually leadership. It sure helps leadership. But it isn’t leadership on its own.

Fortunately, cultivating your ability to lead can help develop your Executive Presence. I’ve written about the 12 leadership traits that are necessary for leaders. Particularly senior leadership.

Cultivating these traits will help you be a more effective leader and improve your Executive Presence.

You can read more about that here.

But let’s looks specifically at Executive Presence.

The Seven Qualities of Executive Presence.

Leaders with Executive Presence possess seven qualities. Having only one or two is helpful. But all seven are needed to really create Executive Presence.

Happily, all of these qualities can be developed or grown:

1. Inspire Vision: People follow, partner with and invest in people whom they believe are going somewhere. Your ability to imagine and describe a future that is inspirational to others is critical.

It doesn’t even have to be your vision or your imagination. You might articulate and champion the inspiring vision of the team or group that you lead. That works just as well.

2. Cultivate Credibility: People need to believe you can be trusted. This really means two things:

• You do what you say you will do.
• You have integrity. You both tell the truth and are consistent.

What you do matters. Regardless of what people say. What you do and have done matters.

If you’ve not been reliable in the past, or have been inconsistent in regards to integrity, you need to make amends. You need to develop a new track record.

Otherwise, even if you are a leader, your Executive Presence will be weakened.

3. Project Confidence: You need to believe in yourself and in your team. You need to regularly reinforce those beliefs.

If you are uncertain, others will also be uncertain. Uncertainty undermines unity, alignment, and commitment.

Some leaders confuse confidence with brashness or arrogance.

Here is a handy differentiator:

• Justified confidence comes from a validated belief that you have value and can bring value to others. That you can do the job at hand.
• Unjustified confidence looks like brashness or foolishness. It’s a belief that success is possible without any reason or validation for that belief.
• Arrogance is always about comparisons. “I’m better, smarter, worth more, more successful than someone else.”

All leaders face times of fear or uncertainty. It’s a basic fact of leadership, you will face an unknown future. People want and need your confidence that you’ll lead them into it well. It’s a gift to offer that.

4. Become Articulate: Generally, effective leaders are also good communicators. When someone can communicate clearly, concisely and with ease, many people assume they can lead.

You can watch this in a group. If someone is articulate (including being concise) the group will often orient themselves around that individual.

Their ideas don’t even have to be good. People are drawn to others who can frame their thoughts clearly.

If this is a challenge for you, a couple of practices can help:

• Reading content on the topics you are interested in talking about helps you learn how others communicate on those topics.
• Journaling regularly helps you develop the discipline of getting what’s in you – out.
• Writing articles, like this, help you learn to frame concepts clearly.
• Participating in groups like Toastmasters help you learn to communicate more easily.

Some people do find this to be more natural or easy. However, it is a skill that anyone can learn and grow in.

5. Focus on Priorities: Many people lack confidence in their own ability to set priorities. When they meet someone who is focused on priorities, they often view that person as more confident and a better leader.

Learning to practice priority setting for yourself, for your team, your family, your organization – all helps you cultivate that personal clarity of purpose. Others are drawn to this.

One very simple way to do this is to make a daily practice of writing a list of all the things you need to accomplish that day.

Then decide which one thing is the most important.

Then structure your day to accomplish that one thing before moving on to the next one thing.

You’ll get more done. (You will!) And you’ll be seen by others as being more intentional and focused. Prioritized.

6. Self-Discipline: New Year’s Resolutions are almost a joke. So many people make them and so few follow through on them. Self-discipline can feel very elusive to many people. Whether this relates to hitting the gym or emotional control.

One of the fastest ways someone can lose credibility is to be seen as someone not in control of their own impulses. This includes impulses of passion (any strong emotion) or easily getting bored or losing interest.

People naturally respect the ability of others to control and direct themselves.

Personally, I find the disciplines of fitness and mindfulness to be two ways to practice discipline. Cultivating your abilities in these areas do translate into your leadership and Executive Presence.

For fitness, this can be as simple as taking a daily five-minute walk. That is all that is needed to start cultivating personal discipline.

For mindfulness, sitting still for even just five minutes has value. Personally, I have found that the app “Headspace” is particularly helpful for learning to stay in this mindful place.

7. Physical Presence: You don’t have to like this one. But it just is.

Years ago, I used to be a volunteer mediator at small claims court. The mediators would sit in the jury box while the litigants showed up. We’d all wait for the judge to begin the show.

While waiting, I’d try to guess who the defendants and plaintiffs were. It was common for defendants to show up dressed poorly. Looking like they had just gotten out of bed. Plaintiffs would often dress up.

This probably wasn’t the most neutral exercise I could be engaged in, as a mediator, but it passed the time.

One day, a man showed up whose hair was a mess, hadn’t shaved, his suit was mismatched and didn’t fit and he wore hiking boots.

I was sure he was a defendant. It turned out he was the attorney for the plaintiff.

We later got to know each other. He is a very intelligent guy. However, he did not inspire confidence with his first impressions.

I immediately went out and bought a new wardrobe.

I realized that I only had seconds for people to form an impression of me and either give or withhold their trust.

If changing how I dressed helped them trust me, I would do so.

Two simple changes can help you a lot:

Dress well. Wear clothes at or just a notch more formal than the people you lead. People will relate to you differently.

It isn’t “fair,” but just putting a suit on leads to people treating me with more respect.

Practice good posture. Learning to sit and walk with good posture directly impacts how people experience you.

Slouching is completely disconnected from whether or not you can lead a team out of a wet paper bag. But that’s not the perception people will have.

Putting It Together

An actor, with no leadership interest or capacity at all, can play a convincing and inspirational leader. A leader with presence.

Executive Presence is about creating a perception.

For you to maintain credibility, you need to support the perception with real leadership. Executive Presence will only go so far on its own.

However, if you combine it with effective leadership, the limits are yours to construct.

Take good care,

Christian

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P.S. Would you like to rapidly increase your Executive Presence? Would you like to be able to be confident that you are leading well? My clients typically report tangible, noticeable results within 3 months. Curious? Contact me at christian@vantageconsulting.org or 907 522-7200.