Leadership is about far more than your title or position. You can be in charge of a large team and still not be viewed as a leader. You could also be an individual contributor, with no official direct reports, and be seen as the unofficial leader of a group. Leadership is as much about how you carry yourself and how you influence others as it is your title. In order to be an effective leader, you have to be perceived as a leader. This perception of leadership is often referred to as Executive or Leadership Presence and it’s more important than you might think.
Executive Presence is defined as “the perception of an individual as having substance and authority, being capable, trustworthy, ‘in charge,’ and inspiring followers.” It includes presenting yourself in a way that highlights your strengths and talents, being self-aware and demonstrating that you have the knowledge and abilities others expect from a leader. Executive Presence is the IT factor that some people just seem to have. We’ve all seen it, someone walks into the room and everyone just gravitates to them. We see examples of it all the time in the public eye. People like Oprah Winfrey, President Obama, Steve Jobs and Sheryl Sandberg are all great examples.
You may think that Executive Presence is just something people naturally have, that just a select few have this “it” factor and, if you don’t have it, you are just out of luck. Fortunately, this isn’t something you have to be born with, it is something that can be learned and it’s something you should pay attention to if you aspire to leadership. Executive Presence, or EP, is crucial to your success or failure as a leader. According to the Center for Talent Innovation, while EP will not earn you a promotion, a lack of it will prevent you from getting as far as you’d like to go in your career. In fact, Executive Presence accounts for about 26% of what it takes to get promoted. If you want to lead, you have to be perceived as a leader.
According to the Center for Talent Innovation, Executive Presence is composed of gravitas (how you act), communication (how you speak) and appearance (how you look). All three areas are not created equal, gravitas is the most important, communication is second on the list and appearance is the least important. While these three areas are not all equal, it is important that you hone all three because appearance and communication are filters through which gravitas is perceived. In my practice, boosting EP is one of the things that comes up most regularly. Often, I will have client’s come to me because they want to make a bigger impact in their organization and they are doing all the work but are still getting passed over for promotions. This almost always comes down to the fact that their EP has been damaged or is non-existent, they aren’t being perceived as a leader.
I spent 10 years in corporate HR and Talent Management and have sat in on countless employee talent Reviews and have participated in the selection process for leadership development programs and I can tell you, this stuff really does matter. You are not just being evaluated on the work, you are also being evaluated on how you show up every day. It’s not enough to do your job well to advance – you have to be perceived as a leader by those around you. I have seen too many talented people get passed over for promotions or development opportunities because they just weren’t seen as “leadership material”. That’s why this month I will be shedding some light on Executive Presence and how you can improve yours. For the next three weeks I will explore each of the components of EP to define what they mean, give you tips for increasing your effectiveness in this area and sharing some potential derailers in each area. We’ll start next week by exploring gravitas and what it means to your Executive Presence. Come back next week to check it out!
How do you think Executive Presence impacts you?
