Executive Presence Coaching

What Executive Presence Actually Is

Feedback about presence is often vague. “Be more strategic.” “Own the room.” “Show more gravitas.” It tells you that something is missing. It never tells you what to do on Monday.

Useful data on what senior leaders mean by presence comes from the Center for Talent Innovation, now called Coqual. Its 2013 report on executive presence drew on a survey of nearly 4,000 professionals and on the views of 268 senior executives. Gravitas was the core of it for 67 percent of them. Communication came next, named by 28 percent, and appearance by only 5 percent. The same executives said presence accounts for 26 percent of what it takes to get the next promotion.

Within communication, great speaking skills led the list: 60 percent said they contribute to a woman’s presence and 63 percent to a man’s. The ability to command a room followed, at 49 and 54 percent. The report also suggests why presence feedback is so hard to use. Feedback given to women and people of color can be contradictory, which may be why 81 percent said they were unclear how to act on it. For more on this, see communication coaching for women executives.

Gravitas sounds like a personality trait. In my coaching, presence breaks down into 3 concrete parts. Your voice: pace, pitch, pauses, and whether your sentences end with conviction or trail off. Your body: stillness, eye contact, and what your hands do while you think. Your message: whether your listener hears 1 clear point or 5 half-points. I use the Core Satellite System to bring the 3 together. The Core is the one message you need the room to remember. The Satellites are the evidence, stories and delivery choices that make it land.

What I Watch For, and What We Change

Leading, not reporting

I once worked with the CFO of a large oil and gas company on a major presentation. He began by reading his slides, chart after chart. “Stop,” I said. “You’re presenting like an accountant, not a leader.” A leader’s job in the room is to say what the facts mean. Years ago, a General Dynamics leader walked me through how a tank would perform under various conditions. “Yes, but what does that mean?” I asked. “Well, it won’t perform well when it’s too cold,” he said. That sentence was the one his audience needed.

Read: Adopt These 4 Speaking Habits to Boost Your Leadership Presence →

Strength without aggression

A vice president at a Fortune 100 company came to me because he wanted to become CFO and worried that his soft voice was holding him back. In person he had an exceptionally dominant presence. He had been a state champion boxer with 125 knockouts, and he kept his voice quiet so he would never sound aggressive outside the ring. We worked on a strong voice that didn’t sound angry.

One difference between strength and aggression is what drives you: emotion, or thought. When someone goes off on an unproductive tangent, the aggressive response is to drop your hands on the table and shout, “What are you talking about?!” The strong response is to lean forward smoothly and ask, “How does your idea connect to our objective?” Strong leaders still ask pointed questions, but one at a time, and they let people answer.

Read: The Difference Between Strong Leaders and Aggressive Leaders →

Hands that match your words

One of the most common trust problems I see is gesture timing. When you speak spontaneously, your gestures tend to come slightly before your words, because they are connected to your thoughts. With a prepared message, they can arrive late and look too deliberate, and listeners can read that lag as a reason not to trust you. So we replace energy gestures, the restless movement that shows excitement or nerves, with image gestures that draw the idea. If you talk about exceeding expectations, one hand marks where the business is now and the other moves past it.

Read: Here’s What Your Hand Gestures Are Saying →

A face that shows what you think

It is easy to look colder than you mean to. Many speakers don’t notice when the face goes slack, and a blank expression reads as stern. A few minutes before you speak, squeeze your features into the middle of your face, then release them, a few times. A permanent smile is no fix either. Speakers are often told to smile, but a smile pasted on looks fake. Smile when something in your message or in the room calls for it.

Read: Three “Powerful” Speaking Habits That Are Intimidating Your Audience →

When Leaders Typically Reach Out

In my experience, most leaders don’t call because they think they are poor communicators. They call because a specific moment is coming, or because someone has given them feedback they cannot act on.

• A performance review that said “work on your executive presence” and nothing more
• A promotion to the C-suite or a first seat in front of the board
• A move from expert to leader, where people now expect direction, not detail
• A high-stakes presentation within the next 30 days
• A sense that you are respected for your work but overlooked in the room

CEOs and their direct reports can also see CEO communication coaching, and our coaching programs show the full range of options.