Executive Presence decoded for Introverts
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“The presence of passion within you is the greatest gift you can receive. Treat it as a miracle.”
“You don’t have enough executive presence. It’s because you’re not seasoned enough.” That was the feedback one of the worst leaders I’ve ever had gave to me. As I calmly pressed her to expand on what she meant by “executive presence”, all that I could get from her was “… it’s your presence in the room…”
I thought maybe it was because I didn’t speak up enough in meetings. Nope, that wasn’t it. I thought perhaps it was because I’m not sitting up in my chair when i spoke. Nope that wasn’t it. Was it because I don’t speak loud enough? Nope that wasn’t it. After 15 minutes or so of this back and forth in my attempt to understand how to improve, my clearly exasperated leader said to me “… look you’re just going to have to figure this out on your own…”
And that was the end of my coaching session. You can probably tell, I was not a fan of her leadership style. She was constantly cold and distant, and one of those leaders who’s approach is to only give you part of the information as a form of self protection so that she always knew more than you. While I’m not a fan of her leadership style, that one feedback did send me down the right path. The more I investigated, the more I found that the term “executive presence” is used frequently in performance feedback sessions. Most people have a vague idea of what it implies but nobody clearly knows what it means, much less what to do about it. So after a lot of research and trial and error, I feel I’ve finally decoded executive presence for introverts.
WHAT IS “EXECUTIVE PRESENCE”
Executive presence is simply the ability for you to demonstrate that you are active in the meeting or conversation through a clear projection of your energy and your enthusiasm for your ideas and contributions. It’s not about faking your energy or enthusiasm. Everybody can see through that. It’s about you projecting the fact that not only are you following the topics being discussed but you are actively trying to shape it to the best outcome. It doesn’t require you to dominate the conversation but if requires you to follow the conversation and ask questions and provide suggestions that clearly show you are actively thinking and trying to get to the best outcome. If you ever catch-up yourself not remembering what the previous person said or the key point for the topic at hand because you were busy checking emails or just daydreaming, then in that moment, you lost a little bit of executive presence. In those instances, grab hold of the chair, feel the fabric and materials used in its construction and bring your mind back into the room and the conversation. Your body and mind being physically and mentally in the conversation are the keys to executive presence. So here are the key actions to take to form the foundations for strong executive presence.
ACTION 1: CLOSE YOUR LAPTOP - NO MULTI-TASKING
Bringing iPads or laptops into meetings is almost a mandatory thing to do these days. All the papers are in PDF and you probably take notes in Microsoft Note. Nothing wrong with electronics notes and papers, but with the iPad and laptop comes everything else and the most distracting things in the world: emails, instant messenger, and the web.
It’s not uncommon where discussions are underway, you’re thinking and reading through the papers on your iPad, and then a notification pops up saying you have an email with only part of the subject line showing. In that split second, your brain wants to open the email and see what it is. Human beings can’t deal with uncertainty and an email notification creates uncertainty until you read it. On a good day, you read the email and conclude it’s something you can deal with later. On a bad day, you read the email and it triggers a negative emotion. Even though you don’t need to deal with it now, you are guaranteed to be distracted for the rest of the meeting; overthinking about the solution, the lack of respect, and how you are going to exact vengeance.
But while you’re worrying about somebody else’s poor form, you are sacrificing your executive presence with the people in the room. In that few seconds it took to read the email, you’ve lost track of the discussions. Then as you close the email and think about it, you’re finding it difficult to maintain your focus on the conversation at hand. When this happens, you’ve lost any reasonable chance of contributing valuable thoughts.
Importantly, everyone else in the room can tell that you’re not quite with it in the room. If you want executive presence, in the meeting, turn off your emails and instant messenger. Focus on the topic at hand.
ACTION 2: PROVIDE INPUTS THAT FRAME THE CONVERSATION DIFFERENTLY
By following the conversation at hand, you will find that your brain will identify important points that other people in the room haven’t thought about. Open up and raise those points for consideration. You don’t need to dominate the conversation to have executive presence but you need to demonstrate that you are actively trying to contribute to the best outcome.
How many times have you thought of a key point then dismissed it as insignificant. Then someone else says exactly what you were thinking and got all the applause. Valuable contributions is a volume game. The more you contribute, the more likely that one or two of your points is insightful. Successful executives contribute multiple points in a meeting, knowing that it’s not the single point that counts, it’s the series of points that show you are contributing.
Simply frame your contributions in the following manner:
“I think we haven’t yet considered x, y, z and it might be worth our time to go through them in case…”
“Do you think we are framing the problem correctly? What if we examined it this way…”
ACTION 3: ASK QUESTIONS
There is nothing worse than being caught out that you didn’t know something and you didn’t ask. I had this happen to me recently. There was a document I should’ve read before the meeting but found that I wasn’t granted access. Instead of asking, I just left it. When the meeting happened and we started discussing the paper, I pretended that I knew the contents. Then they pointed to a specific section and wanted my input. By then it was too late to save face and I had to admit that I hadn’t read the paper because I don’t have access.
Nothing erodes your presence faster than being caught out pretending to understand something. So in a meeting, if ever you come across something you don’t know or don’t understand (or don’t have access to), just open up about it and ask.
“Sorry, I don’t understand what EBITDA stands for. Can you quickly brief me on that…”
With a clearer understanding, you can follow the discussion better, and contribute better. More importantly, to everyone else in the room who also don’t understand but are too afraid to ask, you now have strong executive presence with them.
ACTION 4: DON’T REACT - PAUSE THEN REFRAME
When you are questioned on something or challenged, to have executive presence, means not reacting straightaway. Dominant figures in public do this. They are challenged or asked a trick question. But they fight the urge to respond straight away. They literally pause, think about it, and then reposition or reframe the question. In some cases, they point out the holes in the question (e.g. well if I understand your question correctly, you are really asking me which of the two bad behaviours do I endorse. Well I don’t endorse either and I think…).
I had a great boss once who was the epitome of this. We’d often have leadership panel Q&As where all the leaders will be on stage and be peppered with questions. Most leaders responded straight away and ultimately found themselves giving silly answers (e.g. “I am very excited about our prospects of…”) or talk a lot but provide no answer at all. They think nobody noticed but everyone did.
But my boss, when asked a tough question would stop and pause. Sometimes for what feels like 30 secs. He’d ask for some time to think. This builds anticipation as everyone is now waiting for the answer. This also gives his brain time to reframe the question. After thinking, he’d often say: “Well, I think what you are asking is whether….” or my favourite version of this is “So what you really want to know is x, y, z. Well, I want to know too. What do you think we should be focusing on…”
Commanding genuine respect, one that doesn’t rely on your position power is one of the hardest things to do for an introvert. There are five simple actions we can adopt straight away that can help us to establish our presence in the room and command the attention and focus on what we have to say.