Today: Are you doing everything you can to develop executive presence in your team members? Are you inadvertently stopping them from fulfilling their potential? Find out how executive presence works and what it means for you. Thank you to Michael Orth for his insights, which informed this episode.

Your turn: We'd love to hear from you. Use the "Message" button on the Anchor app to share a story, question, or feedback related to this episode. Or email us at joe@connectioncounselor.com

Learn more: Details about the book, online course, YouTube tutorials and more can be found at www.connectioncounselor.com/executive-presence-place

Music: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License

Transcript

Hello, this is Joe Kwon, the Connection Counselor. So far, we've been talking a lot about developing your own executive presence. But, what if you need to develop more executive presence in those you lead? So your team or those who you work with, because in order for you to be able to get the best results, you need folks who work for you, or with you to also have executive presence, and for whatever reason, it's not at the level that you need it to be at.

And, you don't need to take an assessment to know that, you can just tell when someone is not bringing that particular quality to the work that they do in the way people respond and react to them, including your own kind of assessment of the confidence that they inspire for you.

So today I want to share with you one really important insight that can really help you as a leader to develop more executive presence in your team. And this insight was inspired by an observation that, a mentor and a very cherished colleague of mine, Michael Orth, he's, at KPMG with me, in Communications.

And he was featured on one of my podcasts, "Why It Works," and the topic was "status plays." So in terms of an organization, just a fancy way of saying like, are you up, are you down? How high or low are you in the pecking order of the organization? One observation that Michael made during our episode was that sometimes in order for others to come up, you as the leader need to come down...in terms of your status.

Not in terms of your competence or your contribution, but sometimes, if you think about it, if you, as the leader shine too bright and have all the answers and are always going over the top and correcting everything, and not allowing others to sort of shine or give it a chance or to be given their own moment to lead, you sort of create an environment where no one's going to want to step out and do that because whatever they do will just be quashed or it will be made to look less than, because you are shining so brightly.

And that could be really difficult for the team and to not do that can be really difficult for leaders who are extremely skilled technically in the area that they need their people to lead.

So in a way, by you doing less, you allow them to develop more executive presence and to do more. Because if you think about it, you know, you could use the metaphor of a seesaw, right. For them to go up, you need to go down a little bit. And then when they go down, sometimes you're all the way up.

So it's sort of counterintuitive, but for others on your team to develop executive presence, think about the status your at and whether it always needs to be at the same level. In certain situations, your status should be higher and you should be driving the conversation, but not all the time, right?

Especially for those who are high potential and you see them being able to develop and you feel that, but for some reason, they're not really taking the reins. Take a hard look at what you can do to enable them to do that and to trust that they are in an environment where their executive presence can be fully developed because only by getting those repetitions and the practice, will they be able to develop confidence.

And this is our definition of executive presence, again, will they be able to "inspire confidence in others that they can lead well, in a given situation." So thanks so much, Michael, for those insights. And I hope those of you in the audience, may find this useful in terms of your management type responsibilities.

Have you been enjoying the show? Would you like to share your thoughts, ask a question, or perhaps have your contribution featured on a future episode? If so, record a message on anchor FM on the website or the app. I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for listening to Executive Presence Morsels. Remember, it's not what you say do or wear, it's how you make people feel that generates executive presence. Nothing else matters.

This is Joe Kwon, the Connection Counselor. Thank you. And talk to you next time.

Today: How does executive presence in the virtual world differ from the physical world? How do you ensure you are perceived as a leader? Find out how executive presence works and what it means for you.

Your turn: We'd love to hear from you. Use the "Message" button on the Anchor app to share a story, question, or feedback related to this episode. Or email us at joe@connectioncounselor.com

Learn more: Details about the book, online course, YouTube tutorials and more can be found at www.connectioncounselor.com/executive-presence-place

Music: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License

Transcript

What a crazy year it's been, right, with everything that's going on with COVID and for folks who are fortunate enough to be able to still work from home, it's been a year filled with lots of virtual meetings, right?

So you may have come from an environment where you're really good at navigating in the room and figuring out what you need to do - shaking hands, making alliances, talking to people, getting new ideas, whatever it is you do in that physical space. Maybe that was something you had figured out.

And then all of a sudden the rug is pulled out from underneath your feet. And we're in this brave, new virtual world. The world of back-to-back meetings, the world of Zoom fatigue, the world of do I really have to have my camera on all the time, and the world of worrying what's in your background or someone coming into your background or for some unfortunate people forgetting to wear their pants, in their virtual meeting.

But seriously, I get a question a lot. How can you have executive presence in a virtual setting, right? You're on this tiny little screen, basically compared to being there in person, uh, your screen may or may not be on; other people may or may not be looking at you. The audio is different. Your ability to make eye contact is different, or even just to nudge someone next to you or to whisper or, you know, give someone a hint.

All those things have kind of either been stripped away or have been replaced by new ways of doing that. So it can be very difficult for people to understand how to generate executive presence in a virtual environment - especially if you had it nailed in the physical environment - it can be quite a challenge.

And some people may say, we can't, and we just have to go back to the physical space. And what I like to tell people is that's not entirely true. They're not the same. But, if you look at the same principles and leverage the principles in the context of the new environment, there are definitely things you can do to improve your executive presence in a virtual setting.

So today I'm going to share with you one thing. For me, it's the most powerful thing you can do to generate executive presence in the virtual meeting. And I sum it up with a question, right? Ask yourself for any virtual meeting you're in, "what is the goal of the meeting and how can I help advance the goal?"

Think about that for a second. There's a reason people are having the meeting and whoever scheduled the meeting and the people who are attending want that goal to be advanced. So if you are on the call and you're just sitting back and you're passive or just reactive, and you're not really doing things to help advance the goal, or you're waiting to be asked, and then you're just responding, you're not really doing it yourself, you will be less likely to be perceived as having executive presence.

Versus the person who figures that out and doesn't wait to be asked, but starts to do the things that generate advancing the goal. Now, what if there is no goal to the meeting? Well, then you have a problem because it's hard to show executive presence to advance a goal when there is no goal.

So one of the things you can do in that situation is you can point that out, right? And you can be the person who says, wait a second, this meeting is not a productive use of anyone's time and offer alternate suggestions. Now, I understand what some of you may be thinking, whoa, career suicide, Joe. I am not going to do that. I am not in a position to make that call. And, that's totally right and I totally get that.

However, that doesn't mean you have to sit by passively and do nothing. What you can do in that situation is, if you don't have as much power or you don't feel as bold or comfortable doing that, you can ask questions to clarify that.

So you get clarification and get the people who do have the power thinking about it. So for instance, you could say, it's not entirely clear to me why we're here. I just want to make sure I can contribute to the best. Can you remind me again? What is the one major thing we want to accomplish coming out of this meeting?

So that's a clarifying question. Just by asking that question, you will be perceived as someone whose spirit and intention is to advance the goals and that will inform how people feel about your executive presence.

Another alternative in the same vein is you can make a suggestion and ask for others to weigh in. So you can say something like, maybe could we spend the next minute just getting input from everyone as to what the number one goal is or what the one thing we want to advance on this call is 'cause that would really help me clarify things and contribute better. So ask that question, then have others weigh in.

You don't always have to solve the question yourself to advance the goal. However, by doing that, you at the end of the call, will always be appreciated by the person who created the call, as well as the other people who are on the call, who frankly don't really want to waste their time on a call that has no point or no goal.

So think about that question. What is the goal of the meeting and how can I advance that goal to create outsized executive presence, even in a virtual setting. This is Joe Kwon, the Connection counselor. Thank you for listening to Executive Presence Morsels. Remember, it's not what you say do or wear, it's how you make people feel that generates executive presence. Nothing else matters.

Today: Do you have to be a certain age before you can wield executive presence? Let's consider. Find out how executive presence works and what it means for you. Thanks to Carlos Santiago from GSK for his insights, which contributed to this episode.

Your turn: We'd love to hear from you. Use the "Message" button on the Anchor app to share a story, question, or feedback related to this episode. Or email us at joe@connectioncounselor.com

Learn more: Details about the book, online course, YouTube tutorials and more can be found at www.connectioncounselor.com/executive-presence-place

Music: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License

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Transcript

Let's talk a little bit about age and executive presence. It's pretty easy to slip into the thinking that you need a certain amount of experience or a title, or need to reach a certain amount of, I don't know, grayness or white haired-ness to really warrant executive presence.

And I'm here to tell you that's totally bogus, right? That's not what executive is about, and I'm actually reminded of a really funny remark and insightful remark by Carlos Santiago, who's an executive for Glaxo Smith Kline; was interviewing him for a show, "Si-suite: A Seat at the Table With Executive Leaders" for a podcast that I host for ALPFA New Jersey. ALPFA's the Association of Latino professionals For America and I'm on the board of the New Jersey chapter.

And Carlos was talking about leadership development and he said a lot of times what you hear from people when you ask them for input on how you can develop as a leader, you hear a lot of things like, well, you need to be three to five years in every role, right?

And he thought about that and he was like, wait a second. What is the average age of most CEOs? They're roughly 40'ish and if every CEO actually had to take three to five years in each role before they became a CEO, as Carlos said, most CEOs will be closer to a hundred years old. So what's going on? What's what's different. Why is that advice actually not 100% valid?

And what's interesting to me is people can only see what they experienced and what they realize, and they kind of have a certain perspective and that understandably is what they're going to share with you. And I believe in most cases, that's a well-intentioned sharing. I don't think anyone was talking to Carlos trying to sabotage his career.

However, that doesn't mean that you always have to take as 100% truth, advice that people give to you. You have to consider why they're saying it and what's important and truthful about it, but it doesn't mean you have to limit yourself or assume that that is necessarily true, where the path for you as well.

And this also applies to executive presence. If we look back on our North Star, which is the definition of executive presence, which I've developed, which is, "executive presence is the ability to inspire confidence that you can lead well in a given situation."

Think about that for a second. There's no experience requirement there. There's no age requirement. There's no looks or title requirement. There's not even a talent or skills requirement. If, with all the tools you have at your disposal, you can inspire confidence in that particular person that you are the best one to lead in a given situation, you will be the one who's perceived as having executive precedence.

So it doesn't matter if you're 5, 15, 20, 25 or 55. If you are able to do that, you will be perceived as having executive presence. So the question is not really, when will I have executive presence? It's how do I generate executive presence now?

So whether you're a student, whether you have just entered the workforce or whether you're a seasoned professional that maybe has been critiqued that they don't have executive presence, if you start thinking about executive presence in these terms, you'll start to understand and be able to develop the right things - the things that actually generate executive presence and put to the side parts of advice that don't really get to the root, which is how to generate executive presence. Not when.

I'd love to hear from you about how you're enjoying executive presence morsels. Feel free to record a message on the anchor.fm app or website with your thoughts or questions on executive presence. I'd love to hear from you.

This is Joe Kwon, the Connection Counselor, and thank you for listening to Executive Presence Morsels. Remember, it's not what you say, do or wear, it's how you make people feel that generates executive presence. Nothing else matters.