A Brief Introduction to Executive Presence
How You Are Created in the Minds of Others
You are constantly being evaluated by others. This happens in meetings, in presentations, and in conversations. It happens naturally any time people get together. When it happens in organizational settings, these evaluations have important career consequences as they play a key role in developing your organizational reputation, including how you work, the kind of person you are, and what kind of potential you have.
Access to Resources and Discretionary Effort
People with the best executive presence get more than their fair share of organizational resources. They get more attention, their ideas get more traction, and their proposals get more funding.
They also get more discretionary effort—the effort someone gives that goes above and beyond what’s simply required from the job. This translates into productivity, and it results in a big payoff to the organization from improved executive presence.
Executive Presence and Career Advancement
The four quadrants in this chart are used to identify perceived leadership potential. Not surprisingly, people with both high technical skills and high executive presence are seen as having excellent leadership potential.
However, people in the top-left quadrant are seen as having the same leadership potential as the top-right group. Why? Because good leadership has much more to do with interpersonal skills than with technical skills.
The group in the lower right quadrant are seen as very important to the organization, but they may lack the qualities needed to lead it. Some people are okay with that, but those who don’t understand why they are working for someone who lacks their technical proficiency can dramatically enhance their odds for advancement by improving their executive presence.