What Is “Executive Presence”?

Written by: Megan Smith / Communication Coaching / September 02, 2020 / 8 minutes read

One critical management skill that is often under-developed is the ability to give feedback. Many managers have some difficulty describing to their reports how, exactly, they can improve themselves. Often, this is because noticing a problem or concern is much easier than identifying how it could be fixed, and the work of fixing the concern can be offloaded to their report to save themselves time and energy that could be focused elsewhere.

If you are the report of such a manager, it can become quite difficult to determine what their constructive feedback actually means. As a speech therapist who does work on professional communication skills, I have noticed over time that while “improving your communication/presentation skills” in general is one major area where imprecise or nonspecific feedback can lead to stress and confusion, the idea of developing an unelaborated “executive presence” causes the most concern.

If your manager has asked you to try to develop this skill, without further elaborating, let this blog post serve as a guide to look at different areas of your communication style that they might mean. You may use this information to work on developing these skills independently, or to develop some questions that you can use to ask your manager about your current “presence” in more detail.

What is executive presence?

Summed up broadly, your degree of “executive presence” describes whether you meet current societal expectations of how someone at the executive level of an organization might behave. This means that modifying our communication style to better match the default expectations for a “person with power” will bring us generally in the right direction. 

Of course, this expectation is problematic. If we adopt a communication style that reminds us of the people currently in power, we end up vilifying aspects of our communication styles that remind people of the areas in which we hold less privilege – removing class, race, youth, and gender markers from our speech in order to better “match” the communication style of the current executive class. Essentially, working on “executive presence” is learning to code-switch, or to adopt a new communication style to fit in with a specific culture’s expectations. Many people who are uncomfortable with needing to change their identity to fit in will still choose to put in this work, to advance their careers and to eventually chip away at the culture that they dislike.

Summed up broadly, your degree of “executive presence” describes whether you meet current societal expectations of how someone at the executive level of an organization might behave.

Here is a list of some of the features of speech that can signal an executive presence:

• Emotional Distance: This trait carries several markers of power and privilege, and making it work for you is useful. Create emotional distance by framing your arguments in terms of productivity/goals/logic rather than needs/wants, by removing hedging (terms like “I think,” “what if,” “maybe,” or anything else used to soften a request or idea), and by using a relatively flat tone in speech, ending every sentence going down. 

• Confidence: this is communicated to a small extent by the words that we choose. To a much larger degree, this is communicated by our voice (do we sound nervous?) and our body language (do we look comfortable?). In general, think of making sentences shorter and more to the point, to avoid rambling or hedging), standing with open posture, and speaking with power behind your voice.

• Assertive Communication > Passive Communication: typically, any business will tend to encourage passive communication from subordinates and aggressive communication from the top. This allows the business to be controlled by a certain set of people. Any markers of communication that demonstrate that the person is trying to accommodate others’ needs at their own expense is therefore seen as “unexecutive.” If trying to “meet people halfway,” determine how to make a “win-win” situation rather than making concessions. Worry more about being seen as passive than being seen as aggressive.

Outside of a list of features of speech to change, here are some general tips and tricks to help you get a definition of executive presence from your manager:

• Ask your manager for an example of someone in your workplace who they believe has a fantastic “executive presence.” Ask what it is that this person does so well.

• Ask your manager for advice about how they managed to develop an executive presence.

• Ask your manager for specific examples of moments when you sounded less-than-executive. 

Some people benefit from an outside eye and coaching in order to develop an executive presence.

To book an appointment with one of our registered speech-language pathologists, you can call us at 697-795-5277 or book your initial consultation using the link below.