This is Part III of a four-part series. Read Part I and Part II here.
It was the annual performance review meeting. I sat across the table from my boss - an executive who had always been vocal about meritocracy and integrity being the measures of leaders - pen in hand and notebook opened in front of me. I had been in what was often referred to as a middle management position for several years. Having delivered stellar business performances working across multiple functions in the last year, to say I was only hoping for some indication of a promotion at this meeting would be an understatement.
We started with the usual MBO (Management By Objective) numbers set at last year’s performance review. The results dwarfed the goals set a year ago; meritocracy - checked. We then moved to team feedback, peer review, and leader recommendations. All received raving remarks; integrity - affirmed.
But the topic of promotion never came up and the meeting was approaching its end. The person for the next appointment was already lurking outside the office door, and my boss was starting to collect his laptop accessories. I finally summoned enough courage and brought up the subject of promotion.
“Oh, you are not ready for the next level yet.” That answer came out quickly as if he had been anticipating the question.
”What should I be working on to get ready?” I pressed, sensing he was not going to elaborate any further.
“You need to work on your executive presence.” With that, he closed his laptop signaling the conclusion of the meeting.
Executive presence? The compliant Asian American immigrant in me who was brought up in a culture insisting on humility being a virtue, wrote down “EXECUTIVE PRESENCE” in block letters on the blank note page with the pen that felt warm from being held for too long. And the gritty, hard-working business leader in me who could recognize non-sense from a mile away, screamed silently: Executive presence, you mean I need to be white and put on a suit?!
I walked out of that meeting room, deflated and tired.
Perform a Google search on Executive Presence, you will find pages of presentation links, from institutions like MIT and Harvard to Forbes and BetterUp; along with advertisements from executive coaching services to books by authors from different fields . Bard, Google’s AI-based chat BOT even helps to summarize the main characteristics of executive presence and tips to improve it - here is the direct quote of a Bard inquiry result:
Here are some of the key characteristics of executive presence:
Confidence: People with executive presence are confident in their abilities and decisions. They speak with authority and conviction, and they project a sense of calm and control.
Poise: People with executive presence are poised and self-assured. They maintain eye contact, they stand up straight, and they move with confidence.
Communication skills: People with executive presence are clear and concise communicators. They can articulate their ideas effectively, and they are able to persuade and influence others.
Physical appearance: Physical appearance can also play a role in executive presence. People who are well-groomed and dress appropriately are often seen as more credible and trustworthy.
Here are some tips for improving your executive presence:
Work on your confidence. The more confident you are, the more others will be confident in you.
Practice good communication skills. Learn how to speak clearly and concisely, and how to articulate your ideas effectively.
Dress for success. Make sure your appearance is appropriate for the occasion.
Be mindful of your body language. Stand up straight, make eye contact, and avoid fidgeting.
Project a positive attitude. Be enthusiastic and positive, and people will be more likely to be drawn to you.
It is all about the need to project your confidence, the need to talk well, and look good.
Executive: an important person who is responsible for making things run smoothly in an organization. Its Medieval Latin origin exsequi, means “carry out,” and so an executive carries out plans and actions.
Presence: the state of existing, being in a place, and making a strong impression on others. Its Latin origin praesentia means “being at hand”.
So, Executive Presence is about how a person who is responsible for an organization *looks* to others.
If the emphasis of Executive Presence is focused on the *presence*, how much weight, if any, should it carry when it comes to evaluating a leader? In fact, I can’t help wondering why it is even a key qualification for a leader in a senior position.
Do you know any business terms coined for the actual *running* of the organization and business results for executives? Nothing came to my mind …
I noticed something absent in the long list of the AI generated summary on executive presence: there was no mention of being kind and inspiring, of being authentic and honest, and of standing behind your commitment and delivering the result of your aspiration. Shouldn’t these be the very definition of a leader and measurements for any executive?
I can’t tell you what was in my boss’s mind when he thought of someone with executive presence. But I can tell you what had been in my mind - a middle-aged white male dressed in a business suit. Why? Because that was what I saw in most of the meetings I attended. That was a simple fact and a persuasive image in one’s subconscious. And for a very long time, I had an actual name and figure to make that elusive executive presence real. I will just call him Charlie.
Charlie was a director. He must have been in his mid-40s when I first met him. Above average height with a baritone voice, and while not heavy, he had the body figure that fully embodied a well-tailored business suit. Speaking of which, I had never seen him in any other type of outfit in the few years we worked together. Once, a fellow new manager marveled how Charlie was someone with the natural personality of an executive, because “when he walks in a room and starts to talk, the entire room, including those on remote video, immediately knows who the boss is.” What Charlie possessed, must be the elusive executive presence.
What then happens when someone looks different than Charlie stands up? For one, she needs to dress professionally, but appropriately - a balancing act qualifies as a form of art; she needs to be heard, but not too loud - not that she can be quoted as “yelling”; she needs to be unafraid to have her perspectives, but not emotional - God forbid if she needs to raise her voice in disagreement and repeat herself; she needs to be aggressive about achieving her goals, but not making anyone who wants to maintain the status quo feel threatened.
Anything else you care to add to this list?
We may cry foul, but it is what we are up against if how we look and who we are have not been seen in more than 50% of the executive roles, and for as many (if not more) years as males have been dominating the business executive playing field. As long as leaders are seeking to project their inner qualities and execution capability by how they look and how they talk, there is always going to be a certain “model” we are held up against and compared to, and the scale is never going to tip to our advantage.
I am looking forward to the day when the word “executive presence” is uttered, an image of a woman of color emerges. She presents strategy with execution plan; she sets goals and delivers results; she emits decisive confidence and the warmth of caring; and she may be dressed in a business suit, a dress, or a T-shirt showcasing her arms with body art … How she looks (or sounds) does not matter a bit to her status of a deserving leader.
Read the final part of this series here.
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Rather than expand the definition of "executive presence," this is one of those terms that is so laden with bias that I would love to see us all just.... scrap it. It exists for the purpose of gatekeeping those positions for people whose confidence far outweighs their competence.
It is also worth noting that many of the things Bard listed are deeply ableist.
When I could still be part of those kinds of organizations, I watched so many people, especially women of color, work so hard to figure out what those words mean and how to embody them, at the expense of their authentic leadership skills and more importantly of their energy. I feel like I wasted much of my own life trying to fit myself in to their ideas of non-threatening competence as well, to the detriment of myself and others. It's infuriating!
I will never forget one incident, where a friend of mine who is a Black woman was keeping an entire small company afloat underneath wildly incompetent leadership. The CEO was so bad at his job that the board had hired someone to do the technical parts for him so he could just be a bumbling figurehead without completely crashing the ship. To keep the company financially solvent with all their new expenses (including a whole new CEO-buddy & his salary), they increased my friend's revenue targets drastically without increasing her resources to achieve those numbers. And somehow... she did it. Then it became clear that the CEO was going to be asked to step down, and they needed to replace him. But when she talked to leadership about what her path forward at the company could look like, they told her, simply, that she was not "CEO material."
I don't know anyone who's ever tried to fit in corporate worlds who doesn't have many of these stories. They're not always this explicit or obvious to point out in specific incidents, but the evidence of discrimination is always right there.
The bottom line is, if you cannot explain exactly what a standard means, what it looks like in terms of results, and how someone can achieve it, that standard is exposed as inherently discriminatory, because it cannot be applied equally to members of all groups.
But if you were to actually explain what "executive presence" means in detail, it would also become immediately clear that it IS a tool for discrimination.
So I don't think about "executive presence." When I think about what it looks like to be a leader, I see people from a wide range of bodies and backgrounds who know how to hold space for the mission and everyone who is on it. Most of them are women of color, or disabled, or marginalized in some other ways that have forced them to learn how to demand what they need in this world. Their confidence comes from knowledge, conviction, relationships, their ability to listen, and their ability to speak truth to power.
These leaders can't always maintain eye contact, sometimes their voices shake, and they might need to fidget quite a lot in order to stay present in a room where their humanity is called into question. They might be in bodies that are ALWAYS deemed inappropriate or untrustworthy -- fat bodies, Black bodies, visibly disabled bodies, small bodies, bodies with skin and hair that doesn't fit notions of whiteness, bodies that don't fit into suits or can't sit still. But they know how to take up space and how to make space for others. And when it comes to presence, the kind of presence that empowers us to get things done, that's all that really matters.
This is so telling. I recently read Interior Chinatown which lays a lot out so well