When I made the vaunted jump from the top of middle management to the lowest rung of leadership, I asked one of my bosses what I could do to prepare, other than hold on tight. It’s no secret I’m a big book guy, so I was delighted when Sylvia Ann Hewitt’s Executive Presence 2.0 was suggested as something I could take a gander at to better understand how to uplevel my presence in the room.
Because it appears, dear reader, that being smart, loud, and funny may be enough to gain a leadership position, but it’s not enough to keep progressing in that arena. [Ed.’s note: The author is, in order of the above descriptors, kind of, very, and moderately - depending on the crowd and their level of inebriation.] Hewitt lays out what leaders need to up their presence and how to get there.
The Big Three
The book has a “2.0” at the end of it, as it is the second iteration of Hewlett’s dive into executive presence, or EP for short. She first tackled this topic in 2012, and revisited it in 2022 thanks to the paradigm shifts that took place in Western societies between the end of Obama’s first term and the middle of Uncle Joe’s first crack at it.
What Hewlett found in both deep dives was that three pillars remained the foundation of executive presence: Gravitas (or, how you act), Communication (or, how you speak), and Appearance (or, how you look.) The good news is the more mutable of the two (gravitas and communication) make up much more of the equation - 67% and 28%, respectively - than appearance, which, while it only makes up 5% can also make achieving the other two a steeper uphill battle than necessary.
Is that fair? Absolutely not. But like I tell my toddlers when they can’t have dessert for dinner, neither is life, and we have to manage it somehow.
Gravitas: How You Act
Gravitas may feel like a relatively esoteric concept; it’s not nearly as tangible a characteristic as, say, communication or appearance. But it makes up more than two-thirds of the executive presence equation, according to Hewlett’s research, so it’s crucial to master.
While gravitas as a whole may seem abstract, it can be broken down into more concrete variables. The top three traits that sit within gravitas are Confidence, Decisiveness, and Integrity, in that order. I like to envision Confidence as the main building, being buttressed by decisiveness and integrity.
If you’re decisive but don’t have the confidence to back it up, no one will follow you as a leader. If you have high integrity but waffle on key decisions, people will lose confidence in your abilities. And if you’re confident without being the person making key decisions and the integrity and knowledge to back them up, you will be seen as a fraud (justifiably.)
There is a lot to be said about “faking it til you make it,” and this newsletter would be lying if the author said they have not used this tactic in the past. But there is a key difference between making a bet on oneself and straight-up being a fraud. The former is about taking a calculated risk in good faith, knowing you’ll very likely be able to back it up in the future. The second is about knowing you have little to no chance of delivering on something, but portraying yourself as the person to do it anyway. It is crucial to know the difference (in yourself, and in those around you.)
Communication: How You Speak
We all know that the foundation of human social development - both professionally and personally - is communication. Commanding a room (a key portion of this EP characteristic) is an absolute must, and the good news is that any level - from juniors to leaders - can do it. The rooms may change, but the skills to command them are relatively static.
You need to speak well - and this can mean a lot of things, and can also be a loaded directive. Hewlett relays a story about her experience navigating elite British universities with a working-class Welsh accent. Now our friends across the pond can be a bit snooty when it comes to these class markers, but we’d be lying to ourselves if we said we didn’t have a similar issue in the States, if not more subtle than our British brethren. (There is a reason my mother insisted on training my regional accent out of me as a child, even if it could have had other benefits for me later in life.)
In a globalized economy, accents are less of a negative variable than they were in our parents’ generation. Given the diversity of quality talent in Western economies, if someone is judging someone else on their accent, they’re more likely to be the one shortchanged than the accented individual they are biased against.
But communication - especially with the ubiquity of hybrid working tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams - is more crucial for EP. Just like you need to tailor your leadership style depending on the situation, you also need to be able to quickly read a room and land on a communication approach in order to command it. This presence is crucial to helping drive your gravitas and becomes a virtuous cycle into confidence and decisiveness. Gravitas is the substance; communication is the vehicle.
Appearance: How You Look
While it may only make up 5% of executive presence, per Hewlett, your appearance still has an effect on how you show up at work, whether you mean it to or not. The good news is that the number one trait for appearance is the most mutable: polish. You don’t need to look like a professional athlete in a tailored suit in order to be polished: it can be as simple as taking a shower and running a comb through your hair.
Of course, there are other traits that are more luck than ability, like physical attractiveness (though this is in the eye of the beholder), and being tall. But the good news is these all trail “polish” as traits, which is fully in control of a leader. So get a nice comb, research a skincare routine, and press your shirts - boom: you’re already halfway there.
These Traits Mean Different Things for Different People
And herein lies the most unfair aspect of executive presence in general: the exact same behavior conducted by different people is often interpreted differently. A white male who enters a room and talks strongly and directly to others can be seen as strong and in command, whereas a woman can do the same thing and be labeled a bitch.
Women and people of color have a lot of considerations when it comes to professional behavior that white men simply do not have to think about, and the way that I read this book as a cisgender white male is likely very different than the way a black or Latino colleague or a female colleague might approach it.
Which brings up another aspect of executive presence that is touched on in the book: authenticity. I personally did not feel comfortable being fully authentic at work until a few years ago: once I had a good amount of experience under my belt and I was no longer a junior employee, but more into middle management where I had more political capital, did I let people see more of “the real Matt.”
That’s great for someone like me (not so much those around me all the time), but there are plenty of folks who never fully feel comfortable being their authentic selves in the office. Code-switching has been studied (and seems to be gaining more understanding in American culture), and while it may be a way to fit in at work, it’s also psychologically exhausting. The book addresses the differences in approaching EP for plenty of folks (this newsletter will not pretend to know the best way to approach this outside of its own limited lived experience.)
The Final Grade
For those entering leadership, those looking to upskill their presence in important meetings, or those in middle management looking for a challenge and some growth opportunities, Executive Presence 2.0 certainly fits the bill. This post is a very condensed summary, as one of the best parts of the book is Hewlett’s sprinkling of use cases and deep dives into certain leaders throughout the book - showing both what to do and what to avoid.
Book Grab Bag Section
The Notecard
125 hz as a soothing frequency - The idea that certain frequencies of sound have certain health properties is not new, and the 125 hertz range has been called out for anyting from easing muscle pain to helping with bipolar disorder. It’s important to note that there is no scientific evidence for the hypothesis of sounds as a healing medium by itself, but it can’t hurt when paired with meditation.
Marzipan layer of management - I had never heard of this corporate setup - it refers to the layer of management just below the top executives. It’s unclear if it is simply the same as middle management, or just a lower level of leadership not quite at the top.
I usually like a good analogy for corporate structure, but this one is missing the mark for me. Maybe it’s too Euro-centric, maybe I don’t understand baking well enough (even though I’m a religious Great British Bake Off viewer, which should cover both items), but I don’t think this will be entering the TDNBW lexicon anytime soon.
Emotional Intelligence - Goldman - A bit of a typo here, as this is Daniel Goleman’s seminal work that brought emotional intelligence to the forefront of our collective consciousness back in 1995. It enjoyed a spot on the Times bestseller list for more than a year. Needless to say, if you want executive presence, you’re going to need both IQ and EQ.
Nonviolent communication - Rosenberg - Nonviolent communication, or NVC for short, is a psychotherapy technique that arose out of Marshall Rosenberg’s experiences in the Detroit race riots during WWII and the antisemitism he experienced in his life. It’s a way to be more empathetic with others and is not meant to solve arguments or make people find middle ground. To poorly sum the concept up, it’s a solid life norm we all could benefit from a refresher on: don’t be a dick.
Managing at eye-level - Derived from a Danish term that translates in English to this phrase, it essentially means that leaders are accessible to the full workforce and that there is a functional relationship between a leader and the rest of the team, no matter how junior an employee. It’s cited by Lego’s former CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp as one of the tactics that helped him turn the company around in the mid-aughts.
An approach like this tends to lean more on influence than hierarchy-derived power to get things done. Harder at the upfront, as the trust and respect need to be earned in order to drive action from influence, but certainly a worthy exercise if you’re looking for a happy, productive workforce in the long run.
Quotes
“Most complicated of all is the fundamental tension between conformity and authenticity. How much should you fit in? How much should you stand out? How much of the ‘real you’ are you prepared to sacrifice on the altar of success?” - The age-old question of how much of yourself to bring to work
“Having the responsibility without the authority would be comparable to being asked to hit a home run without a bat.” - Barbara Adachi on being given a role without the power to actually use it
“How can you trust a colleague to keep his eye on the big picture if he can’t keep his eye off his iPhone?” - A huge sign of disrespect is when you’re talking in a meeting and people are just glued to their phones; it’s a symptom of a much larger disease
“Two-way-door decisions—which comprise three out of every four decisions executives make—should be made with around 70 percent of the information you wish you had. If an executive waits for 90 percent, he or she will miss out on most opportunities. According to Bezos, when a leader can course-correct, being wrong is less costly than being slow. Tardiness is expensive in today’s world.” - This is where AI will have trouble keeping up; humans are meant to make low-information decisions. The smart ones remain open to changing course if the initial one turns out wrong.
“One of the interviewees (a senior executive at Ogilvy) told me, ‘Steve’s ouster was one thing; the clawback was something else entirely. It’s enough to keep you up at night.’” - In a book about executive presence and one that highlighted EQ, this was one of the most tone-deaf quotes throughout, and it was particularly embarrassing that it came from an ad exec. We’ve covered Steve Easterbrook’s ego problems on this newsletter before. Let’s be clear: the only people who should be personally concerned about Easterbrook’s clawback are people who are breaking the rules in similar ways that he did. This quote says a lot about the author of it, thinking Easterbrook was the victim (and not the architect) of his downfall.
“Slate’s viewpoint is that every high achiever has two or three identities that differentiate them and allow them to bring out-of-the-box insights and skill sets to the table.” - We briefly touched on this when discussing accents, but globalization has ushered in the need for people to bring new ideas and fresh perspectives to the table. If folks are spending time and energy suppressing what makes them unique, they may also be suppressing those differing viewpoints that are needed more than ever today.
See you in two weeks!