¶ Executive Presence
Hello and welcome to the Art of Communication podcast with me , robin Kermode . Have you ever wished you could become a confident speaker or presenter ? Then why not join my online masterclass Speak so your Audience Will Listen . In 10 easy-to-follow modules , you can become a confident and authentic speaker . For more information , visit robincurmodecom .
Hello and welcome to the Art of Communication podcast . I'm here with Robin Kermode . Hello , you and I were chatting the other day and I asked you what are you most asked to train or teach at the moment ? The current favorite topic and you said Executive presence .
what are you ?
most asked to train or teach at the moment . The current favorite topic .
And you said Executive presence .
So that's what we're going to talk about today . Robin , tell me what it is , because I think it's quite elusive .
It's a kind of X factor that you feel . You see it in people you can hear it when you listen to them and you just think they have this thing , this X factor , this executive presence , as businesses now call it . It is the most common thing that businesses ask me to coach . Now . These are very senior people on the X-Co .
So this is all about leadership , is it ?
It's a leadership style . It's how to look , sound and feel like a leader in the modern world .
Right , and executive presence then means when you walk in a room . What do you feel ? Yes , I know , Literally , what is that vibe that they give off ?
Well , it's a careful balance , isn't it ? Because if somebody comes in with a puffed out chest , they have their chin too high and they're swanning around looking down on everyone . That is somebody who is trying to look like they're important .
And I've noticed , if they're that kind of character , they don't catch your eye or they do , but it's very disdainful , like what are you doing ?
here it is .
I think it's got something to do with . They think that causing fear is executive presence . You walk in a room and people are fearful of you , but that's not what it is .
No , and also those kinds of people make it all about them . Yes , that's why they don't have executive presence . So executive presence is essentially if you put it into one phrase , I think it's you make other people feel safe around you .
Part of that is making them feel special , and we can look at all the various points of it , but actually it's about making people feel safe around you so that in a crisis , you want to follow them . In normal times , you want to be on the winning team , so you like them .
Or in my respect . What is it ?
Well , it can be like lots of different styles of leadership aren't there ? There are some who are terrifying and everyone's terrified of them . I'm not sure that's the best .
No , like I said , I don't think fear is .
No , but it is some people's style . It's certainly not what I would teach . But in terms of executive presence , I think you want probably to like the person , but also you want them to see you , so you want them to be impressed by you , so you want to work hard so they notice you and they give you that affirmation .
Is that a kind of parent-child relationship ? It is a little bit .
It is a little bit yeah , because actually certainly in crisis people want to be led . We don't want chaos . Crisis management is slightly different , but even then we want someone with executive presence .
Okay , so what would you teach a client asking for training in executive presence ? What do you think the key elements are ? I'm assuming you can learn this ability to have executive presence .
Well , you would hope so , Otherwise I don't have a job . Yeah , If I'm talking to say leadership and development or talent development or HR , and they say we have a senior leader here , we feel he or she needs to have more executive presence in the role they have .
Maybe they have a team of 10,000 people in their team and it's a big number of people you have to inspire and there's all sorts of ways you can connect with them .
You can't meet them all because there's 10,000 of them , but maybe you have to do a series of videos , Maybe you have to have a series of roadshows , but all those interactions , whether it's meeting them over coffee or on a stage , we have to find a way to connect with them and make them feel special , make them feel safe .
Yeah .
So when I'm working with somebody and HR say to me , what will you do , I said well , I don't know until I meet them , because everyone has different challenges . Most people , if they've got to senior positions in business , they will have a lot of the right tools , otherwise they wouldn't have got there .
And I think it's just a chance to stand back with somebody external who can say look , I think what you're doing here is great , but you could be misinterpreted if you do what you're doing there and I think you're missing a trick over here .
But we can go through all the menu , as it were , that's required for executive presence , because it's a makeup of lots of things . As you said at the beginning , it's an X factor , it's a montage of things .
I just imagine , when we're talking about executive presence , that you can teach it , because everything that you're talking about safety , confidence and trust is something that we've talked about before on these podcasts and it can be taught .
It can be taught , and sometimes on a good day , often we do these things . I mean on a personal level , sian , I mean I think you have executive presence and I would say that not just because you're my wife , but I would say that generally and you do have it . I know you do have it because I've seen you run organizations .
What in the kitchen telling you what to do ? No , no .
I've seen you running organizations and you're brilliant , but do you think you've grown that or do you think you always had some executive presence ?
No , I'm not sure that the way you're describing it is something that I would necessarily recognize in myself . I do know that you know I'll have an idea or I'll think strategically about something , and what I really , truly want is the others to come on board . You see , what I'm all about is listening to a number of different perspectives .
And then making a decision .
And then making a decision . I think it's really important . I think , if you try and impose your view on an organization that sometimes people mistake that for leadership . You definitely go into the discussion with a view .
Yes , definitely , but you have to have listened to a lot of different perspectives , and I'm going to say particularly the young perspective , because so much is changing in the world today , and I think the younger generation really , truly understand it .
So lean in , listen to that , listen to all the perspectives and then show some leadership about what you're going to carry out , but make sure that you've brought everybody along with you , you will have come across people .
They ask a question but they're not really listening , Always , always . And I think also there are other people who act listening . In fact , they're just waiting for their next chance to come in .
Definitely . I would say that's a characteristic of every board meeting or town hall or whatever .
For listening , yes .
But then from my perspective you can kind of forgive them , Because in a way , quite often a leader has a million things to be thinking about while speaking , while listening .
But I think that brings up something that is interesting . I think that people with executive presence are present , and I've been with very senior leaders , you know , and you go up to the maybe the I don't know the 14th floor of some office block and as you get higher and higher it gets quieter and quieter because there's more strategy being decided .
But when I've sat with CEOs on the top floor , often they will say , robin , can I get you a coffee ? They will actually pour the coffee rather than sitting there snapping their fingers and ordering somebody to get them a coffee or get me a coffee . The very fact that they do that . They have a bit of humility and they're very good hosts .
But in the 20 minutes I'm with them or the two hours I'm with them whatever 100% there . They're not constantly checking their phone . They generally would have an assistant who would come in and tell them the meeting's over so that they can relax about timing .
But they are 100% listening and I suspect that what they do is when they finish my meeting they go on to the next meeting . They're 100% into that one and they seem to manage to compartmentalize very well .
I see what you're saying be present in the meeting , and that shows respect , frankly . So let's just add to that list right Bit of a daisy chain here . Tell us what else you need .
Well , if we look at just the person themselves , there's the voice , the body language , the language they use , the way their mind works , the eye contact . There's all that .
So all the basics of communication , so all the basics of communication .
But the basis of all that is to make the other person feel safe , make them feel special . So to do that , we have to build trust . We have to be consistent so they know what they're going to get . We have to be clear in our messaging .
I think a lot of people with executive presence are essentially kind , right , they're generous with their comments , they are physically calm , as we've said . They're also unafraid of difficult conversations . They're unafraid of looking at the elephant in the room and I think they're also approachable .
They don't have to have a door open policy because they may have too many in their team , but I think they are generally approachable . The other thing I think that , above everything , is they have to have a lot of energy . Maybe stamina is a better word , but they have to have a lot of stamina .
Maybe stamina is a better word , right , but they have to have a lot of stamina because these are long days . Everyone will understand this , that if you're in a very senior position , you're probably going to start with breakfast meetings going right through to dinners in the evening . These are long , long days and you can't come in being grumpy one day .
No , because this element of consistency goes out the window if you do that .
Do you know what ? I think that's true because I've worked places where I feel that the very senior person or people are inconsistent , you actually have to check with their PA first .
How are they ?
today . How are they today ? It's terrible . And you do want consistency , yeah , you do . Now that consistency can be that you know they're a tough egg . That's fine . But that's fine as long as you know what you're going to get . I think that does inspire people .
But , robin , the one thing you haven't mentioned and maybe this is the consequence of all the things you've mentioned is how do they command attention ? You once said to me you know an executive leader walks into a room and there's 10% more bubble of energy in the room because they've walked in . Is that because of everything you've said ?
How do you actually command attention ?
Well , a very funny example of this is the local restaurant we go to here . There's a lovely Spanish restaurant just down the road from us and it's one that Rafael Nadal goes to , because it's a Spanish restaurant . It's his favorite restaurant , so at Wimbledon time they fill it with tennis balls and things in the windows and he comes in .
When he walks in there , obviously he's recognisable he's Nadal . We all love him and he's a nice guy . But there's something about the expression on his face . He's looking at everybody , he catches everyone's eye , as if to say you know , good evening .
He doesn't have to say it , he just does it with a little nod and a smile , but on his face it's a kind of okay , now the party can get started and he has this kind of it's a lovely energy that he brings
¶ Leadership and Executive Presence
in .
So executive presence isn't about celebrity . Is that what you're hinting at ? Or it's a bit of celebrity ?
In that case , of course , it's different , because we are projecting onto him . He walks in and we go oh my goodness me , that's Rafael Nadal . So we're , in a sense , adding to his status .
But he has executive presence .
But he has it anyway the way you've described it .
this sports person has it the way you describe it trust , humility , total humility , communication team player . You know he's got it all .
Yes , and there was a lovely story with him actually on when he got to the final of tennis tournaments in London . He asked the tournament director the night before . He said can I have 10 extra tickets for the final ? He said they're for the 10 Spanish waiters at the Spanish restaurant . Fantastic . So again he's a team player .
So what then can you teach an executive , just digging into this a little bit , from a sports personality ? So sports personalities do have executive presence , as well as physical strength and prowess and awards , and they also have bad days .
They have days when they have a headache . They're feeling a bit run down .
They're tired , they're bored . Oh , but you just said an executive presence means you can't have a bad day .
No , I'm saying but therefore , of course , but they will still have those days , but you find a way of coping it . So even on a day when they're feeling a bit low , they walk into the restaurant going part of my job in a way . So part of the job of a celebrity is to be their team , feel valued . Yeah , On every day , every day .
Can I ask you another question , just veering off slightly here what is the benefit of having executive presence taught to your senior leaders ? Because that might help us get to the answer of what it means to be a good executive .
I think a lot of businesses will always have wanted their leaders to be good leaders . So you break it down and think well , what is a good leader ? Well , part of it is understanding the strategy , it's building the right team and these kind of things . But also how they communicate , how they come across , is important .
I think in the past , charisma has been misinterpreted as executive presence . But charisma is about look at me , it's about having a sort of a star quality in a sense .
Maybe there's an element of that Well , yes , there is , but especially when you're out fundraising for the company you know you want somebody who's charismatic and people want to listen to , but it is different to executive presence . I know and I think the executive presence is about propelling the company forward .
So it's all about de-risking the company , because it means that you can feel confident in the leadership , that they will bring people along with them yes , where the company is going . And so I think executive presence must lead to a more successful company .
And it will lead to leaders having a clear vision and being able to .
I've got this image that , let's say , if you're working in a technology company , especially a new startup , everybody's got headphones on and they're just clicking away at their computers and they're building something amazing that will change the world . But do they have executive presence ?
The people who have started those companies and are starting to fundraise and build and build , and build ? If you look at the big people , you've got Mark Zuckerberg and Musk and all these people . Yes , have they got executive presence ? Or is it charismatic ?
Well , they're certainly charismatic because they're entrepreneurs so most entrepreneurs who have an idea and they're propelled by this idea and they're treble mortgaging their house to get it all up . So their buy-in for their idea is huge . So they probably have some sort of charismatic presence to bring people along with them . They're not necessarily great leaders .
Yeah , exactly . They're often one-man bands that now have lots of people , so they then have to bring other people to bring in the processes and everything else . But once you get to a certain level , you can't just have a charismatic one-man band leader , because you have to have somebody .
Because the company stalls , because everything has to go through that .
Yes , and the funnel is too small and you have to have well as you know , sian , you've been a COO so the processes in a larger company have to be set there and the executive presence is someone who can bring all those processes in , but not give people a straitjacket , so they feel they have autonomy and they feel they have energy , they can come up with
ideas within a framework . There's a very good analogy I came up with a few years ago sorry , I'm praising myself here , but I think it's a very good analogy of a vet . So if you take a wounded animal or an animal that's ill to a vet , the animal is probably in pain or nervous in some sense and they're taken to an unfamiliar environment .
So you take them out of the cage the cat or the dog and you put them up on the table . Now the vet has to hold the animal firm enough so that it doesn't look tentative and nervous , because if it's tentative and nervous the animal will pick it up and they'll want to run away .
And if it's too firm , they'll feel controlled and they'll feel nervous and want to run away .
So there's a really fine balance of holding an animal firmly enough so they feel safe , but not they feel nervous or controlled , and I think that's for me what executive presence is it's holding all your team firmly enough so they feel safe , but not too firm that they feel they're being controlled .
What before you put the needle in them ?
Well , no , no , we're not going to do the needle bit .
No , no , no . That's really interesting . So just on that vein , where have you seen good executive leadership in your daily life ? Don't name names . You don't have to name names .
No , I can't name names , of course , but one of the best examples was a very large international company I was working with and the CEO very famous man in this case he happened to be tall . I think sometimes height can help but I know lots of people with executive presence who are not tall , but this man happened to be about six foot two .
He wasn't a giant but he was tall . He was very recognizable , very famous . I was with him in the lift . Another of his colleagues came in the lift . Now I could see on this man's face that he was thinking that's the big boss and I've got 30 seconds .
I was trying to impress him in some way and I could see the boss looked at him and he knew exactly what was going on . So he reached out his hand , he said oh , hello , I'm . And he gave him his name and of course the employee said well , of course I know who you are . And he said now , what are you working on now ?
And he said well , we're working on this particular project . The ceo said I've heard about that . That's wonderful , very good , have a great afternoon . That guy will go home and tell his partner , his children , everything .
He's met this big boss because the boss is very famous and I think that moment of um being 30 seconds in the lift was spreading the love , as it were , was executive presence .
Yeah , and showing interest .
Showing interest . You made the person feel special caring that employee will do anything for it .
Yeah , I had a similar situation when I was being shown around a new shopping mall . It hadn't opened yet , huge one in London . I was so excited . I love looking around buildings that haven't yet opened to the public . I was walking with the CEO . He knew everybody on site . He knew everybody's name Watcher , how are you ? Hello , mate ?
You could see that those people would follow him to the end of the earth because he knew who they were and they sometimes even knew their families .
Took a genuine interest .
Oh no , he absolutely was totally genuine about it . Like you say , he was kind , he was a nice man .
And he's building a team .
And he's building a team . But then I saw him deliver a difficult message ie , we're not on schedule , buck up . And he delivered that too in such a way that people didn't feel told off . They just thought , oh , I let him down .
Yes , exactly , I let him down and I don't want to let him down , and our bigger purpose is where the whole company is going , and so everyone's aligned to that bigger purpose , because at some stage he has outlined that .
Yeah , I wonder if we could do some analogies with other types of executives politicians , military leaders or anything like that . Do they need executive peasants ?
Well , they do . I'll tell you a story . When I was a young actor I was about , say , 23 , 24 , and I was doing a training film for the British Army we had to do this exercise where there were 10 people in a room and you had to say all right , listen up , team , this is the plan , this is what we're going to do .
Off , we go Over the hill , no-transcript panic in this , and you're going to get us all shot . Except we weren't going to get shot . It was an exercise , but I thought that's not how to do 29 . And he came in and he showed really good executive present leadership skills . And I was only 24 and I watched him , thinking you've really nailed this .
He was clear , he was kind and he was in the eye , the men and the women , one , two , all the way around . And when he'd done that he said ladies and gentlemen , he was respectful . He didn't say listen up , you people .
Then he said in two minutes , this half of the room will leave from this door and this half of the room will leave from this door and in seven minutes we'll have captured the castle . Let's go . All of us followed him and he went stop . We all stopped and he said you're all following me and I haven't told you what we're doing . It was extraordinary .
The only thing I learned from him is that he wasn't loud . He wasn't loud , he wasn't all on transmit , but it was very clear . And obviously this is crisis management stuff , but still it was respectful , it was clear , it was kind , it was quiet .
I don't have anything like that , but I remember when the pandemic hit , I was in a chief operating officer role at the time and I remember somebody coming in and saying look , this has just happened . I've just seen this announcement . You know , we've been watching it . We knew it was building up , but something significant had happened .
And I called everybody together into a room and I thought the most important thing I can do right now is not panic but have a plan , give everybody a task and a time limit to say , right , we need to check that everybody has got a laptop and all the cables they need to work from home . We need to check they have all the software that they need .
We need to check the protocols for the office and clearly define whether people could come into the office at all and , if so , when . We needed to just suddenly and quickly , within an hour or two , put together the operation plan .
And that made people feel safe ? Presumably , I think so .
They all ran off to do their respective jobs and I said I'll meet you back here in an hour and a half and I want all to be reported and then somebody to write it all down and then we'll action it .
Great , but they were focused , so there was a clear focus , yeah .
The only thing I remember thinking going into that room is everything in my head , which was ah , don't in any way articulate that ?
No , that's right .
Because they're feeling all that .
They're feeling that . I remember once I was coaching the global head of risk for one of the biggest banks in the world , and so I go along to meet this client . So we're in the room and I said oh , you know , very nice to see you . How's your day going so far ? And he said well , not the best day , robin .
He said our entire computer system for Asia has just gone down .
Not great .
And I said well , look , we can reschedule if you need to . He said Robin . He said I've made a call . My job is to build a team . When stuff happens , I inform the team . They do it . He said we'll go out for lunch and I said how can you be so calm ?
He said Robin , he laughed , he said I can't get on my hands and knees with a screwdriver and fix it . Yeah , you do . And he said if I phone up my direct report every five minutes , I'm actually getting in the way . So he said we expect stuff to happen . We have plans to mitigate it . They've been put in place .
You and I will go out for lunch and I remember thinking that's very cool . I know I would be on my hands and knees with a screwdriver trying to fix it .
Okay . So what we really saying here is that , like you said at the top of the podcast , it's an X factor , it's intangible , but I think we've pretty much broken down the different elements of it . So do you say to people that you're training to have executive presence ? Do you say , try and demonstrate , or do these different elements every day ?
Do you ?
say practice them . Which would you point to be the most important that we've talked about ?
Well , as we said earlier , it is a mix and a menu of all sorts of things . To make it up , you can't just say this is what executive presence is , because it's a combination of many , many factors . On a good day , we can often do a lot of these things .
What we have to do to make it consistent for us , so that we come across consistently , is we have to practice them
¶ Developing Executive Presence Through Daily Habits
every day . So I would say , consciously , think about your intention when you walk into a room . Think about what your voice is doing , think about what your body is doing , your eye contact Are you listening well ? Are you asking enough questions ? Are you humble enough ? Are you building trust ? Are you building a team ? Is your messaging really clear ?
Yeah , you can practice those every day .
Are ? Are you building a team ? Is your messaging really clear ? Yeah , you can practice those every day . Are you kind enough ? Are you generous enough ? Do you praise people enough ?
And I think if we do all those things on a regular basis , they become a habit and then you don't walk into them thinking , oh , I have to remember these 10 things to do Because we constantly do them . They just become how we are .
And then , when that becomes how we are , then we do look , feel and sound like a leader and hopefully we have executive presence .
Excellent , excellent . I will start doing that every day .
Well , you have a lot of it , and it's really important to remember that most of us do have a lot of these things . I haven't come up with new things here . It's just that having a balance of all those things in the right way , the right mix , is what creates executive presence .
Brilliant , brilliant . Thank you so much , robin .
Well , thank you , sian Great . Have you ever wished you could become a confident speaker or presenter ? Then why not join my online masterclass Speak so your Audience Will Listen . In 10 easy to follow-follow modules , you can become a confident and authentic speaker . For more information , visit robincomercom .