Executive Presence for Women Leaders: Why You Need it & How to Get It

Executive presence will benefit everyone who has reached a certain level in their career. In fact, it’s hard to move up to the highest levels of leadership without it. But for women, executive presence is especially crucial. Executive presence will be your secret weapon that allows you to break through the barriers you may face on your journey to success.

How executive presence for women will benefit their career

Why is executive presence important to your career success? When you have executive presence, your company will trust you to lead high-level teams and prestigious projects.

Executive presence is crucial for women at every career level:

• If you’re an up-and-coming leader, having executive presence will ensure others view you as a strong leader.
• If you’re a mid-career leader, executive presence will help you secure and excel in the high-level position you deserve.
• If you’re a top-level leader, executive presence will maximize what you achieve in that role.

It’s never too early to start developing executive presence—and it’s never too late.

Many companies are recognizing that having women on their leadership boards greatly enhances success. However, women remain underrepresented throughout the upper echelons of leadership, and often lack mentorship, these executive presence statistics show. Getting noticed for your abilities, being mentored and supported along the way, and getting high-level promotions still requires you to go above and beyond in order to prove yourself.

That’s deeply unfair, of course. But having executive presence will allow women to soar over those hurdles. And as you reach those upper levels, it will continue to make you a more effective leader.

How are women with executive presence perceived?

You may fear being perceived negatively when you exude executive presence. After all, women and men experience a double standard in the workplace: Men are lauded for qualities like toughness while women are sometimes considered bossy for displaying the same qualities. If that’s happening in your workplace culture, you can’t 100% control how others perceive you. However, as you develop the balanced range of qualities that make up executive presence—and begin getting increasingly more impressive results—people will have no choice but to recognize your leadership ability.

Keep in mind, too, that executive presence is not just about toughness. As mentioned, it’s made up of a balanced range of qualities, including empathy and compassion. You’ll also cultivate the charisma and influence that will strengthen your relationships and how others perceive you. And executive presence will support a wide range of leadership approaches, including servant leadership. A leader with executive presence exudes emotional intelligence and helps others develop their own leadership abilities, as I discuss in my book Executive Presence: Step into Your Power, Convey Confidence and Lead with Conviction. Such leaders serve as trusted mentors who shape their people’s growth. In short, women with executive presence appear commanding as well as charismatic and empathetic.

Strategies for women to cultivate a strong executive presence

How, then, can you begin developing executive presence? Here are some strategies I recommend. Ideally, you’ll work with an executive presence coach who will guide you through these steps.

1. Learn the competencies of executive presence.

   Use a good executive presence framework to understand this range of qualities and how they relate to one another. Then do a self-evaluation to gain a sense of where you stand for each one.

2. Get feedback on how others perceive you.

   Ask several colleagues to sit down with you to share input on how well you display the key qualities of executive presence. Keep in mind that they may not grasp what executive presence really means, so frame your questions around specific qualities that make up executive presence. Ask questions like, “How decisive am I when a big decision needs to be made?” and “Describe my level of confidence in group meetings.”

   • Consider having a coach help you conduct a full 360 evaluation, too. This will give you a richer understanding of how people in your organization perceive you.

3. List the executive presence qualities you most need to focus on.

   This is based on your self-evaluation and these feedback conversations. Circle the top three. For each one, now list three steps you could take to start displaying that quality. Then, for each of those three qualities, circle one step you’ll take this week. For instance, “Voice ideas boldly in meetings,” “Speak up at least three times in each meeting,” or “Start building a rapport with a colleague in another division” could each be a good place to start.

4. Now, engage in that behavior routinely, working to ramp it up.

   Voice your bold ideas without self-censoring; speak up at least five times in each meeting. As the new behavior becomes habit, choose another step to take in order to more fully radiate that quality.

Executive presence will be your competitive advantage as you move up the career ladder—or along whatever career trajectory you’ve designed for yourself. Now is the moment to begin, and throughout your career, executive presence for women will continue to enhance what you’re capable of achieving as a leader.

Cultivate executive presence to become a next-level leader. Contact Joel to launch an executive presence coaching program! If you want to conduct a corporate training program on executive presence, reach out to Joel for more details. You can also purchase his book for your employees, Executive Presence: Step into Your Power, Convey Confidence and Lead with Conviction.