Executive Presence is BS
Earlier this summer I spent a week at the Cape Cod Institute in Orleans, MA. I was there for Dr. Amanda Blake’s course on Embodied Intelligence at Work: Leveraging Mind-Body Science to Enhance Professional Performance.
The course focused on techniques for accessing intelligence somatically, the kind that resides within us but south of the neckline. I knew that diving deep on this would help me better serve my clients, but as someone who has succeeded by mostly relying on informational knowledge, I knew it would benefit me as well.
The fact is, we move through life constantly scanning our environment, instinctively moving towards people and situations that make us feel good while moving away from people and situations that portend danger.
The crazy thing is we’re doing this scanning with our entire bodies, as if they were one big radar dish. Familiar phrases such as “gut instinct”, “pain in the neck”, and “broken heart” may be colloquialisms but they represent a truth that often goes unexamined. Our behavior is actually informed by a combination of physiology and interpretation – mind and body. Our north-of-neckline brain may seem to be dictating our actions or inactions, but that brain is actually taking its orders from the body as a whole.
This is why self-awareness – our ability to tap multiple sources of intelligence - is foundational to leadership and an evidence-based characteristic of outstanding leadership.
It is also a major contributor to presence which is the ability to simultaneously focus attention on ourselves and others. It’s a physical knowing of the world within us and around us, at a particular moment in time.
When we are fully present, we can manage the inner game that’s running our outer game.
So what’s with the term executive presence? Does it really matter if you are an executive or the others are executives? Do we really need that qualifier? Sure, it may imply that the situational stakes are higher but I will argue that as a term it’s both unnecessary and hugely unhelpful. Presence is simply how we show up, regardless of title or context.
I shared this perspective during a workshop I recently led for a group of senior account leaders at a well-known and highly-successful service organization, and I could see many of the participants instantly relax. To be successful they didn’t have to morph into a mythical creature, imbued with something called executive presence. They just had to be present, as themselves.
Knowing this doesn’t enable competence, of course. Cultivating presence takes practice and sometimes the support of meditation, yoga, bodywork, or coaching. In my own experience it has felt like learning to keep several china plates spinning in the air.
What would be possible if you felt comfortable, confident, and present through self-awareness the next time you find yourself in front of the head honchos – or you are the head honcho?