How to build executive presence in 8 steps

A great leader empowers and encourages others. You can connect with colleagues, command attention when speaking, and offer guidance through difficult situations. In other words, you possess a strong executive presence. 

Executives must have the hard skills necessary to lead a company. However, these skills alone cannot guarantee success in the role. Your ability to communicate expertise, support employees, and maintain focus is critical. 

As you work to improve executive presence, you learn the key characteristics to lead a company or team more effectively, handle obstacles, and achieve your goals. Building an executive presence takes work, but you can develop the characteristics needed to become a leader. 

7 characteristics of executive presence 

Executive presence is your ability to be an effective leader by exhibiting traits like confidence, communication, and other leadership skills. These traits allow you to command respect and inspire confidence among your colleagues. Also referred to as the seven C’s of executive presence, these are the seven characteristics you should strive to achieve:

• Composure: This refers to a demonstrated ability to understand and manage emotions, express them, and maintain professionalism under intense stress.
• Confidence: A firm trust in your ideas, abilities, and choices, with the ability to accept feedback and pursue professional development, exhibits confidence. 
• Charisma: This personality trait is characterized by a warm and welcoming demeanor that invites close relationships between you and your colleagues. 
• Communication: You use clear language to express ideas, instructions, and feelings about the company or a project. 
• Credibility: Through consistency, coworkers learn they can trust and rely on you to follow through on your commitments in work-related situations. 
• Connection: You create space for colleagues to share ideas or express concerns, forging connection through honesty and authenticity. 
• Conciseness: This is the ability to share information and ideas efficiently, without confusion, while communicating clearly. 

These executive presence traits also fit within broader frameworks of leadership. Coqual, formerly known as the Center for Talent Innovation, cited three pillars of executive presence that encapsulate the seven traits listed above. 

• Gravitas: You demonstrate emotional intelligence and confidence in the workplace. You maintain professionalism through challenges. You also display integrity, showing employees and colleagues they can trust you. 
• Communication: You can both speak and listen well. While public speaking, you keep the audience’s attention. However, you also have strong active listening traits when someone else is speaking. Your good communication skills mean your words are clear and concise. 
• Appearance: This includes both your clothing and how you carry yourself, successfully balancing confidence with being approachable. You dress and act professionally. According to Coqual, appearance is a way to amplify your communication and gravitas characteristics. 

Coqual states that executive presence is 26% of what a leader needs to achieve the next level in their career. You can use these pillars to help determine which categories of executive presence you may need to improve. 

How to build executive presence in 8 steps

As you start building your executive presence, use these eight steps to help achieve leadership success and remain goal-oriented. 

Understand nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication includes signals, such as voice inflections or body language, that help express a speaker’s message and emotions. 

As a leader, try to identify an employee’s unspoken cues. For example, an employee might have a good idea for a team project, but they speak softly and avoid eye contact while sharing. It’s your responsibility to create a comfortable space for everyone to share their ideas, encourage each other, and foster career growth. 

Executive presence traits: Connection and composure

Practice clear communication

Excellent communication skills are an important leadership quality. Leaders convey their ideas and instructions clearly, concisely, and convincingly. That said, public speaking isn’t everyone’s strength. Luckily, it is a learned skill.

When speaking, focus on maintaining an even tone and pitch. Avoid talking too quickly and practice assertive communication. Try to facilitate employee discussions by asking questions to create conversation. Sometimes, you can find great ideas in these discussions. 

Executive presence traits: Communication, charisma, conciseness, and confidence

Cultivate confidence

When you’re leading a team or company, employees look to you for guidance. So you must be confident in your skills and decisions. However, it’s equally crucial to be humble. Accept constructive criticism and leave open space for employees to share their opinions. 

Confidence is a balancing act between a commitment to achieving goals and an openness to learning something new. You trust yourself and invite vulnerability in the work environment. Finally, as mentioned in the appearance pillar from Coqual, fashioning your physical appearance in a way that makes you feel good can help build confidence. 

Executive presence traits: Confidence, credibility, and composure

Seek feedback

A great strategy for achieving personal and professional growth is getting feedback from others. One of the benefits of feedback is that it spotlights areas for improvement. By welcoming input from employees, you show them that you value their ideas.

Try to get feedback from your employees, managers, and fellow leadership colleagues. Ask for their thoughts on what’s going well and how you can improve. Collect feedback in meetings or use surveys via email to keep comments anonymous. 

Executive presence traits: Connection and credibility

Be a good listener

A good listener gives the speaker their undivided attention. That means you put away your phone and turn off notifications to avoid interruptions when someone is talking. Nonverbal communication, such as angling your body toward the speaker and making eye contact, demonstrates quality listening skills. 

Active listening means you avoid thinking about what to say next while the person is still speaking. Instead, you listen to them entirely before formulating a response. This strategy ensures you hear everything they have to say. You listen without judgment, ask questions, and validate a speaker’s vulnerability or ideas. 

Executive presence traits: Connection and charisma

Learn to manage stress

In difficult situations, employees seek a leader’s guidance for next steps or to understand how they should feel about a situation. It’s critical to manage your stress in all types of situations. Not only does good stress management support your well-being, but it also demonstrates emotional maturity for employees. 

You can also foster a workplace that honors employees’ mental well-being. Incorporate stress relief offerings into your company or team and teach employees easy mindfulness activities. You can also encourage employees to ask for help when they’re stressed. By doing this, you’re cultivating a work environment that helps everyone maintain composure.

Executive presence traits: Composure

Be bold

Being a leader is knowing how to take risks. These are moments when you see an opportunity to suggest an innovative idea or take on a new, difficult project. You strategically place yourself in growth situations, and you’re courageous, humble, and goal-oriented. 

If you’re bold, you may challenge the status quo and motivate your team. You might be more likely to create organizational change because you have a growth mindset and express your ideas. 

Executive presence traits: Confidence, communication, and connection

Try executive presence training

Many leaders develop executive presence through focused training or leadership coaching. Both cater to your unique skills and professional goals and can be a helpful approach to quickly improving your leadership characteristics and fostering career growth. 

In addition to boosting your abilities, executive presence training also supports organization-wide executive development. As a company, you can create a work environment that strives toward continuous growth and goal achievement.

Executive presence traits: Credibility 

Why executive presence is so important for career growth 

Executive presence captures many of the soft management skills that are crucial for individual career success. These are traits you demonstrate through all areas of work. They govern how you work with others, contribute to the company, and take care of yourself. 

When you display executive presence skills, you also showcase emotional regulation skills. You understand and manage your emotions well and communicate your ideas with clarity and concision. Because feedback is one of the best ways to identify your areas of potential growth, you welcome and encourage it. 

With executive presence, you demonstrate your industry knowledge, ask important questions, and connect with the people around you. A great leader is confident, humble, bold, and compassionate.

4 books for developing executive presence

To continue your research into developing executive presence, here are five resources to help facilitate your growth:

• Executive Presence 2.0 by Sylvia Ann Hewlett: Discover the essential qualities for leadership success in a fast-changing and modern world. 
• The Hidden Factor: Executive Presence by Sally Williamson: This step-by-step approach teaches how executive presence impacts leadership and how to cultivate it. 
• Executive Presence: Step Into Your Power, Convey Confidence, & Lead With Conviction by Joel A. Garfinkle: Focus on transforming your current abilities into a confident, quantifiable, and influential leadership skill set. 
• Executive Presence for the Modern Leader: A Guide to Cultivating Success and Thriving in the Workplace by D.A. Benton: Learn tangible skill-building exercises to accompany a breakdown of executive presence skills and importance. 
• Bonus: Speak Up: Develop Your Executive Presence & Leadership Communication hosted by Laura Camacho: This podcast publishes weekly episodes that cover various angles and aspects of executive presence. 

The insights captured in these books (and podcast) can help you independently improve your executive presence. 

However, one of the best ways to excel in professional development is to work one-on-one with a leadership coach. With coaching, you can build an improvement plan based on your current skills and unique professional goals. The process caters to what works best for you. 

Leverage executive presence to achieve your goals

Executive presence is a differentiator between achieving your leadership goals and stalling career growth. But the skills encompassed within executive presence can be learned and cultivated. You just need commitment, practice, and support. 

BetterUp’s executive coaching services offer a hands-on, curated approach to accomplishing your goals. Leverage your executive presence with a BetterUp Coach and achieve your career goals.