Professional presence is a bit like obscenity: it’s hard to define but you know it when you see it.

I recently participated on a conference panel on the topic of Professional Presence. Unless you’re steeped in it, this is not a topic most people would welcome on a pop quiz. Ask 10 people to define professional presence and you’re likely to get a bunch of stammering in response. “Presence” in this context is something that’s more sensed than defined. Vivid images are conjured at the mention of professional presence: a 42-year old President Clinton walking into a room, slowly, with a certain swagger. CEO Larry Ellison taking the stage at the annual OracleWorld conference. Nicki Minaj? Yeah, she’s got a commanding presence. But defining professional presence is reminiscent of the famous Justice Potter Stewart quote regarding obscenity: “I’ll know it when I see it.” I suppose that’s exactly the point of putting together a panel discussion for an audience of MBA students who are preparing to enter the work world.

Hoping not to get tongue-tied in the panel Q&A, I decided to brush up by reaching for my go-to reference manual on the subject: “Executive Presence” by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. Hewlett’s got the chops when it comes to understanding executive presence. As an adjunct professor at both Columbia and Princeton, a successful author of a slew of books, and founder of The Center for Talent Innovation, she’s done some real research on the topic. According to Hewlett, there are three main elements to executive presence: gravitas (how you act), communication (how you speak), and appearance (how you look), in that order.

Importance of Professional Presence

Hewlett’s extensive research found executive presence to be the missing link between merit and career success. It’s that important. In the work that I do with women, I focus on their appearance – how they present in physical form the impression they want people to get about them. This is said to be the smallest of the three elements of presence. It’s the one that forms the initial imprint, though. It gets you in the door and signals what’s under the hood, so to speak. And thanks to a thing called confirmation bias, initial impressions can be stubbornly persistent.

When we’re discussing one’s physical impression, we talk about what it is the woman is trying to convey to others about herself. Is it that she’s smart, trustworthy, approachable, successful, creative, fierce? In working with her, I probe what it is she wants to convey, then we figure out how she can project that through what she wears and how she looks. Study after study has shown that, like it or not, appearance matters. Tall people, blonde-haired people, people who look fit, people who look put-together, are all shown to be treated more favorably than the average Jane, all else equal. The impression we make in our workplace day after day affects how colleagues and superiors view us, how much we’re paid, what projects we’re offered, what teams we’re invited onto, whether or not we get to pitch, and more. That’s why we urge people to be intentional about the impression they make, every time. As executive career coach Ed Samuels, CEO of Samnova, puts it, “There is no such thing as an informal interview. Always bring your “A” game.” It’s too important to risk it.

Gravitas – Projecting Competence and Confidence

According to Hewlett, executives she interviewed said gravitas is by far the most important element of executive presence. Gravitas? Heck, that’s more vague than presence. Gravitas, if you’re struggling to put your finger on it, is that special quality that instills and inspires confidence. It’s your outward actions that give others the sense that they can rest at ease with you in charge – the combination of your smarts, your own self-confidence, the seriousness you bring to your role, your level of preparedness to capably handle what’s dished at you no matter how challenging, your ability to go deep, beyond the superficial. But how do they get that sense about you? Well, you show them through the way you act.

I used to work with two women who grew up in China. Once they were going on about how they desperately wanted jade jewelry. Jade was fragile and was symbolic of social stature, they explained. People of high stature would wear a string of jade beads or discs dangling from their waist. The higher the stature, the longer the string of jade, and the slower and more deliberately the person would have to walk lest the pieces smack together and break. I immediately understood this to be a means of developing the wearer’s comportment. It was exactly the opposite of advice I’d gotten when I was starting my professional career. I was told to walk briskly and with a sense of purpose. That might be well and good for a young associate wanting to convey that she’s a go-getter, but at some point in one’s career, it may be more beneficial to commandingly exude quiet confidence, rather than show off one’s brisk efficiency. You get the mental image, right?

Jade waist beads Photo credit: ziseviolet

What It Isn’t

Now picture a person who can’t plant her feet firmly on the ground, nervously fidgeting and twiddling and tangling up her ankles. Or an uber-smart person who doesn’t hold his head high and make eye contact, seemingly intimidated by the mere approach of another human. Picture a world leader sitting at a conference table surrounded by experts, arms crossed tightly across his chest, while trying to probe for solutions to a major threat. His appearance wouldn’t exactly convey an openness to finding a solution. Gravitas is about how your actions convey your seriousness, confidence, and competence to get the job done.

One example of a clear “don’t” was demonstrated last month when President Trump remarked to the world that the U.S. had novel coronavirus locked down and people shouldn’t worry. As the world sweated the emergence of a global pandemic with a rising mortality rate, President Trump assured us that our people were getting better, the number of cases was nearly down to zero, a vaccine would be forthcoming very shortly, and the virus would “miraculously go away” anyway once warm weather arrived. Sowing confusion, trivializing risks, and gesturing an imaginary magic wand did little to instill confidence and convey competence in the face of a serious crisis. Markets plummeted while fear, uncertainty, and doubt rose. Surely, the element of gravitas was missing.

Communication – more than spoken words

Communication can be the words we choose, how we message, or even where. The obvious elements of communication are proper grammar, diction, projection and cadence — not just your spoken word, but your written and virtual communications, as well. Also consider the directness and timeliness of your message. People appreciate a clear, honest message delivered in a timely way, especially in a time of crisis, but pretty much always. In my view, communication, as it relates to professional presence, extends far beyond our words or voice. Professional presence doesn’t necessarily attach to you like your shadow, apparent only where you are physically present. Communication can be quite broad so your “presence” can be felt far and wide, even without your physical self nearby. Take this blog piece I’m writing now. I’ll post it several places with my name attached to it. People will see it without necessarily seeing me. Whether I’m physically there or not, it’s adding to my body of work and contributing to my professional presence.

But how?

Going back to the MBA panel, a question came up about how an aspiring leader could improve her executive presence amidst other strong leaders in a work environment. The implication was that the aspiring leader would be elbowing established leaders to rise up within the organization. There could only be so many leaders. Some would find this distasteful, political, or even Darwinian.

An obvious way to develop one’s executive presence and gain recognition as a leader might be to enlist the support of a mentor or sponsor to get relevant advice. If you are not yet in charge and want to become more comfortable in a leadership role, volunteer to lead projects and/or committees, always while bringing your “A” game. But this may be too narrow a view.

In their book “5 Steps to Professional Presence”, Susan Bixler and Lisa Scherr Dugan discuss ways to increase one’s professional presence in the community. Add value in outside organizations, post useful content on LinkedIn, be present in the media if you have a particular specialty or expertise. There are myriad ways to build your professional presence and raise your visibility. This, of course, drives home the point that you need to be “always on.” Your professional presence – your gravitas, communication, and appearance – need to be integrated with your whole self.

The Whole Package -- Authentically You

Our panel touched on authenticity more than once. Your professional presence shouldn’t be something that you turn on and off. Develop it as you would a muscle, integrated into your authentic self. People ask if presence is innate or learned. Think of it as something about which to be thoughtful. Who are you? Where do you want to excel? What do you bring to the table? What is your “why”? Cultivate it. Decide what you believe to be the true reflection of your best self. Then practice it as professional athletes practice their sport. Thoughtful development and practice will lead to mastery of your best self. Then decide how you will convey it to the world.

Looking at all the aspects together, professional presence is essentially the packaging of your well-developed expertise and abilities in a way that shows others you’re a person who can lead, inspire confidence, and get the job done. You message it through your actions, communications, and looks. Those aspects signal to the outside world what’s authentically you on the inside. Develop competence, convey it confidently, and credibility will follow. Then voila! You will have mastered professional presence.

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Professional Presence - What and How