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Idemics. Welcome to Coaches to Know Podcasts short by Idea Mix Radio. This
brief podcast is designed to demystify coaching and help you our audience, understand what
coaching is and how it can help you. I'm your host, Jamie,
and today I'm very excited to be here with Coach Lisa to talk about executive
presence. I'm very briefly, I'm gonna introduce Coach Lisa. Coach Lisa has
been coaching for sixteen years. She has been but she has been working for
more than twenty years in organizational development and change management. She holds a master's
degree and Positive Psychology Coaching at certifications and Neuroscience Gallop Sifting Strengths Assessments, three
three sixty assessments, and others. Her clients are typically self aware leaders within
organizations who want to have a positive impact on those around them. And what
I really love is that Lisa defines a leader as anyone trying to influence or
lead others towards a common goal or outcome so we can all be leaders.
She also works with entrepreneurs and mentors new coaches working towards their IF certification.
Lisa, thank you so much for joining us here today. Thank you,
Jamie. I'm excited to dive into this topic with you. So, as
I said, today, we're going to discuss executive presence. I always like
to start by coming up with a general understanding or definition of what our topic
is. So what is executive presence and what is not or are there any
misconceptions around on what it is and is it? Yeah? I think executive
presence is a really fascinating topic because it's one of those things that people look
at and they say, ooh, I want more of that, but they
don't really stop and think about what exactly that is. And if you take
the words apart, it basically means being present or showing up like an executive.
And I think one of the interesting things, especially in today's world,
is when we think about kind of the standard executive, we might think about,
you know, somebody who's tall. We might think about a man,
We might think about a three piece suit. We might think about showing up
very authoritatively, knowing all the answers, being very commanding, and we might
have the stereotypical ideas of what an executive looks like. And in today's world,
we're so much more aware of the diversity of executives and the diversity of
executive presence, and so I would say these days it's very individual. It
depends on who the person is, how they're trying to show up, and
what it is that they're trying to show up for. Because different organizations will
have different cultures around how they expect executive presence to be demonstrated. That's why
I really like coaching on this because there is no one size fits all,
But how do you show up in the leadership or executive way that you would
like to and what is it that's going to work best for you and your
environment and that mixture that's in between that kind of ven diagram, If that
makes sense. Yeah, absolutely, I really love having you sitting hit the
nail of the head. I mean, obviously, when I think of executive
presence, I will tell you straight up that, like I think of that
man and the three piece suit, And now that you know in our society.
Well, we're much more aware, and you know, there are more
than just men in power positions. You know, that stereotype no longer,
you know. I think we're also moving away from more from this hierarchical,
authoritative structure of operating as well. But I like what you said. Just
to clarify though, it's really about showing up in a way where you can
have impact based on your environment and based on who you are. Yeah,
and again, a lot of people tend to think of executive presence as I
need to have all the answers. I would say that's not even necessarily true.
You can show up very I'm going to keep using the word authoritatively,
but that means different things. And you can show up very authoritatively and ask
a lot of questions. You can show up as executive presence and not know
what's going on and learn and try to get the lay of the landscape.
You can show up with executive presence and involve other people very heavily and delegate
a lot. You know, that's also part of executive presence. So I
think one of the benefits of coaching is we can help individuals get clear on
what do they mean by executive presence. Who do they admire, who do
they think demonstrates executive presence, and what can they learn from them? And
then how does that help you show up in your leadership best whatever that looks
like? Great, thank you so much for that for their explanation. So
how does someone know that they may need help developing their executive presence? Yeah,
they signs If there are signs, yeah, I would say typically there
are two things. One is our own sense of I would like to develop
more executive presence, and I work with a lot of clients who have that
inner knowing or that inner inkling like I would like to show up more like
a leader, more like an executive, with more authority, with more confidence,
you know, with more charisma, whatever that looks like for them.
And then the second is we might get feedback from other people. Now,
sometimes feedback from other people can be a little frustrating because someone might say,
hey, Lisa, I think you could benefit from more executive presence, and
then they leave and I don't really know what to do with that. So
being able to break down executive presence into some behaviors like is this about tone
of voice? Is this about eye contact? Is this about what I'm wearing,
because let's recognize that what we wear can affect how people see us and
if they see us as leaders or not. Is this about my knowledge base
because maybe I'm asking what I might call rookie questions and people are expecting more
of me at that time. Or is this about I'm holding everything to myself
and I do need to delegate and involve others more, and how to do
that with executive presence. I will also say that sometimes our own inner inklings
are not matching the feedback, and so we may feel that we need more
executive presence, but we're not actually getting that feedback from other people, and
so it's worth checking in with both sources. How am I feeling, how
are other people feeling? What feedback can I get from within and from without?
And then how does that help me narrow down on what is it that
I'm already good at, What am I already doing well that helps me with
executive presence? And where are some of those behaviors where I could tend to
grow And there might be mindsets behind some of those behaviors, but typically executive
presence is about projecting something through your words and your actions that other people are
going to pick up on. So I think it's worth checking in with both
sources on that. Yeah, I tend to think of when we think about
executive presence, and because it's the way you show up, it's a form
of communication, and how are you communicate with wherever you're showing up to,
right, And it's not about this is not just a verbal communication, right,
It can also be just busy. You were saying, like the way
you're dressed, your pasture, you know, the whole host of things,
your eye contact, how much time you are spending with people you know.
People also talk about charisma, for example, and how there are certain politicians
who are really good at looking at you and making you feel like you are
the only person who matters in that moment when you've got like a thousand other
people in the press around you. There are some people who naturally seem to
come by this, But there are learnable skills and behaviors in there, and
there are coaches who will work with you on how you dress and how you
look, and you can get presentation coaches on how you do a presentation and
what you do with your voice. Like there are a lot of people out
there who will help you with the different behaviors of more executive presence. And
that's why I can be helpful to break it down and find out where are
you doing well and where are other people seeing that? Yeah, like there
might be room for some tweaking here. Yeah, yeah, So can we
delve in a little bit, you know, definitely we've touched upon a little
bit sort of what coach, how coaching can help somebody develop executive presence.
But let's let's can you lay out like a process, maybe our approach that
you use with with people or you know, how does coach? What does
coaching do and why is it so impactful in this area of developing these skills
or these behaviors? Yeah? Great, great question. I would say if
I have a client. Let's imagine Jamie, that you come to me and
you say, Lisa, I have been told that I should work on my
executive presence, and I agree with this. I would like to work on
my executive presence. Well, the first thing I'm going to ask you about
is what does executive presence mean to you? What is the specific feedback that
you have received, what's important about this for you now? In this current
situation is this about, you know, maybe a board of directors, or
is this about growing in your career, or is this about helping you find
more confidence in yourself? Like what is the real meaning and motivation behind all
of this? And I would want to dive into your strengths where this is
already working well. And that might be strengths from a leadership assessment like the
Gallop Clifton Strengths Finder or another one. It could also come from assessments that
you may have done in the workplace. So there's all sorts of personality assessments
out there, leadership assessments and so on. You may already have things that
you're going to bring into a coaching situation. We'll sit down and pull those
apart. And it might also be your own sense of your strengths and feedback
that you've gotten from other people. But I want to know what's already working
for you. Quite often with a client, once we pull apart what is
already working, sometimes it's about doubling down on that and owning it and recognizing
like, yeah, I've been using this in a smaller way, like maybe
I'm very confident when I'm presenting to my team and the small group of peers
who I know really well. I'm not showing up as confident when I'm doing
board presentation. So we can leverage what's working into other areas that you want
to grow into, and that helps your executive presence. And sometimes there's something
completely new. Right, this is genuinely an area that is not working well
for you. It might be career limiting or getting in the way of your
goal, and it's worth diving into there. And so if you have found
an area that you want to improve on, I might ask you questions like
when have you done this well, even if it's in a very small capacity
or something outside of work, or when did you use to do this well?
If that's not working, if you have no examples, I would ask
who else do you know who does this well? Where are exemplars in your
life? Whether there are people that you know they could be family members even,
or friends or bosses or colleagues or mentors or people that you've read about,
right, like you want to have you know something that Oprah does really
well or whoever that role model happens to be for you. And then if
that's proving difficult, I might also ask, well, just like who could
encourage you right, Who could you get on your side as you are developing
this, Who could help give you the feedback in real time because as a
coach, we're going to talk let's say, you know, every two weeks,
but then you're going to go out and practice outside of that time.
So who can help you when you are practicing? Who can watch you in
action? Who can give you the encouragement, who can catch you doing things
right and give you that positive feedback. Who can you bounce ideas off of?
And that's especially helpful if you're trying to work within a certain context.
And then after that, quite honestly, Jamie, it's a lot of practice,
and it's a lot of experimentation, and these things typically feel awkward at
first because these are skills tying your shoe, riding a bicycle, learning how
to swim right, whatever it is. They all feel really awkward at first.
You think about the first time you held a tennis racket or a golf
club right, like, it's weird, what do you mean I have to
like put my thumbs this way and hold it just like this, Like it's
very awkward. But then over time it becomes more comfortable and over time you
become much more effective at it. And so what we would do in coaching
is continue to work on every two weeks or so when we meet what did
you try, how did it go, What did you learn, and now
what and just continue to build and develop those skills to the point where you
move past the kind of conscious incompetence and into being more consciously competent and then
just into the flow. This is just a new skill that you have and
you can use it automatically. I love that the way of thinking about it
is like, this is a skill that you can develop and it takes practice.
I mean that's something that we learn from when we were very young,
and it just makes you know, it's very it makes it very digestible and
achievable. And I love the role of coaching to diagnose and then really come
in and help create a plositive feedback loop so that you can keep improving,
which is sort of sort of what I think you were just describing that process,
Yeah, of really just honing in and making sure that you're aware of
what's happening and what progress is being made and where you can get still grow.
So I love that, Lisa, that is all the time that we
have today. We have, but thank you so much for joining us to
our audience. If you would like to work with Coach Lisa or any of
other our other qualified coaches, please visit videamx dot com. Thank you,
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Find your ideal coach at www dot vidmx dot com. Special thanks to our
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