Your Executive Presence Affects Your Career Growth

Many senior professionals?who I coach do not realise that a weak Executive presence is hampering their career growth.

What is executive presence?

It is your gravitas, charisma, the aura that you as a leader have around you because of your traits like confidence,?decisiveness,?powerful clear speech and insightfulness. People are drawn to you because of your executive presence. When you speak in meetings whether to your seniors or peers or team members, everyone is eager to listen because you have something worthwhile to say.

We all already have executive presence even we do not know about it. The level can certainly be improved.

The way we carry ourselves, our body language, the way we write, our presentation and communication skills all these make a big difference in the business world. People are influenced by you which is through?your thoughts, words and actions.

Why is executive presence important?

You may have great skills and expertise however without a strong executive presence your career will grow at an average pace.

It has been observed that leaders with great executive presence are able to influence the outcomes of major projects, inspire teams greatly and contribute to a company’s growth at an accelerated pace, built confidence in people around them which in turns gets them onto a fast track of career growth.

Some of you may be thinking that all this is so difficult to have. Take heart. The good news is that executive presence can be developed and enhanced. In plain simple terms our executive presence is strong when we feel good about ourselves. Can’t you achieve that ?

While to develop executive presence remains an ongoing goal and we all need to keep evolving, here are 6 steps that you can start with :

1] Reflect on your thinking : Journaling is a powerful habit . Buy a nice journal and either early morning or late night write down the events you recollect and how you responded to them. Jot down and capture your feelings. The sheer act of writing it down will make things clear of where you need to improve in terms of your feelings and the action you took. As you write on a daily basis you will find that you have a better control over your feelings and behaviour. Does it sound simple ?That’s because it really is simple. However it's very powerful. Try it for 30 days and I promise you it will change the way you look at things. I do this personally on a daily basis.

2] Take feedback : Ask you closest team member or friend or family member or if you lucky to have a great mentor in your boss to highlight areas where they feel you can improve.?However these need to be people who you trust blindly and will do it only for your benefit. Having even one such person in our lives is a blessing.

3] Accept challenging assignments : In your workplace look for opportunities to prove yourself when there are difficult and challenging projects or tasks to be performed. These will stretch you to think out of the box. You think you can’t do it. Try it. And even if you achieve part of the result as expected in the first attempt, it will be a moment to be proud of. Applaud yourself. Your self esteem will get a boost.

4] Learn to prioritise : Focusing on the most important tasks and continuing to do them till they are completed is a great way to accelerate your contribution to the company. It will make you feel good about yourself.

?5] Be GOAL driven: Having ambitious goals and then constantly working towards them gives you a great feeling of success because as it said- Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy goal.

6] Be your genuine self : We all have our special attributes which are gifted by God. We need to capitalise on them and know that we are enough. From there start your journey of evolving in other areas where improvement is required.

Executive presence is truly a reflection of our inner self and hence the starting point is our own mindset. Go for it ! And tell me how you felt after taking action of all or any of the above 6 steps.

P.S: In case you are interested in knowing about my executive coaching where I also focus on helping you develop your strong executive presence, do write to me directly on [email protected]

Best

Sarabjeet Sachar

Founder & CEO, Aspiration, Executive Coach, Job search & interview coach