Psychology Says If You Can Master These 3 Executive Skills, You'll Be Promoted Almost Instantly
Promotable employees have these executive skills down pat.
Getty Images | Unsplash If you’ve been passed over for a promotion lately and don’t know why, you might lack executive presence. Even though you’re successful and considered an expert in your field, commanding attention and reaching the next level seem elusive. Your executives struggle to see you as one of them.
Executive presence is the ability to maturely project self-confidence so that others can easily envision you as someone ready for the next level, or even higher. It's a combination of personal traits and outward behaviors that create an image of leadership, competence, and trustworthiness to those around you. Whether you like it or not, you're constantly displaying your traits to those around you, both positive and negative.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the author of Executive Presence: The Missing Link between Merit and Success, defines executive presence as the way one acts (gravitas), speaks (communication skills), and looks (appearance). It’s likely that subconsciously, you’ve picked up some quirks in your actions, words, and outward style.
When you possess executive presence, you’re more than a go-to person in your area of expertise. You're also able to provide advice you can stand behind as well as interact professionally with executives without being overly deferential. When you sense they are beginning to see you as a peer, you may already possess executive presence.
If you can master these executive skills, you'll be promoted quickly:
1. Leadership
One of the best ways to begin your pursuit of a more senior role is to consider leaders who you admire. They may be someone you know personally, a composite of many leaders, or even a celebrity or historical figure.
- What do you like about them?
- What is it about the way they carry themselves that exudes a leadership presence?
- What are their manners of speaking and interacting that make you feel this is a person you would follow?
- What is it about their appearance and dress that projects the confidence of a leader?
- Which of these qualities could you authentically emulate?
Leadership coach Lisa Petsinis explained, "Leadership isn't about the position you hold or the authority you command. It doesn't matter if you're a manager, a CEO, or the president — it's about leadership qualities and skills you can develop in any role you take on. An effective leader is not defined by their words, but rather by their leadership style. It's someone who understands how much impact they have and they accept the challenge earnestly."
2. Resilience
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A mentor is a few steps ahead of you on the career path. Perhaps, this is the person you admire most as a leader. They have more years of both practice and experience and are at or near the top of their game.
When they veered slightly from the path, they made corrections before heading for the bushes. If they did spend time in the bushes, they learned from it, picked themselves up, and got back on the path.
"If you know yourself and what you want to do with your life and are prepared to help others, you may be surprised to learn there are others who will want to help you. Seek people who can play these important roles in your life. A boss who cultivates and helps you to grow into more responsibility. A mentor who has been successful and is open to help you by sharing their experience and providing guidance on questions you raise," advised career coach Jeff Saperstein.
You can learn from their success and their slip-ups. It’s also likely they would honor the opportunity to support a protégé seeking executive presence.
3. Presence
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Research from the Consulting Psychology Journal showed working with a coach can provide you with the feedback and accountability you need to help you stand out in the competitive career showroom.
Through active listening, observation, and in-session exercises like role-playing, your coach can help you discover the clarity to focus on the areas that need a little extra buffing.
The weekly action steps you co-design with your coach will provide you with a series of small successes as your confidence builds. Experience, degrees, certificates, and credentials all count, but those are often not what opens the door to the next-level leadership opportunity.
Having executive presence means you recognize the impact that gravitas, communication, and appearance can have on whether the people at the top see you as a confident executive ready for the next big role.
Can executive presence be learned? Yes, It's possible to unlearn bad habits and replace them with new ways to show up and interact at work, according to research from the Journal of Organizational Change Management.
You can decide whether polishing the rough spots in your actions, speech, and the way you carry yourself is worth the bit of focused effort and determination it takes. Even if it feels like you have a lot to work on, you can reinvent yourself.
With focused effort, you can overcome feelings of being passed over as you work toward a more confident and refined future. People are more likely to remember how you finished. Start by gaining some clarity and precision on both the lackluster areas in need of a shine, and even areas where some deeper work is required.
Brent Roy, PCC, CPLC, CMC, is a certified executive, career and personal development coach, and mentor coach. He works with men and women who want to increase their confidence and boost their executive presence.