Executive presence for women: it's how you show up

Women ask me how to get executive presence like it's a suit you can buy off the rack. It's how you show up. And people decide fast whether they want more of you.

The founder who needed a nap

A founder flew in on a red-eye for a meeting with an investor. Walked in tired. And spent the start of the meeting complaining about the flight.

The investor looked across the table and asked, "Do you need to take a nap?"

No deal.

It's like dating. A guy shows up after a long day, tired, complaining about his commute. How sexy is that? You don't go out with him again. Same thing in business. Nobody wants to hand their money, their team or their board seat to someone who looks like they'd rather be in bed.

Take the red-eye if you have to. Just leave it at the airport.

What executive presence actually means

You'll read a lot of definitions. Gravitas. Polish. How you dress, how you stand, how low your voice goes.

Senior executives told the Center for Talent Innovation that executive presence is 26% of what it takes to get the next promotion. Only 5% called appearance a key factor (Center for Talent Innovation).

I have a simpler test. When you leave the room, do people want more of you? Do they want to call you back, introduce you to their friends, put you in front of their boss?

That comes down to energy, calm, and whether you seem like a real person. All of which you can work on.

Your credentials are not enough

Women do everything right on paper. The degrees, the titles, the years of getting things done. Then we walk into a room and recite it, like the resume is going to do the work for us.

It won't.

Your credentials are not enough. Be someone people want to hang out with, open up to.

This matters even more as you go up. Ellen Zane, the former CEO of Tufts Medical Center, puts executive presence on the short list of things to build if you want a corporate board seat, along with deep expertise and telling people you're interested (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health). Boards are small rooms. They pick people they trust and like being around. I wrote more about that in how to get on a board.

Above the line or below the line

Here's a picture I use a lot. Draw a line across the page.

Below the line is threat. When you feel threatened, you go into survival brain. You get defensive. You over-explain. You complain about the flight. You say "No, but" to every idea in the room.

Above the line is opportunity. When you see an opportunity, you get playful. Curious. You say "Yes, and." You laugh. People lean in.

Presence lives ABOVE the line. And you can tell who's where in about a minute. At our dinners I listen for "Yes, and" versus "No, but." The "Yes, and" women are the ones who raise their hand when I ask who wants to play poker. Those are the women people want at their table.

So before a big meeting, ask yourself one question: am I walking in like this is a threat, or like this is an opportunity? Same meeting. Very different you.

How to build executive presence

1. Show up rested, or act like it. Nobody needs to hear about your flight, your inbox or your terrible week. Leave it in the car.
2. Bring energy into the room. Walk in like you're glad to be there. You'd be amazed how rare that is.
3. Skip the resume. They already read it. Tell them something Google doesn't know about you. (Here's how that works at our dinners.)
4. Listen first. Find out who cares about what, and why. Then speak. Calm is presence.
5. Be a little funny. Being funny on a comedy stage is a high bar. Being funny in a corporate setting? Very low bar. I learned that doing stand-up at Caroline's, New York's biggest comedy club.
6. Be the same person at work and with your friends. When your work persona and your friends persona match, that's authenticity. People can feel it, and they trust it.
7. Ask for what you want. Presence without an ask is just a nice meeting.

What confidence looks like at the table

Every Wonder Women dinner starts the same way. Everyone stands up for two minutes: your name, what you do, and something Google doesn't know about you. You find out a lot about presence in those two minutes.

Some women read their LinkedIn headline. Some women tell a story about the time everything went wrong, laugh at themselves, and sit down with the whole table on their side. Guess which ones everyone wants to talk to at dessert.

"The confidence from these women was EPIC level; their ease in telling some of the best stories I've ever heard carried me away."Caroline Giegerich, Wonder Women member, New York

That ease is the thing. Nobody at that table was performing. They were comfortable in their own skin, telling the truth, and having fun with it. You can't fake that in a boardroom if you never practice it anywhere else. So practice it somewhere friendly. A dinner. A poker night. A room full of women who are rooting for you.

Questions women ask me

What is executive presence for women?

It's how people feel when you walk in, and whether they want more of you when you leave. For women, it comes down to calm, energy and being real. The title and the resume get you in the room. Presence is what they remember.

How can a woman develop executive presence?

Show up rested and prepared. Listen before you talk. Stay curious under pressure instead of getting defensive. Tell a short, true story about yourself instead of reciting your resume. Then practice all of it in friendly rooms until it's just how you are.

Do I have to act like a man to have executive presence?

No. The women with the most presence at our tables are warm, funny and direct. They're calm, they're prepared, and they sound like themselves.

Does executive presence matter for getting on a board?

Yes. Board seats go to people the other directors know and trust, and presence is a big part of how that trust gets built. Expertise gets you considered. How you show up gets you picked.

Dr. Yao Huang founded Wonder Women more than twenty years ago with a table of four friends in New York. Today it's 20,000 women and 5,000 dinners in 30+ cities. She is also the founder of The Hatchery and a three-time TEDx speaker.