7 Habits to Build Executive Presence

 

No one tells you how invisible you can feel in a room full of senior leaders.   You know your business. You’ve done the work. You may even know more about the topic than half the people in the meeting. And yet, somehow, you disappear.   I remember sitting in meetings early in my career, listening carefully, taking notes, waiting until I had something smart enough to contribute. By the time I was ready to speak, the conversation had moved on.   Or I would finally get the floor and give a thoughtful, detailed answer that somehow didn’t land, while the executive who had just summed up their entire point in two sentences got the head nods.   I looked at that leader and wondered: would I be able to command the room like that one day?   For a long time, I thought executive presence was something I would develop as I became more senior. That it will come with the title. I had that backwards.   You don’t become a VP and suddenly learn how to command a room. You demonstrate the behaviors first and the title catches up. And surprisingly, they’re not all about winning in big rooms or making bold moves.   Executive presence is built in ordinary meetings, status updates, emails, Slack messages, difficult conversations, and decisions. It’s built in how you communicate when things are going well and, even more importantly, in how you respond when they aren’t.   And it’s not just one behavior, its a set of small signals that compound and create your reputation.   How you show up every day sends a message. The question is, are you sending the right one?   Let’s see which behaviors scream “executive potential”.

7 habits that build executive presence every day Here are seven habits that helped me build my presence long before I had the title.   1. Get to the point faster Early in my career, I thought a good answer proved that I had thought through every angle. So I gave people the journey. The background. The context. The analysis. The caveats.   Eventually, I learned that senior leaders usually want the destination first.   They don’t need the details, they need to know what matters, why, and what you need from them. Don’t aim for through, aim for sharp.   If all they needed is someone who can repeat the details they’ll use GPT. Your job is to do the thinking for them, so they have a much easier time deciding.   The best way to do that? If a senior leader asks for an update, start with the end: “We’re on track for launch. The only risk is vendor timing, and we have a contingency in place.”   Then stop. If they want the backstory, they’ll ask.   It’s better to add more information on demand, than try and backtrack after rambling and sharing too much.   The habit is simple: before you speak, decide what the bottom line is.   Can you make your point in roughly 30 seconds? Not because every conversation needs to be short, but because if you can’t explain the point clearly, you probably haven’t decided what matters most.   2. Speak before you have all the answers This was a big one for me. I used to wait. I was terrified of saying something wrong, or stupid.   I wanted to understand the conversation first. Make sure my point was useful. Avoid saying something obvious. Be certain I had enough information before weighing in. All reasonable instincts.   Except at senior levels, you almost never have 100% of the information but you still need to form a point of view and communicate it.   Waiting to be called on won’t demonstrate your executive potential. Raising your hand, even when you don’t know if you are right will. That means you need to ask the question no one wants to ask.   Make the observation. Offer the recommendation based on what you know today.   You don’t need to pretend you’re certain when you’re not. You do need to become comfortable sharing a perspective before every detail is known.   Because if you wait for complete certainty, there’s a good chance you’ll never get to speak, and no one will see your brilliance.   3. Protect your time and attention This one can feel counterintuitive. We’re often taught that being responsive, available, and willing to help makes us valuable. And it does.   Until everybody else’s priorities start becoming more important than yours.   You accept every meeting. Jump into every fire. Say yes to every request. Solve problems that someone else should own.   Before long, your calendar is full, you’re incredibly useful, and you have almost no time left for the work that actually requires you to lead.   You may feel good about being busy, but to the outside world it would seem like you are wrapped up in busy work, not leadership.   Senior leaders control their time and how they spend it. They know they need to protect where their attention goes. That means sometimes saying: “I can help, but not this week.”   Or: “I don’t think I need to be in this meeting. Can you send me the decision afterward?”   Or simply deciding that a problem does not require your involvement.   Protecting your time isn’t about becoming unavailable. It’s about knowing what deserves your attention and being willing to act accordingly. That is prioritization. And prioritization is a leadership skill.   4. Hold your ground without becoming defensive I’m sure you’ve experienced this one.   Someone interrupts you. A senior leader challenges your recommendation. The room pushes back.   These moments are easy to underestimate, but they reveal a lot about your presence.   Some leaders immediately retreat. Others launch into a long defense designed to prove they were right.   Neither is particularly effective.   Holding your ground with grace can be as simple as: “Let me finish this thought, then I want to come back to that.”   Or: “That’s a fair concern. The tradeoff I’m worried about is…”   Or: “I’m open to changing my recommendation. Can I understand what’s driving your concern?”   You don’t need to win every argument or fight for airtime. You do need to show that your point of view deserves consideration, and can survive a challenge.   5. Build support before the meeting Executives know how to influence others. That might show up as getting buy in, securing headcount or getting more budget.   That influence doesn’t come from building the best deck or having the most information. It comes from securing support way before the meeting starts.   Senior leaders understand that people move the business.   So before an important decision, they talk to the people who matter. They understand concerns. Test their thinking. Find out where resistance is coming from. And build common ground.   Sometimes they change the recommendation before the meeting because those conversations exposed something they hadn’t considered.   This is what politics is all about, in the best sense. It’s influence.   The goal isn’t to manipulate the outcome behind closed doors. It’s to secure support in advance through alignment.   And leaders who can influence others and gain support are perceived as more seasoned and ready for VP and C-suite roles.   6. Make the call when others won’t Some decisions have an obvious right answer, but the big ones often don’t.   You have incomplete information. Every option has a downside. Different stakeholders want different things. And at some point, somebody still has to decide.   No one wants to make a mistake, but part of showing up as an executive is having the ability to choose anyway. To set direction, to pick a lane, even if you are not sure. And, and this is a big one, if it pisses off other people.   Your job as an executive is not to make everyone happy. It’s to do what is best for the company, the mission and the goal.   You can ask for feedback, consider opinions, but at the end of the day, you need to decide.   You won’t always make the perfect call, but that’s okay. It’s not the goal. The goal is to decide, even when it’s hard and take responsibility for a direction when certainty isn’t available.   That is a very different signal from waiting for someone else to make the difficult choice for you.   7. De-escalate when tension rises Executive presence becomes especially visible when things stop going according to plan. A project fails. Someone gets angry. Two leaders disagree.   Suddenly, everyone in the room has more emotion and less perspective and the room get’s noisy.   Don’t get dragged into the chaos. Become a source of calm and composure.   Sometimes that means slowing the conversation down. Separating what actually happened from the assumptions people are making about it. Clarifying what people are really disagreeing about. Moving the conversation from blame to what happens next.   The person who can help a tense room regain perspective carries a very different kind of presence and influence.   Not because they are the loudest or most confident person there. Because when the pressure rises, they help everyone else think more clearly and de-escalte a tense situation.   The real way executive presence gets built Executive presence isn’t something you “perform” for an all-hands presentation. It isn’t what happens during one impressive meeting with the CEO.   And it doesn’t magically arrive once you have enough years of experience.   It’s a practice you build in the daily moments that barely feel important.   The Slack message you send on Tuesday morning. The team meeting where someone interrupts you, and you respond calmly. The update where you choose the headline instead of giving everyone the play-by-play. The decision the room was avoiding and you were able to make.   One of those moments probably won’t change how anyone sees you. But hundreds of them will.   That’s how executive presence gets built. Small behaviors, repeated often enough that they eventually become simply how you show up and how others see you.

Your Next Steps Don’t try to fix all seven. Pick the one habit on this list that would most change how you currently show up and practice it deliberately for the next two weeks.   If you ramble, lead with the headline. If you wait until you know everything, practice forming a point of view sooner. If your calendar belongs to everyone except you, protect your priorities. If pushback makes you retreat, practice holding your ground.   The goal isn’t to “have executive presence” for your next important meeting. It’s to practice these behaviors often enough that when the important meeting happens, you don’t have to perform. You just know what to do.