This is the second post in a four-post series – The Invisibles: What Your Boss Wants You To Know. You can read the first post here.

Whenever I kick off an executive coaching engagement, I spend 30 minutes one-on-one with the boss of the person being coached. Over the years, and across hundreds of these boss interviews, a certain pattern has emerged. Turns out, there are three things I have consistently heard your boss wants you to know.

1. Raise your executive presence.
2. Inspire and lead with vision.
3. Build and nurture your networks.

In this and my next two posts, I’ll address these points one by one.

Raise Your Executive Presence

Kelly was a hard-working facilities manager with a reputation among her bosses and clients for pulling off the impossible. She knew her industry and her numbers. Her contribution to her facility’s financial performance was consistently in the double digits, year after year. Moreover, the people who worked for Kelly loyally gave her high scores on their engagement surveys.

From all measurable indicators, Kelly was a shoe-in for promotion, right?

The day I met Kelly, she was running 20 minutes late, trailing stacks of spreadsheets she somehow had to review by end of day. Paperwork cascaded over every surface in her office. She waved at her too-casual outfit and untidy hair, explaining she had come in at 5 a.m. to get ahead on her paperwork.

On that day, she felt frustrated with her company of 18 years and with her boss, who for two years running had promised she would be promoted to the VP ranks “next year.” The role she had been up for most recently had – again – gone to someone else.

According to Kelly’s boss in my one-on-one interview with him, Kelly’s coaching agenda boiled down to two words: “executive presence.”

Executive presence. It’s a term that gets lobbied about in closed-door discussions about employees’ chances for assignments, for promotion, for succession. But rarely is executive presence addressed head-on. So, what does it really mean?

“Executive presence” is code for doing all the right things. You manage your gait, your conflict style, your behavior and your appearance. You are good on your feet and can captivate and motivate people. This is the stuff you aren’t always told in your performance review. However, stakeholders are evaluating you on these abilities.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, CEO of Center for Talent Innovation, is an economist who likes to quantify the unquantifiable. Hewlett conducted interviews on executive presence, 60 of them, across 18 focus groups. These interviews were designed to get at the behaviors and attitudes that inform how executive presence is perceived by organizational leaders, the people most likely to weigh in or whether you advance or sit the next round out in your career. According to Hewlett, executive presence is made up of three things: gravitas, communication and appearance.

In my view, this comes down to practicing four cascading activities that flow into one another consistently, creating a virtuous circle, shown in the figure below.

1. Envision
Leading with vision is one of the three Invisibles in its own right. What do you stand for? If I asked you to come up with a tag line that would go on your leadership business card, what would that be? Some actual examples: Do the right thing. Or Get in the game. Or Lead like your kids work here. Your vision inspires others to do, think, or feel something in a new way. It is informed by your unique experiences combined with your values, knowledge of your strengths, and those of your team. You articulate your vision in order to empower others to do what needs to be done.

2. Empower
By providing a clear vision that your team understands and shares, you are breaking off a piece of your own power and giving it to them. When they are empowered, they are free to execute. Empowered action eliminates the uncertainties that come with second-guessing your decisions, therefore delivering greater-than-expected results because people know what to do.

3. Execute
The more power you share with your team, the greater their ability to help shoulder your execution workload. This frees you up for strategic activities and for the critical job of communicating regularly and clearly with your stakeholders and your team to keep everyone in sync. This serves to energize the business.

4. Energize
By empowering others to share the execution workload, you’ll have more time for activities that energize business growth, customer satisfaction, financial performance and your vision itself. You can network with your stakeholders and manage by walking around. Simply, tactically, you can return and initiate e-mails and phone calls that will open you up to new ideas, innovation and improvement.

And now we’ve come full circle. Your freedom to energize the business through relationships feeds your everyday ability to envision. And the circle begins again.

The corporate world is unambiguous about what it demands for the executive role in behavior and in appearance. According to Hewlett, qualifiers include professional attire, well maintained; normal weight and appearance; good grooming; and posture. Appearance also extends beyond your person to your environment: you have a clean office; you run a tight ship; you do what you say you will do.

You are predictable; you are consistent. Your emotions and your communications are managed in the neutral zone. You do not yell, cry or snipe. You do not gossip or party. You curate your social media profile in the neutral zone as well. Personal postings are okay, but never inappropriate ones.

So, whatever happened to Kelly? For her, executive presence was a matter of awareness, practicing and adjusting. I challenged her to spend a couple of weeks observing how the successful senior leaders, especially the women, in her company carried themselves. This sparked a realization that in dress, tone and purpose, her executive presence should align with the spotless and welcoming facility she managed. That realization – and the work she did to bring it to life – is what finally got her promoted.

How do you define executive presence? If you could name one thing that works well for you, what would it be?

Learn more about Karen and how Tangible Group can help your company leverage best practices and foundational research for leadership development. Click HERE to schedule a free consultation.