Executive Presence for Women eBook Series Launching Soon!
13th May 2014New Study Shows Executive Presence is Acquired for Men and Women
25th May 2014Free Book Excerpt: As a Woman You can Refine Your Executive Presence One Facet at a Time
Here's a free sample from my upcoming e-book: Executive Presence for Women: The Five Facets Approach to Get the Job You Deserve
This book is just the first in a series of eight that introduce the basic tenets of Executive Presence and give you a flavor of how you can start thinking about your own presence. It also introduces you to the Five Facets Approach – the work I’ve been doing with women in companies like GE, BP, Shell, and P&G, for the past 15 years – one easily digestible book at a time. As you become aware of your executive presence, you can identify which Facet you have the greatest need to improve and get that book in the series.
With Executive Presence you have to be completely honest with yourself to recognize your strengths and weaknesses, and make a plan to enhance one set of qualities while compensating for the other.
The process of changing a rough stone into a faceted gem requires knowledge, tools, equipment and technique. The stone is cleaved into its separate pieces before being bruted or ‘girdled’ to give it the basic shape. Two diamonds are set against each other to grind and create the desired shape because they are equally hard and can make the cut.
Then the stone is polished, whereby the facets are cut onto the diamond through a process of blocking, faceting and polishing. Only then is it cleaned with acid and examined for final quality.
Only then is its value realized. After being pressurized, volcanized, cleaved, cut, ground, acid bathed, and set. It’s not an easy transition from rock to brilliance.
The word ‘facet’ is loaded with meaning for me. Coming from the Latin facies, its root means ‘face’ or ‘form’. On one hand, it is literally one of the polished surfaces of a cut gem. But it also means ‘a particular aspect or feature of something’. It’s an aspect or a dimension of an object or, in my work, an individual.
We are a lot like diamonds in the rough.
We all have our experiences, beliefs, education, background, culture, heritage and all the other things that, in combination, make us unique and individual. We all have our own pressures to survive and our own flaws with which to cope.
We all choose surfaces project ourselves and who we are to the outside world. We may do this intentionally, but without always considering the consequences. In business, considering how each of our facets is refined and polished to reflect our best qualities requires some analysis, planning, and strategy. Just like the diamond cutter analyzes, plans, and strategizes to maximize the brilliance of the stone and minimize the flaws, we can maximize our own brilliance and minimize our own flaws to project our best self to the world in which we live, and work.
The Five Facets are the surfaces we use to present ourselves, and is what I use to frame my work with all my clients, men and women, to ensure they’re making a plan to project their unique brilliance, to demonstrate their value and to be recognized.
Collectively, these Five Facets comprise your Executive Presence, or how you present yourself:
1. Visually. This is your appearance, facial expressions, dress and ‘artifacts’, eye movement and eye contact. It’s also your online image and your social media identity, which people use to form an impression of you with nothing other than what they read/see.
2. Verbally. This facet reflects your tone of voice, speech patterns, accent, vocalizations, speaking and listening skills.
3. Kinesthetically. Not an intuitive descriptor, but nonetheless critical, this facet encompasses gestures, posture, body language, personal space, smell, touch and energy.
4. Sociability. Particularly important in corporate cultures, this encompasses behavior that’s accepted or unacceptable, offensive or non-offensive, cross-cultural awareness and an overall social ease and etiquette. This also is reflected in your social media behaviour.
5. Presence. The ‘X-Factor’, the instant click and gravitas that real leaders project. It’s developed and managed very strategically by understanding semiotics or symbols, using juxtaposition to draw or deflect attention, manipulating the environment, understanding power structures, and being shrewd in your approach to get the job you want and deserve.
For you to shine, each Facet needs to be reviewed, the flaws mapped, the plan created, and the strategy implemented.
With Executive Presence you have to be completely honest with yourself to recognize your strengths and weaknesses, and make a plan to enhance one set of qualities while compensating for the other.
The process of changing a rough stone into a faceted gem requires knowledge, tools, equipment and technique. The stone is cleaved into its separate pieces before being bruted or ‘girdled’ to give it the basic shape. Two diamonds are set against each other to grind and create the desired shape because they are equally hard and can make the cut.
Then the stone is polished, whereby the facets are cut onto the diamond through a process of blocking, faceting and polishing. Only then is it cleaned with acid and examined for final quality.
Only then is its value realized. After being pressurized, volcanized, cleaved, cut, ground, acid bathed, and set. It’s not an easy transition from rock to brilliance.
The word ‘facet’ is loaded with meaning for me. Coming from the Latin facies, its root means ‘face’ or ‘form’. On one hand, it is literally one of the polished surfaces of a cut gem. But it also means ‘a particular aspect or feature of something’. It’s an aspect or a dimension of an object or, in my work, an individual.
We are a lot like diamonds in the rough.
We all have our experiences, beliefs, education, background, culture, heritage and all the other things that, in combination, make us unique and individual. We all have our own pressures to survive and our own flaws with which to cope.
We all choose surfaces project ourselves and who we are to the outside world. We may do this intentionally, but without always considering the consequences. In business, considering how each of our facets is refined and polished to reflect our best qualities requires some analysis, planning, and strategy. Just like the diamond cutter analyzes, plans, and strategizes to maximize the brilliance of the stone and minimize the flaws, we can maximize our own brilliance and minimize our own flaws to project our best self to the world in which we live, and work.
The Five Facets are the surfaces we use to present ourselves, and is what I use to frame my work with all my clients, men and women, to ensure they’re making a plan to project their unique brilliance, to demonstrate their value and to be recognized.
Collectively, these Five Facets comprise your Executive Presence, or how you present yourself:
1. Visually. This is your appearance, facial expressions, dress and ‘artifacts’, eye movement and eye contact. It’s also your online image and your social media identity, which people use to form an impression of you with nothing other than what they read/see.
2. Verbally. This facet reflects your tone of voice, speech patterns, accent, vocalizations, speaking and listening skills.
3. Kinesthetically. Not an intuitive descriptor, but nonetheless critical, this facet encompasses gestures, posture, body language, personal space, smell, touch and energy.
4. Sociability. Particularly important in corporate cultures, this encompasses behavior that’s accepted or unacceptable, offensive or non-offensive, cross-cultural awareness and an overall social ease and etiquette. This also is reflected in your social media behaviour.
5. Presence. The ‘X-Factor’, the instant click and gravitas that real leaders project. It’s developed and managed very strategically by understanding semiotics or symbols, using juxtaposition to draw or deflect attention, manipulating the environment, understanding power structures, and being shrewd in your approach to get the job you want and deserve.
For you to shine, each Facet needs to be reviewed, the flaws mapped, the plan created, and the strategy implemented.
