Why We Advance “Conscious Executive Presence”
Last week, Maria and Catherine presented to an impressive group of executive women in Albany, NY. The invitation came from a client and thought partner. The program was titled “Conscious Executive Presence” for a number of reasons; here they are, working back to front:
Executive presence matters and it is challenging to develop. All leaders of leaders and of organizations aspire to it, and it is worth attention and cultivation.
It’s challenging because it is a trifecta of cognitive, emotional and physical presence, wisdom and alignment.
It needs to be conscious because we live in a world with In my experience as a diversity-conscious leadership coach, terms like “Executive Presence” and “Fit” are also the jargon on which bias rides through our judgments and performance conversations and can either elevate or chip away at our sense of our own or a team member’s capacity and potential. This happens not because we are bad people, but because our brains are both brilliant and lazy, and often replace a hard question with an easier one. We are capable of brilliance and prone to cognitive errors that decrease other people’s capacities.
Women and men are equally likely to hold these biases.
Recognize & Pause When You Encounter Common Biases. If we can make something that is unconscious even a little bit more conscious, we can outsmart the bias. Our ask is simple, When these topics come up, please, throw a proverbial flag on the play. That flag means potential for bias ahead. Take care with comments when any of the following are named as “development areas” or somehow enter into feedback or an evaluation of someone.
Being too passive and cooperative
Being too much, or not passive or cooperative enough
Speaking too much
Speaking too little
Underrepresenting our value
Shortcutting to family-over-career – i.e.,shrugging and saying “she/I cannot have it all”
If we are not conscious about the potential for these and other gender biases, and of what we say and how you engage, we risk hitting a nerve, committing a micro-aggression, and undermining the person’s confidence – and doing it at a moment when we are trying to elevate performance. If we are not conscious about how we deliver feedback like this, we watch her performance go down, without us ever seeing our contributions to the situation. Instead, we see our hypothesis of “not enough” or “too much” confirmed, and essentially fall victim to another cognitive shortcut, confirmation bias.
So please put some practice around this. Notice. Come off of autopilot long enough to see ourselves doing and saying those things. When we do, it weakens the old neural pathways, and creates the possibility of a new, better habit of thinking. It might not sound sexy, but there is tremendous power in recognizing and simply not short-cutting to the comfortable and less-than-constructive, oftentimes harmful, pattern of thinking.