Intelligence

Research

For many years, we’ve known intuitively that having women in top leadership positions means improved organizational performance. Today, a body of data from prestigious research organizations documents the positive impact women leaders have on their organizations.

• Pepperdine University reported that businesses with more women in leadership reported better financial results than those with fewer women leaders.
• The Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the only high predictor of a group’s creativity and effectiveness was the number of women in the group.
• Harvard Business School reported that peers, bosses, direct reports and associates rated senior executive women up to 10% better as leaders than male senior executives.
• Credit Suisse Research Institute found that companies with women on their boards outperformed those with all-male boards.

Clearly, the outcomes of women in leadership are positive for organizational performance. Research also shows that women have made enormous progress on the lower and middle rungs of the career ladder.  Due to many complex reasons, however, women are not as successful in senior level positions.

The question is: What can be done to increase the numbers of women in senior leadership positions?

There isn’t one simple answer. An area currently being explored is Executive Presence — the ability to present yourself in a way that signals to the world that you are leadership material. It doesn’t matter if you are on Wall Street or Main Street, there are core characteristics that make people contenders…or not.  These characteristics, are often referred to as: authenticity, competence, communication skills, confidence, courage, decisiveness, emotional intelligence, integrity, presence and vision. They are all reflected in how you show up at work: How you communicate, how you behave, how you present yourself and how well you know and use your strengths.

As serious-minded professional women, where do you go the get this executive presence — this gravitas — to learn, explore and grow these characteristics? Presently, there are only a handful of isolated resources, including leadership development workshops, your human resource department (if you have one), self-help books and on-the-job training. But none of these offers real time, easy-to-access, affordable, research-based expertise.

The Executive Presence Group is a unique organization for women who want to learn what it takes to reach those executive positions. We are a web-based leadership support service — a membership organization that combines learning, coaching and mentoring in one affordable easy-to-access site. Think of us as a high-level “customer service support line” specifically tailored to the professional needs of aspiring female leaders.

If you’ve ever wondered how you could find out what you needed to get ahead, or why you are not getting promoted as fast as you think you should, or why you have trouble being taken seriously and making your point, you are a perfect candidate for The Executive Presence Group. Here’s a place to get answers quickly. And if you need further leadership support, we offer access to a pool of pre-approved executive coaches and mentors to help you along the way.

Research from the Center for Talent and Innovation

When it comes to career success, attractiveness and hard work don’t match the influence of “executive presence” (EP), according to a study from the Center for Talent Innovation. In a survey, 268 senior executives cited executive presence — being perceived as leadership material — as an essential component to getting ahead. In fact, executive presence accounted for, on average, 25% of what it takes to get promoted. The study’s revelations were gleaned from 18 focus groups, nearly 4,000 college-graduate professionals and 50+ one-on-one interviews with high-level executives.

Key Findings:

• Executive presence accounts for 26% of what it takes to get the next promotion, according to senior executives
• Gravitas — confidence, poise under pressure and decisiveness — is the core characteristic of EP, according to 67% of the 268 senior executives surveyed
• Communication telegraphs you’re leadership material, according to 28% of senior executives
• While only five percent of leaders consider appearance to be a key factor in EP, all of them recognize its potential for curtailing or derailing talented up-and-comers. Notable appearance blunders, not surprisingly, are unkempt attire (83% say it detracts from a woman’s EP, 76% say it detracts from a man’s) and, for women, too-tight or provocative clothing (73% say it detracts from a woman’s EP).
• Sounding uneducated proves a tripwire (59% say it detracts from a woman’s EP and 58% say it detracts from a man’s)
• Women and multicultural professionals tend to struggle with EP due to intrinsic tension between conforming to corporate culture and remaining true to oneself. 56% of people of color feel they are held to a stricter code around EP, compared with 31% of Caucasians; 36% deliberately recast the way they tell their stories, compared with 29% of Caucasians.
• For both women and people of color, feedback on EP can be hopelessly contradictory—which may be why 81% say they’re unclear as to how to act on it.

C-Suite Executive Competencies Required for Success

The talent and career management consulting firm, Right Management, recently partnered with Chally Group Worldwide, a global leadership and sales potential and performance measurement firm, to survey over 1,400 CEOs and human resource professionals from 707 organizations across the globe to learn more about their companies’ leadership development practices.

“We asked respondents to rate which of the most commonly suggested competencies were the four most critical for several typical C-level positions. The top four competencies for CEO roles were Creating a Strategic Vision (91.7%), Inspiring Others and Maintaining Leadership Responsibility (62.3%), Developing an Accurate and Comprehensive Overview of the Business (56.9%) and Decision Making (54.5%).”

Also from Right Management, the table below ranks the factors believed to contribute most to the failure of senior leaders in their organizations.

Factors Believed to Contribute to Failure