Connecting to Admired Leadership

Expanding a Leader's Gravitas and Executive Presence

Episode Summary

A conversation with Admired Leadership Coach & Partner, Dr. Suzanne Peterson and Admired Leadership Coach, Mallory Stacey from CRA | Admired Leadership, exploring how leaders can develop greater gravitas and executive presence. Building on their previous webinar about leadership style, this session clarifies the distinctions between style, presence, and gravitas while providing practical strategies for leaders looking to expand their range and make a stronger impact in various professional contexts.

Episode Notes

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Key Highlights

• Distinguishing between three key concepts: - Leadership style: How you express yourself verbally, non-verbally, and contextually - Executive presence: The energy you project when entering a room or engaging with others - Gravitas: Verbal precision and fluidity that makes others hang on your every word
• Understanding style as developable: - Like a singing voice, everyone has a natural range they can expand - Most people can improve their style by 20-30% while remaining authentic - Focus on small changes in verbal, non-verbal, or contextual elements
• Practical development strategies: - Collect and intentionally use more intense vocabulary - Increase lexical diversity to avoid overused words and phrases - Adjust your approach based on audience (more attractive markers with junior staff, more power markers with senior executives) - Start with power markers and then back off rather than starting too attractive
• Common coaching scenarios: - The "bull in a china shop" who needs to add more attractive markers - Leaders who struggle when changing contexts or industries - Those who need to balance being powerful enough to be listened to while attractive enough to be followed

Notable Quotes

• "Style is a set of behaviors or habits, and it's more about what you do than who you are on the inside. Therefore, everybody can flex their style and they can do so authentically."
• "Style is the largest contaminator of your competence. No matter how good you are, negative style can take away from your competence."
• "To have real executive presence would be to be powerful enough to be listened to, but have enough attractive markers to be followed and for people to want to be around you."
• "Much easier to start a little bit more powerful and then back off versus coming in more attractive and trying to go power from there."
• "When you enter any situation, you have to ask, how do I want to be seen?"

Featured Speakers

• Dr. Suzanne Peterson is a Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership and a leading expert on leadership style, executive presence, and gravitas. She specializes in helping leaders understand how their style impacts their effectiveness and how to make strategic adjustments to expand their range.
• Mallory Stacey is a Managing Director at CRA | Admired Leadership who partners with Suzanne on style code coaching and programming. She brings practical experience having transformed her own style from management consulting to leadership coaching.

Resources Mentioned

• Previous webinar recording on leadership style
• Style Code coaching program
• Power markers vs. attractive markers framework