The Importance of Executive Presence and the Differences Between Cultures

Posted on February 04, 2025 by Renata Urban, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

Executive Presence is an essential attribute of leaders and a natural guarantee to make people trust you, like you, and follow you, because they believe in you. Therefore, developing executive presence is crucial for succeeding in a leadership role.

What is it?

Executive presence is commonly described as a combination of someone’s
• Gravitas (how they act)
• Appearance (how they look)
• Communication (how they communicate and network)

Why is it so important?

Gravitas
Gravitas is what makes you look confident, allows people to trust you, and establishes credibility. You can achieve that by fulfilling expectations of commonly shared values and showing a high level of emotional intelligence. This may include things like not losing your temper under pressure yet showing tenacious grit, having a vision and charisma that inspires yet being firmly grounded acting according to your principles, or having passion that makes people naturally want to follow you as a leader.

Appearance
Appearance is how you look. However, this is not just your choice of clothes, shoes, or style. The proverbial ‘nutty professor’ wearing old-fashioned clothes can still have lots of executive presence. It is more about what your audience expects to see and what they identify with your role or position. You simply have to look the part and be convincing. This is often based on stereotypes (e.g. what does a successful manager look like), what is commonly expected, or what people are used to from TV and popular media.

Communication
Communication is a two-way street: sender and receiver, speaker and listener. Once you understand that, become aware of how your verbal and non-verbal messages are perceived, and start decoding verbal and non-verbal responses of others, you can improve as a communicator. There are different forms of communication, e.g. direct vs. indirect communication or expressive vs. restrained communication. The more you understand who communicates how and why, and how you adjust to different types of communicators, your executive presence in the domain of communication will improve. Communication includes public speaking and presentation skills, commanding a room, skillful persuasion and negotiation, or knowing how to walk the fine line of being assertive without coming across as neither aggressive nor too lenient.

What are some cultural differences?

Since gravitas is all about looking confident, making people trust you, and establishing credibility, the cultural differences will show in how this is usually done in a certain culture. Are leaders valued for showing pride, optimism, and a contagiously dynamic energy, or are leaders valued for being humble, acting cautiously based on facts, and being realistic? Coming from a culture where the former is essential and moving to a culture where the latter is preferred means that a leader will have to change their ways in order to build executive presence in another culture. If you are used to being outspoken, expressive, and dynamic, it can be challenging to act in a more humble, restrained, and down-to-earth way. It may even make you feel that you are losing your executive presence, yet in your new culture, this adjusted behavior will be highly valued.

As far as appearance is concerned, you may get away with maintaining a certain dress code in another culture for as long as you are still in the same company or industry, and for as long as there seems to be some sort of global dress code for leaders. However, slight adjustments might also be necessary. It is best to watch and learn from what others do who are in a similar position. And of course, reaching out for advice to a person you trust will be seen as respecting your host culture.

The biggest difference can be seen in the way we communicate. Communication styles vary considerably from culture to culture, which shows in terms of who is perceived to have executive presence and who is not. How direct or indirect are you supposed to be with your opinion, new ideas, and constructive feedback? How expressive are you supposed to be with your emotions? What are your strategies to build trust? Is there a preference for building cognitive trust fast or building affective trust over time? How do people usually convince others, persuade and negotiate? What body language is appropriate, how much physical contact is expected, and how is friendliness expressed? As you can see, learning how to communicate effectively in a foreign culture is an essential part of executive presence and an area to be aware of. Depending on how you communicate, others will feel that they are in good hands, or not, and that you are representative of their ideal expectations, or not. Therefore, a lack of executive presence can be a deal breaker in many situations, whereas showing executive presence can be the one aspect that distinguishes you from others, the one trait to tip the scales. And it varies from culture to culture.

I can help you become aware of yourself and the perception of others, gradually build confidence, and increase your executive presence in your home country, abroad, and in international teams.