608: Why No One Knows Exactly What You Stand For (Which Is Why You Have Zero Executive Presence)

If a senior executive where you work had to describe what you're about in one sentence, would everybody give the same answer or would they struggle to explain what you actually stand for? Welcome back to Speak Up, the number one ranked business communication podcast, where we help high-performing introverts, including you, social introvert leaders, turn your ideas into influence and improve business outcomes, because being brilliant does not automatically make you influential. I am your host, Laura Kamacho, your career accelerator and executive presence strategist and godmother. And by the end of this short episode, you'll know why letting your work speak for itself is one of the biggest career myths holding high performers back. You will understand more the concept of executive narrative capital, which I've introduced, and how that builds long-term confidence in your leadership judgment. Practical questions you can use immediately to become known for a clear point of view that positions you for even greater responsibility. So here's a question that might make you uncomfortable. If I ask the executive, like the C's sweet person in your organization, or the CEO, or the board to describe your work in one sentence, your leadership style, your leadership approach, what would they say? Would everyone that I ask give roughly the same answer? Would you get blank stairs? Or would you get like something generic? Like, oh, he's really smart. She gets everything done. I wonder, right? Today, I spoke with a vice president and finance. And she told me that she was now doing the work of three people because two had been let go through a reward. And so she had absorbed the responsibilities of people that used to work for her. So what is she known for? The person who really gets things done. And that's executional brilliance, operational excellence, but that's not necessarily strategic value. And if that's the best description people can come up with, is that your smart or hardworking, are you deliver your career may be in trouble, but not because you're doing poor work, of course, not, but it people don't know your professional story. Mark Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, capital, the VC firm, he recently said, story is strategy, strategy is story. People need to know your leadership story. And this is what I'm seeing as a hidden career risk among really brilliant professionals, not a lack of competence, but that lack of executive narrative capital. Another coaching client recently said something, she said, I don't think the people in operations really know what I do, right? Think about that. She was not new. She was not underperforming. She was leading critical initiatives, nationally important issues, highly respected. But a lot of people that work with her or work adjacent to her didn't really know her. And that's because a lot of high performers believe that the work speaks for itself, that people know what you're working on and why you're working on. Your boss knows that, but you need other people to know that. Remember when you get up to the high levels of leadership, you need to have an arsenal of allies, not just the people that work directly under you. You need peers and peers of your boss and possibly people above that to know your executive narrative, your leadership stories. Think about it. So many people are not going to work with you directly, right? You're directly working with so many people. You can have many teams below you, but that doesn't mean that let's say if you have 200 people below you that they all work with you directly, no, it's a much smaller number. So what people get is in the other people's interpretation of your work, which means your career is being shaped by a story. And you may not be writing that story. If you're invited to meetings, but not asked for your opinion and someone else is introduced as the person who's going to tell us what we need to know, then you are being left out. Your opinion, your viewpoint is not considered important enough. That doesn't need to happen. It doesn't have to happen, but it can cause you to think, oh, maybe I'm not executive material. Maybe I'm not strategic enough. Maybe I need to go get another degree, but that is not the issue. This is the question that people need evidence about you. They need to have evidence for to answer this question, which is why should I trust this person with something bigger? And that's why I see so many brilliant leaders sabotaging themselves, because they don't want to sound like they're bragging. All right, I don't want to make everything about me, Laura, I'm not into self-promotion. And I get that, and I'm not into it either, but you need to think about it differently. So consider this. Imagine you're on a jury, and one attorney has evidence that completely changes the case, but she decides not to present it because she doesn't want to appear arrogant. And that's absurd. That's absolutely insane, but that's what a lot of people, very smart people do every single day. They don't share the experience that shaped the thinking. Maybe you don't tell the story that explains why your recommendation matters. Maybe you don't lay out how you've solved similar problems before. Maybe you don't articulate your leadership philosophy. And then your surprise when executives don't really recognize your leadership story. And so this is not about being humble. It's not about humility. Remember, humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking about yourself less, but you don't want to be withholding evidence of your capabilities. And that's where I came up with a term of executive narrative capital. It's getting a professional investment account. Every executive meeting presentation, project update, conversation, recommendation, either makes a contribution into your investment account, or it makes a withdrawal. Executive narrative capital is the accumulated confidence that senior leaders develop in your judgment over time. Not confidence in the title, your personality, your college degrees. But when bigger roles become available, people are going to make decisions based on that investment account or that executive narrative. That's what they're going to go on. So there's a cost of not having a clear point of view. So if you buy my book chapter 11, it explains layout of the concept of having a point of view. So you need to be known for something. Because if people can't explain what you stand for, they won't remember to involve you. You can have expertise in some domain, but that's not exactly the same as a point of view. Your domain expertise needs to connect directly with the objectives of the organization. And that's why people in sales or in production, they don't have this issue because it's clear that the point of view is to produce more sales, more products, fewer errors. But if you work in marketing or finance, or even programming or data governance, like it's not so clear. So you want to be able to challenge assumptions from a recognizable perspective. You want to be able to ask really powerful questions and connect ideas. And over time, people will be like, oh, we need to bring her in. Oh, David has a great way of simplifying this. He'll know what to do. It's not about job titles, it's leadership stories, and these stories become executive narrative capital. So it's not about talking more, but being more intentional. These are the questions I promised you that you need to be able to answer. What do you want senior leaders to consistently associate with you? What is the problem, the kind of problem, the category of problem that you naturally solve? What is the question, the type of question that you always ask? What is the perspective that you bring to the conversation that other people don't? What is the story from your experience that explains why you have that perspective? It's not about inventing a brand, but it's uncovering the pattern that comes from your life experience. You do have a point of view. You're just probably not expressing it consistently enough for other people to recognize it. And I'll give you an example of my point of view is that communication is just not about sounding good, sounding impressive. It's about material, business values. It's about you helping other people make better business decisions because this is about work communication. That is my point of view. Other people may have it. I haven't heard if they do. but that is my approach to communication. So this week I want you to pay attention to, when you speak in a meeting, are you depositing into your executive narrative capital? Did some people learn something about the way you think about problems or situations? Did they hear what it is you stand for? Did they experience your way of making judgments? Or if the answer is no, then it was a transfer of information. It could have been an email. Information is easily forgotten, but making executive judgments is remembered. And that's the difference between being a capable contributor and being more of an executive. And if this episode has resonated with you and you're realizing that your biggest challenge is not the exceptional work. It's not that you're not doing that, but it's ensuring that the right people understand the value, the judgment, the perspective behind your work. That is exactly what we help leaders develop inside the executive presence mastery system. We want you to be the most obvious choice for the next best opportunity where you work. If you'd like to talk about it with me, there's a link in the show notes. And we can see if this executive program is the logical next step for you. In any case, have a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode. (upbeat music)