Executive Presence Needs Facelift to Guide Marginalized Partners

Law firms are grappling with a systemic problem in both how leadership envisions the concept of executive presence, and in how this feedback is relayed to women, people of color, and the LGBTQIA community.

As members of these groups seek to advance into positions of power, they’re often met with feedback about how their executive presence could limit their progression.

All too often, the idea of executive presence is steeped in a homogenous identity that excludes women, introverts, people of color, the disabled, or people over a certain age. The idea of executive presence needs a facelift.

Last December, I sat in a cramped gate in a sweltering airport terminal on the phone with a woman who was utterly panicked. She was a senior associate at a large law firm, soon to be up for partner, and had previously enjoyed a career in finance. She was also profoundly struggling with the partners with whom she worked after her firm merged with another. Their collective style was assertive, perhaps even aggressive, and loud. Hers was reserved and introverted. In her most recent review, she was told that her work product was fine, but her executive presence needed a tune-up.

The problem? My client had no idea how to quantify executive presence, or how to project it. When she pushed for more specific feedback, she was told to read a few books on leadership.

What I am describing is far from unique.

A chronic lack of actionable feedback compounds the problem. Members of underrepresented groups are simply not receiving the guidance they need to acquire leadership presence. Instead, they’re told they lack gravitas, or that they need to improve their communication style, without guidance about how to do so. They’re criticized for being too aggressive or not aggressive enough.

For women in particular, this is an impossible line to toe. Many report feeling taxed when they exert their power and communicate in the same way their white male colleagues do—but if they fail to step up and speak up, they’re told they lack the presence their role requires.

This problem extends beyond law firms and into the innermost reaches of corporate America. Research by Coqual, formerly the Center for Talent Innovation, reveals that what we’ll call the executive presence gap has kept women and people of color marginalized into more junior roles, despite ample experience and education qualifying them for leadership positions.

As of 2023, Black leaders accounted for just eight chief executive roles among Fortune 500 companies; women lead 10.3%. Both numbers are milestones, but remain low.

Executive presence is often defined as an elusive mixture of “gravitas,” communication, and appearance, and the internet is rife with examples of think pieces advocating for these types of qualities—without providing a real definitive roadmap for how their readers can get there.

Real change must start with a commitment emanating from the highest levels of leadership to delivering specific, behavior-anchored feedback in real time. Feedback around executive presence shouldn’t be vague and should instead be tethered to specific behaviorial change. Subjective, blanket statements like “you need to step up” or “we need to see more from you” are red flags.

Ultimately, the rubric around executive presence must change. Firms must unpack how their management committee and influential partners view leadership presence. They must ask what qualities, attributes, and outcomes they’re trying to drive. Are they placing a disproportionate emphasis on being the loudest person in the room, or the person who speaks the most? What characteristics inform their view of leadership presence? Is the concept of executive presence being used in reviews, whether inadvertently or otherwise, to blunt advancement and promotion? What specific feedback are they providing to help employees rise?

Great leaders are confident, thoughtful, authentic, generous, and ethical—and these qualities aren’t the domain of one small, homogenous, privileged group. Rather, they show up differently in various individuals. Firms must commit to reframing their collective mindset on leadership and advancement to recognize and reward these qualities, and to boost and amplify those who embody them. If you’re not looking for them, you may miss them—and if your firm’s systems and metrics only define executive presence in one way, you will miss out on a wide range of talent.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Holly Amaya is co-founder of Story Imprinting, a full-service leadership training and communications firm dedicated to humanizing business.

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