New book review for Executive Presence for the Modern Leader: A Guide to Cultivating Success and Thriving in the Workplace, by D. A. Benton, Rockridge Press, 2021:
Copy provided by Amazon.
The author mentions in her introduction that in conjunction with a new business venture she had started, she took on a personal research project to ask every CEO she met the following question: "If two people start in their careers with similar experience, intelligence, and ambition, why, over time, does one get to this level and one only get to that?" Her research was later published in an article which called this ability "executive charisma", something she came to call "executive presence". According to the author, "this book will work for you whether you are an aspiring or current leader, whether you are hoping to land a great job, thrive in your current role, or secure a promotion. It will help you build the career you dream of. This is the most up-to-date, accessible, and practical guide to developing your own executive presence to thrive in the ever-changing workplace. The lessons I've learned have given me a very good life, and I hope they provide the same to you."
This 150-page book is broken down into 7 chapters: (1) "Executive Presence", (2) "Leadership Styles", (3) "Emotional Intelligence", (4) "Communication", (5) "Comportment", (6) "Appearances", and (7) "Authenticity". While the author doesn't define "executive presence" in her introduction, she argues at the beginning of the first chapter that "there is an unwritten code of behavior among successful executives. They don't admit it. It's almost as if they don't want to talk about it for fear of jinxing it. They may even deny that a code of behavior exists. But it's there. It's executive presence. It doesn't matter how you feel about it; what matters is how your colleagues perceive you. The good news is that it can be learned." In later chapters, she discusses a variety of leadership styles, emotional intelligence as the trademark of a good leader, why communication is more than the words one verbalizes or writes, not leaving to chance what others see about oneself, the power of appearances, and identifying roadblocks and adjusting approach as situations change.
It wasn't until I was asked by a Chief Architect to take on the work of a recently departed Director of Architecture several years ago that I heard the term "executive presence", and it so happens that one of my colleagues at the time used this expression to describe a quality she saw in me. Admittedly, I wasn't quite sure what she meant. I had spent the bulk of my software delivery career in hands-on software architecture and development roles, increasingly working with executives over time, but nobody had explicitly commented on this topic. In retrospect, however, it makes more sense why my roles continued to evolve. While I arguably continued to remain a top technologist throughout my career, my relatively stronger communication skills, discussed in chapter 4, were often cited as one of the core attributes which helped set me apart, with the attributes and behaviors described in the following three chapters also periodically mentioned in passing along the way.
A book such as this would have been more beneficial to me at an early stage of my career, if I had wanted to focus on leadership rather than building software. But what does "leadership" actually mean? At some point in my career, I started hearing clients call their managers "leaders", but these are two different concepts: managing isn't the same thing as leading. As a longtime consultant, it was interesting to witness many clients in leadership positions who had little to no software development backgrounds, which is ironic because unless one is able to relate to the work that is being done it is almost impossible to be an effective leader in the field. A mantra that I've heard in the field over the years is that "leaders lead, others do". What does this really mean? A better mantra that I've heard is "lead by example", implying that in order to be a leader one not only needs to be able to do the work, but actually do it. Fortunately, in the consulting world I had enough people around me who understood all of this. Something to think about if you are early in your career exploring possible paths ahead of you.
All of this said, the two chapters of this book I most benefited from are chapter 2 ("Leadership Styles") and chapter 3 ("Emotional Intelligence"). I think many of the situations I recounted earlier are probably due at least in part to emotional intelligence, something everyone (including myself) can continue to improve, and I always appreciate learning about how different approaches can end up being effective, having learned over time to be careful not to view any particular method as "the" way but simply "a" way. If anything, Benton has provided me with these reminders. The author presents several leadership styles ("visionary", "coaching", "affiliative", "democratic", "pace-setting", and "commanding"), and I enjoyed the included self-assessment along with her recognition that it can be most helpful for people such as myself to possess some traits exhibited by every style. However, to speak to a traditionally introverted ambivert such as myself, the author should arguably weave personality into her next presentation to better speak to a wider audience of readers.
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