Executive presence is what separates the people who get the senior role from those who keep doing the senior work.

Presence is the signal that says: this person can handle what comes next.

Executive presence is the elusive quality that decision-makers point to when they explain why they promoted, hired, or invested in one person over another with similar credentials. It isn't charisma, exactly, and it isn't confidence on its own. It's the combination of composure under pressure, clarity of communication, and the kind of grounded authority that makes others want to follow. Sylvia Hewlett's research at the Center for Talent Innovation broke executive presence into three components: gravitas (how you act), communication (how you speak), and appearance (how you look). Of the three, gravitas is the most decisive and the most often misunderstood: it's not about being serious, it's about being unmistakably the person in the room who can hold the weight.

The three components of executive presence:

• Gravitas: composure under pressure, decisiveness, and grounded authority
• Communication: clarity, brevity, and the ability to hold an audience
• Appearance: the visual signals that match the level of the room

In this video, Menno walks through Sylvia Hewlett's framework, with the components of gravitas that decide who gets read as senior, and the practices that develop each one over time.

Executive presence isn't an aesthetic.

It's a verdict the room delivers about you.