Cortex Leadership Consulting

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What is your appearance at work costing you?

It’s possible that how you appear at work could be costing you thousands of dollars.  Changing your appearance at work can have a positive impact on your income level.  What you wear to work can leave a lasting impression for the good or bad. How is that, you might say?  Because your executive brand is either moving you toward the position you want or away from it.  You either look the part or you don’t.  Sure, there are plenty of examples of someone who doesn’t present themselves well, for the industry or culture they want to fit into, and they get promoted or land their dream job, anyway.  There are many more examples I can site for the opposite.

In less than .07 seconds we create a lasting impression on others.  Sort of scary, isn’t it?  How much can you say in less than a second?  Nothing.  In a flash, you make an impression with how you look.

executive presenceYou don’t have to look like Brad Pitt to have a great executive brand.

Brad Pitt once explained in an interview, after being asked about what it felt like to be the “sexiest man alive”, something like… My father taught me that looks may get you in the door, but your personality and smarts will keep you there.  You don’t have to look like Brad Pitt to get in the room.  You don’t have the perfect face or body (thank goodness).  What to consider, moving forward, is whether how you dress and present yourself is keeping others from “opening the door”.

Our brain thinks in pictures.  How many times have you heard someone say to you, or you
have said to someone else, I am good with faces and terrible with names, can you tell me yours again?  That’s because we can remember visual images, many times, more easily than things that were quickly said and not repeated.Appearance can be a very sensitive subject.  It’s hard for us to see ourselves the way others see us and even more difficult to tell someone else how their appearance is working for or against them in a situation.  What this means to you is that if someone mentions your appearance in a way that seems hard to take, it probably took a great deal of courage for that person to tell you about it.  Even though it’s only one person you may want to weigh what they say with more weight than the silent majority who say nothing.

Appearance can be a very sensitive subject for some.  It’s hard for us to see ourselves the way others see us and even more difficult to tell someone else how their appearance is working for or against them in a situation.  What this means to you is that if someone mentions your appearance in a way that seems hard to take, it probably took a great deal of courage for that person to tell you about it.  Even though it’s only one person you may want to weigh what they say with more weight than the silent majority who say nothing.

Here are a few things to consider in regard to your appearance from an Executive Brand standpoint:

  1. Consider culture and situation. If you are in an IT culture where you everyone dresses in jeans and t-shirts – great!  Wear jeans and a t-shirt and you got it.  If everyone dresses in suits and you show up to work in jeans and a t-shirt you need to consider that how you dress may not be serving you to create a higher level of influence at work.
  2. Everything communicates. The question is, what are you communicating with how you are dressed, how you smell, how you wear your makeup and hair, what shoes you wear?  You may think you are “cool”, or that you will standout by dressing extremely casually in a formal environment.  Are you sure that’s the impression you are leaving?  Have you asked someone that you want to influence what they think of your attire and do you think they gave you an honest answer?
  3. Dress however you want off the clock. Just dress.  Those FB pictures from a wild party last Saturday night or years ago are visible and shareable.  If you think “only my close friends” on FB see my posts, that is simply not accurate.  Everything you put on line is visible digitally and shareable, with sometimes surprising little effort, whether you want them to be or not.  Look, if you don’t care about rising through the ranks at work or you never need to get another job, go for it.  Post away with carefree abandon.

Sometimes even a small pivot in your appearance can make a big difference.  For clients that ask, hire me just for the purpose of improving their executive brand, ask me, or are clearly being affected at work because how they are dressing is holding them back at work, I tell them.  Don’t wait to ask someone about the appearance portion of your executive brand if you want to move to higher levels of influence.  It’s one of the easiest things to modify.

For more on executive brand click here.

If you are getting ready to be on TV or Facebook Live or a make a YouTube video for your organization, click here.

For a private, confidential, coaching session to discuss your executive presence for the purpose of rapidly accelerating your progress towards reaching your potential at work, send me a note.

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What will you lose because of your executive brand this week?©

Your executive brand (or your unique executive value of you) is communicating something about you as a professional, all the time, whether you are conscious of it or not.  It may be working for you, or against you.

Whether you want to get promoted, negotiate for a raise, land that dream job, start your own entrepreneurial adventure, or lead your industry’s most prestigious organization, your executive brand is the key to your success or failure.  Unfortunately, you aren’t graded on your executive brand out loud.  Your customers, co-workers, bosses, partners and vendors are grading you constantly in the little bubbles over their heads and rarely will you get the opportunity to know what they are thinking about you until it is too late to do anything about.

The following percentages generally represent where others are placing emphasis during a live conversation with you:

7% to words
33% tone of voice
55% non-verbal body language

Basically, as you are communicating, others are more focused on your tone and how you are looking back at them (or not looking) than they are the words you are using.  For that reason, you can lose standing quickly, with who you want to influence the most, if your tone of voice and your “resting face” or body language indicates a disinterest or harsh nature.

For those of you familiar with DISC behavioral styles, Drivers can come across with a harsh and dismissive tone and intense body language under stress.  Influencers can come across as unfocused and “too jovial” under stress.  Supporters, could be too quiet or even shy when the situation may call for a more assertive tone or body posture.  Calculators, on the other hand, may look away when someone is talking to them and seem uninterested which could come across as arrogant when that is not their intention at all.

The great thing about your executive brand is that building it is within your control.  Repairing it, if it is damaged, is imperative if you want to advance.  How do you know if you have an issue with your executive brand?  A good place to start is by doing some self evaluation with these 3 questions:

  1. How quickly do your emails, phone calls, or texts get returned by others and especially those that you want to influence and connect with the most?
  2. In meetings, do the people you report to, your partners, or peers listen to you when you speak or do they talk over you and rarely “give you the floor” to present your thoughts, concepts, ideas or vision?
  3. How often are you asked for your opinion on high level decisions in your organization or department?

Research indicates that there is a wide range of opinions on what creates the optimal executive brand.  One of the simplest models focuses on 5 key areas of executive presence, or brand as many of us call it.

  1. Communication

“Communication is the business currency of today”, says Raymond A. Mason in his video webinar:  Attaining an Executive Presence.  Building your skills in listening for information rather than confirmation is essential.  Most people I study are listening for others to prove that what they believe is accurate and on track.  The highest level leaders I have worked with and coached listen for information.  They want their beliefs, thoughts, concepts, and data to be disputed and debated so they can be sure they are solving the right problems, at the right times, using the smallest amount of resources.

Raymond breaks down communication in these 6 ways:

  • Active Listening
  • Speaking, presenting, delivering
  • Verbal communication
  • Empathy
  • Cross Cultural Sensitivity
  • How are you perceived?
  1. Substance

Know your stuff.  Read.  Read books, articles, and white papers on your industry and new technologies that will be effecting your industry 5-10 years from now.  Be knowledgeable about what you have been assigned to do within your organization.  Competency and standards build trust.  Executives that put forth little effort to be well educated and up to date in their field can quickly fall out of favor.  The challenges facing most organizations today are robust with complex issues.  Being well read and studying topics at hand, before group meetings and key one-on-ones will put you way ahead of your internal and external competitors… and trust me, you are ALWAYS COMPETING with someone whether you are aware of it or not.  You are rarely the only one that can do your job or hold your position.

  1. Appearance

This is about being appropriate for your organization and industry.  If your boss wears a suit to work every day it’s highly possible you are expected to.  Ask about dress codes.  Ask others, that you respect and who will give you direct feedback that you may not like sometimes, what they think about your attire, your hair, and if you’re a woman…or want to be one…about your make-up choices.  I feel like I’ve seen this enough to have to say it:  Holes in your clothes – even small ones, wrinkles in your shirts, highly scuffed and worn out shoes, ungroomed hair, can all be a non-verbal sign to those you report to or work with that you “don’t care.”  Don’t fight the appearance aspect of executive brand.  Let the rebel in you dress however it wants on off hours.

  1. Poise

Refer to a previous article I wrote on emotional discipline.

  1. Surroundings

What does your office look like?  If you Skype, what’s in the background?  What does your conference room communicate to potential hires, to vendors who call on all your competitors, to peers from your industry, and most importantly, to your customers?

One aspect of executive presence/brand I would add to this list is originality.  Copying other’s original ideas, thoughts, and concepts, without giving them credit, as opposed to building on them, will not lead to optimal outcomes.  You are smart, capable, and probably more creative than you give yourself credit for.  Collaborate, don’t copy.

TEAM EXERCISE FOR THIS WEEK:

Assign team members to read or watch any of the following webinars, videos or articles and have them report out on what they learned about creating a strong executive brand for themselves.  Each member could choose a different one and then report out at a session you schedule together.

Have each team member answer the following questions at the meeting:

  1. What was your biggest take-a-way from what you read or watched?
  2. What were the top 3 themes from what you watched or read?
  3. What is one aspect, of your executive brand, you would like to focus on to improve?

Webinar: Attaining an Executive Presence with Raymond A. Mason School of Business Alumni 

7 Steps to Developing Your Presence as a Leader article

Executive Presence Learning article

The 7 Traits of Executive Presence

5 Ways to Optimize Your Executive Presence

Look Like A Leader:  Secrets to Executive Presence

Executive Presence – Talks at Google with Sylvia Ann Hewlett