In this episode, we explore the critical role of executive presence in effective leadership with Debra Benton, a globally recognized executive coach. Discover how memorability, credibility, and trust shape leadership, along with actionable insights into adapting leadership styles and fostering authenticity to inspire teams and drive organizational success.
Guest: Debra Benton, President, Benton Management Resources
Website: https://www.debrabenton.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debrabenton/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/debrabenton
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DebraBentonManagement
Host: Dr. Rebecca Wynn
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/rebecca-wynn
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Episode Description
In this episode of Soulful CXO, host Dr. Rebecca Wynn speaks with executive coach Debra about the importance of executive presence in leadership. Debra explains how executive presence—being memorable, credible, and trusted—is crucial for leaders to inspire and motivate their teams. They discuss how leaders can develop this presence through authenticity, confidence without arrogance, and alignment between words and actions. Debra also emphasizes personal leadership qualities, such as consideration and fostering self-esteem, as key elements of effective leadership. They explore the role of adaptability in leadership styles, from visionary to operational, and how authenticity can help leaders overcome imposter syndrome. This episode provides practical strategies to enhance leadership effectiveness and foster a positive work culture.
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Resources
Executive Presence for the Modern Leader: A Guide to Cultivating Success and Thriving in the Workplace: https://www.amazon.com/Executive-Presence-Modern-Leader-Cultivating-ebook/dp/B092RLCMSJ/
An Introvert's Guide to Networking: Practical Tools to Leverage Your Strengths and Expand Your Network: https://www.amazon.com/Introverts-Guide-Networking-Practical-Strengths-ebook/dp/B08LMGQS6F/
Secrets of A CEO Coach: Your Personal Training Guide to Thinking Like a Leader and Acting Like a CEO: https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-CEO-Coach-Personal-Training-ebook/dp/B000FA5KPK/
How to Think Like a CEO: The 22 Vital Traits You Need to Be the Person at the Top: https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Like-CEO-Traits-ebook/dp/B001GXP7NA/
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Elevate Your Leadership: Unlock Your True Potential! | A Conversation with Debra Benton | The Soulful CXO Podcast with Dr. Rebecca Wynn
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Soulful CXO. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Wynn, and we are pleased to have with us today Debra Benton. Debra is globally recognized executive coach, bestselling business author, popular conference keynote speaker on leadership and executive effectiveness.
She helps people take ownership of their potential by making positive, lasting changes in their attitudes, actions, interactions, both for themselves and organization.
Her client list is a who's who Of who's who… Microsoft, Citi Corp, Kellogg's, Campbell's, GE, AT&T and American Express. And that's just to name a few. She's absolutely the speed dial executive coach you need to have. She's on my speed dial.
Debra, welcome to the show.
Debra Benton: Oh my gosh. I wish my mother was alive to hear that introduction. she is sending good vibes from heaven to you right now.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Well, thanks Debra.
Can you share with [00:01:00] the leaders out there on how you got into this crazy business.
Debra Benton: we didn't have a name for it. We were just called consultants. the start was I was fired from a pretty significant job at a young age. After thinking I was kind of a hotshot, doing good work, getting performance appraisals that, you know, showed I was getting things done on time, on budget.
And my boss called me into his office and very uncomfortably, nervously, flat out fired me. And of course I ask, well, why? He says, it's not that you're lazy or ignorant or dishonest, but you just don't deal well with the good old boys and the chemistry's not right.
And that was the reason I was fired this fit, this intangible. So like a lot of people who have a setback and spent the rest of my career, I suppose, finding out what this is. I did a lot of research after that. I luck into a consulting company where I could spend some time asking this question.
When two people start out with [00:02:00] comparable, ambition, attractiveness, height, intelligence. Why when they start out here over time, one makes it to hear and one makes it to hear. And this differentiating factor is what I've made my career out of teaching to smart people. It's the missing link.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: You know, it's interesting when I read your work your work is really good about being proactive giving great examples of other leaders to model after what works, what doesn't work, and what that looks like and how you should put things into practice.
And when I read that, a lot of other people's materials to me, they, they seem to kinda like mix up what's executive presence versus what's leadership presence or leadership styles. Can you explain the difference between the two?
Debra Benton: I think you need executive presence to get people to want to follow you and emulate you so that you can be a leader.
Okay. Just being the smartest person in the company or on the block or whatever. Even, , a [00:03:00] big title doesn't make you a leader unless people also feel that you as an individual are memorable. An impressive, credible, genuine, trusted, liked, confident yourself, comfortable in your own skin. That's who people want to be like.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: One of the things you talk about , what kind of leader are you?
And you're like, I don't know, I'm kind of leader. And you go through several different examples like, What's a visionary? What's a coach? What's an agile, what's a , very strong, my way or the highway. Can you explain a couple of those? Give us a couple an example of those different types of leaders and what that kinda looks like.
Debra Benton: Well, leadership. if you Google books on leadership, there's probably 50,000 titles. So what is leadership? the leadership required in an organization,
varies. If you are a startup, organization. You need visionary to see what's going to [00:04:00] happen. P potentially what could happen. whether you like Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, they were visionary leaders. When an institution is going well. Your leadership style might be to make sure, there's always vision in the back there.
You always have to be looking forward, but you also have to make sure the machine is running now. So the leadership that might be required would be one who really can get, , dysfunctional sometimes, or, different thinking, diverse people. On the same boat, on the same train, or whatever the expression is.
So leadership changes the need of it. Changes based on the stage and even age of a company or a team. There's leadership that's, it's almost hostile. It's my way or the highway, and that works for a while. I [00:05:00] remember one company, I won't mention the name, but the c e o routinely would set up a meeting for 2:00 PM show up at 3:00 PM.
Everybody's waiting for an hour and he'd walk in and say, okay. All the stupid people out. he's a well known person I asked my client who worked for him, why did you put up with it? he said, he made us a lot of. leadership isn't always good, many CEOs because of their title will tell you there's an awful lot of jerk CEOs out there.
So there's business leadership but then there's personal life leadership too, and I'm most interested in that because that helps in your life. But it carries over into business too and helps you deal, with the style of leadership needed, but the personal leadership of being someone [00:06:00] who is considerate, maintains others' self-esteem, accepts others' character, motive, and ability without judgment.
Who expects acceptance for themselves. That's the kind of personal leadership that is strongest and overriding all styles in all times, and all needs. , right now, everybody listening , you're the c e o of your life.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: when you talk about being authentic and, and trying to find out who you are as a person, I think that's really key.
One of the things , that you really address really well in all your books is that imposture system is not, that you're being imposter, is that you're not really being able to be your authentic self. And how to recognize that sooner than later. Can you walk us through a little bit that, cause sometimes you're really just in bad situations that maybe you need to spin yourself out of.
Debra Benton: that's , a very good question and a deeper issue, on [00:07:00] imposter syndrome Most everybody feels it politicians business leaders, community leaders, , most people feel it
it stems from our own insecurities, which we all have even the most confident Person has insecurities. They're just better at camouflaging their insecurities. Okay? That's the key. Better at camouflaging. So where you get into trouble is, you know, there's an expression, confidence.
Fake it till you make it. which is true. You have to act so people treat you like you are so that you do better. But anything good taken to the extreme becomes bad. So if you fake it so much, then you have that imposter where you feel like, sh somebody's gonna find me out , every day, someone's gonna find me out.
I tell people the best leader that you can be is the kind you would like to [00:08:00] have, the kind you would follow. .
What is the kind of person you admire? Respect, follow, believe, trust. What does that person do? Okay, I wanna make sure I do that for others. And you have to do it before you're around it. There's many people who are in positions of power and authority and title who do not do this. So do not learn from that person except learn what not to be.
it boils down to you taking control. if you have an imposter feeling, the words you choose.
Not to feel an imposter. I choose to come across as authentic how do I do that? I look at others who are, and try to, mirror them. Mimic, or, model I guess
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: How can you try and balance and keep your internal peace? So you can go ahead and make those great connections [00:09:00] and, if you do have a misstep for people to forgive you and not
you messed up once you're out. I think that's wrong for companies to do that, but a lot of companies do that. How do you coach people around trying to balance that?
Debra Benton: You know, there are expectations on both sides. Employees are much more demanding of the culture of the manager of the company that they're working for, much more demanding than they've ever been in history.
What they want to see is how you think. And not just your knowledge base, but how you think, how you make decisions. And the good way to show them is to ask them questions on how they think and how they make decisions. Too many times when you go in, you wanna show off what you know, and you wanna be, , really good and smart right [00:10:00] away.
And what, what's really good and really smart. When you try to make others feel good around you, and a good way is to ask questions. Questions about what's their background on this? What caused them to join this company? What have they learned since? What would they do differently the next time? What do they wanna achieve in their job?
As my manager, what do you want me to achieve? What do you want? What's our goal in our team? What don't we want to mess with? What do we wanna have stay the same? What do we wanna maintain? And what do we wanna avoid? What don't we wanna happen? What do we need , to do to make sure we don't have something , that we don't want?
The point is questions, questions, questions 80% of the conversation be should you be asking questions. Now, , should caution one thing, although I say you can look at the profiles. [00:11:00] Uh, people you'd be working with, et cetera.
The higher you go up, the higher the chance someone wrote that profile, meaning a professional profile writer. So, , don't take any of it like it's a hundred percent. Accurate. It's the spin that they want. How do you get a through that? By asking questions. And if someone says, why do you ask so many questions?
You say, why shouldn't I?
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I tell people , a thing I do is I look to see if there's times like this that they're speaking. A lot of times you'll hear a little bit, those little nuggets from their heart. Our time has flown by so quickly.
Debra Benton: Well, maybe I didn't explain something on this, , conversation, and wanna ask me a question, , I will always respond to people debra benton.com will get you to me.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Thanks Debra. Thank you so for being on the show.
Debra Benton: you are kind and beautiful and smart, and I'm glad we made this [00:12:00] connection.