320: How to Exude Gravitas and Executive Presence with Anne Sugar

Pete Mockaitis
Anne, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Anne Sugar
Oh, thanks so much Pete for having me today. I’m excited to chat with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Me too, me too. But first I’d like to go back in time a little bit if I could.

Anne Sugar
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
In your Texas childhood, you enjoyed visiting the stockyards. What is the backstory here?

Anne Sugar
I grew up outside of Fort Worth, Texas. I think – why did I bring that up? It’s just one of those interesting kind of memories that I have. It’s not so much about the animals in the stockyard; it’s watching all of the businessmen negotiate and yell, and negotiate with each other. That’s kind of the big memory that I have of that is all of the people interacting and how it was working.

My dad and I used to just walk around and listen and look. Just kind of – I think it’s a short way of saying this is exactly where I should be in terms of coaching people today is just that interesting thing of watching people and how you influence and get what you want, right? I do that today.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s cool. You mean negotiate like, “200 dollars for this pig.” “No way. That’s a ridiculous price.”

Anne Sugar
Well they – it was like a Sotheby’s auction. The guy would be up there. But there would be all of these side conversations before the auction started, which was really interesting to me as a kid. Listening to those side conversations before the auctioneer went up and started the bidding process. It was kind of the backstory that was happening before he started auctioning. That was always just interesting to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Yes, every superhero has an origin story. Here’s yours. That’s fun.

Anne Sugar
It’s just an interesting kind of random memory that you have growing up. It’s kind of interesting why do we have these memories and things that are impactful to us.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a whole other podcast.

Anne Sugar
Sure

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a big one. Speaking of impact, it seems you’re making a world of impact with your executive coaching. Can you maybe just give us the quick overview picture of sort of what is your area of expertise when you’re coaching folks?

Anne Sugar
The interesting kind of piece is that I have a business background. I worked in advertising agencies for about 20 years and so I worked on large pieces of business like Apple computer and American Express. I coach broadly across HiPo executives from director, C-Suite level. I coach in companies like TripAdvisor, Sanofi, Genzyme, Havas.

I like the interesting dynamic of lots of different verticals, lots of different levels because it just helps me in terms of how I ask a good question and keeps me learning as well, which helps other organizations. I also coach in the Harvard Business School Executive Ed program, which are C-suite folks, director folks that come in for intensive three-month, six-month programs.

Pete Mockaitis
Just to be clear, when you say HiPo, you mean high potential and not an abbreviation for sodium thiosulfate, the photographic fixer?

Anne Sugar
Exactly, high potential individuals. Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Anne Sugar
Who either have something that they need to work on. Pete, a lot of it has to do with the small details and those little things that we all need to tweak. Are people moving to the next level and have some areas to work on from that perspective?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. I love it when we dig into some of the small details that make a big difference. It’s such a leveraged way to learn. Maybe let’s dig into some of these areas.

I guess I’m really interested in the notion of executive presence or gravitas, which is an area that pops up a lot for you in the coaching. Could you maybe orient us to make it all the more real in terms of hearing a little bit about a client like, where they were, and what was sort of holding them back, and what was the intervention, and the result?

Anne Sugar
Sure. I think we all start at this level playing field of we’re all smart, we all have these very unique strengths that we all have that we bring to the business. But here’s an interesting story.

I was working with a gentleman, who’s a director in R&D. He was having – he had so many great insights and ideas he was needing to sell to senior leadership, sell his ideas so that he could garner budget for his team.

He was having this issue for himself that – when we think about executive presence, let me take a step back Pete, there’s so many different components of executive presence, but for him, … saw that gravitas and people listening, that’s where we fell short. One time we – part of the coaching process for him was to dissect the process of how he sold.

He was telling me this story that he was in a senior leadership meeting and was presenting his large in-depth document. He said to me, “On page five, we got to page five and the senior leadership team said, ‘That’s great. We’re ready to go,’” but he kept presenting the rest of the 20 pages.

He lost his “executive presence and gravitas” because he wasn’t listening. He’d already gotten “the sale.” He didn’t need to present the last 20 pages. He delivered on the first five.

For him, one piece about executive presence for him was really listening to the room and how did he influence. Now for him when he goes in to present his budgets and what he needs, he really sets forth in two ways. He presells before he goes in and he sits and listens to the room in terms of what they need and flexes from that perspective.

That’s how he just learned over time how to kind of to manage and watch the room. That’s one small piece of executive presence, but for him it was really impactful.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting. I’m curious what – I guess there would be all sorts of things under the surface that leads one to want to proceed through all 25 pages when-

Anne Sugar
There is.

Pete Mockaitis
-it’s not there in terms of “I worked really hard on these pages. I want to show them to you,” or “I don’t think you really understand how critical this is,” or yeah, well, now I’m just so curious and wrapped up in the story. What was going on there?

Anne Sugar
Well, from his perspective – you’re absolutely right, from his perspective, I’m just going to make an example here. On page 30, he thought it was something that was very important that he needed to communicate, but for his leadership team it wasn’t important in terms of making the decision.

You don’t – I think … sometimes for leaders is they have a picture in their head of how the meeting has to progress. They have a linear way from where they start to finish.

Part – I learned this in advertising too, part of executive presence is kind of the theater of it. It’s not just a linear process of I’m going to start on page one of my PowerPoint presentation and hit to 50. It’s the theater and the story of how you sold. He sold his story on page five. He didn’t need to go further.

Two, I think that something that’s important an executive presence perspective is trust. He had the trust. He had built trust from an executive presence perspective, so they didn’t need to say see page 30 because he had built – when I think about trust too, it’s not just about walking the talk and that cliché phrase. It’s about competence as well.

There’s so many – we could talk forever, Pete, about the many different layers that go into executive presence, but it’s trust, understanding the room, reading the room, influencing the room, flexing, and not looking at this as just a linear – it’s just leadership is not linear in many cases.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I think that you outlined a nice little bit there in terms of the trust, the understanding, the listening, and the flexing. Could you maybe give us a couple pointers when it comes to – trust, it sounds like you’re going to build that over time by having great competence and such, but are there any maybe little ways that we fritter away trust even if we’re excellent?

Anne Sugar
That’s a really good point. I think the one area that I would say – that’s two areas actually. I was actually just coaching a senior executive on this. It has to do with relatability. Are you able – trust is about being able to relate and understand – and it gets to empathy – that person’s point of view.

I think too it’s about just a simple piece of caring. Do people believe that you care? I think that those are two really key components.

This is an interesting story. It’s not about actually a client of mine. It has to do with my daughter and her lacrosse coach. It’s interesting. She came home to me one day and she said – she has a very tough lacrosse coach. This lacrosse coach was trying in her way to flex and be sort of caring.

But my daughter said to me, “You know mom, she was trying to be really nice, but something felt really weird. I did-“ I’m talking about a 13 year old here. But it actually relates to everybody. For you as a leader, it’s just this authentic piece to it. What she was feeling, which she couldn’t articulate, but it was it didn’t feel authentic to her. It felt weird.

Pete Mockaitis
Right, in terms of – all sorts of examples come to mind in terms of if you’ve been told a behavior, smile, make contact, nod your head, ask, “Does anybody else have a perspective on this matter?” If it’s not – if you clearly don’t actually care, they pick up on that.

Anne Sugar
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
And thusly, it feels weird, inauthentic.

Anne Sugar
Absolutely. You have to decide at what point do you care. We think about I like to say that business is a team sport. Leadership is a team sport. We do need people. We do need to think in some way how can we be empathetic.

Here Pete, I’m going to contradict myself for a second when I think about coaching some individuals on this building trust. When people are working, when I’m working with people on a specific strategy or tactic that will help them from a leadership perspective, in the beginning it is a bit clunky.

It might feel a little bit inauthentic some of the things you might be working on, whether it’s “I’m going to test a new way to influence this person.” It’s almost like you’re writing with your non-dominant hand. Over time you see the change and evolution, but there’s that subtle difference of being inauthentic and working on a skill.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. Understood. It can feel weird to you as you’re doing it and it may even look weird as others are picking up on that.

Well, next I want to kind of dig into the understanding and listening a little bit. Are there any particular kind of telltale signs or indicators that we should be particularly clued in on? In your example, the “Okay, we got it,” feels like a real gift in terms of that’s very explicit and clear in terms of what you think about things.

But often there’s the subtext, there’s the subtleties, there’s the tone, there’s the wincing or body language. What are some top things you recommend people look out for as indicators as to what’s going on in the room?

Anne Sugar
I think you bring up a fantastic point. I coach people on this all the time is that body language never lies. We can’t – in many instances, we can’t hide those subtleties. One way that I coach individuals to work on understanding and starting to pick up on the physicality and the nuances in the room is called turn down the sound.

When you’re in a meeting, almost turn down the sound and not listen to everybody, but watch everybody’s boy language. In many cases you can tell how the meeting is going. You don’t even need the words. That’s one specific way that I coach individuals to practice on that.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that.

Anne Sugar
Listening is practice. It’s just truly about practice. It’s the subtleties of the other very important point, I learned this as a coach, is slowing down and not formulating your answer before somebody is finished. If you truly relax into just listening to that person speak, then you have a much better chance of picking up on the subtleties, number one.

Many times you miss the last part of what they’re saying or what that question is because you’re already formulating. You can’t do two things at once.

I liken it to this person that used to work for me. I would speak and he would almost pause for a second and then talk and have these great nuggets and insights. It’s interesting, Pete. I would be – after a while I’d get so annoyed, “Just talk,” but actually really he was being very thoughtful in listening. I was a very naïve manager back then. Now that I think about it, he truly was listening.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. I think that people have a bit of a maybe a fear or concern. It’s like, “If I’m silent, then I’ll look dumb or slow.”

Anne Sugar
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Like I’m not with it and sharp and engaged and on top of the exchange. I’m thinking about the West Wing in which they’re always talking so fast back and forth.

Anne Sugar
It’s true.

Pete Mockaitis
And striding.

Anne Sugar
It’s true. It’s true. Very symptomatic when we’re in meetings, when leaders are in meetings, they fear of not being the smartest guy in the room. I was listening to somebody and he was speaking about that actually the smarter people are the ones that ask the most questions. That’s where you get the good listening and the learning. It’s not always about having the best point of view, frankly.

Pete Mockaitis
Right, yes. I like that a lot. I’m intrigued when you say turning down the sound that I can’t recall the movie, but I know I’ve seen it before in terms of people are talking and then there’s the dolly push shot zoom in and the chatter blends together, that effect. Then you can really sort of observe what’s unfolding. Do you have scene in mind? I know I’ve seen this before.

Anne Sugar
I don’t know.

Pete Mockaitis
The listeners will serve us here. Tell us. See we’re asking questions. We’re listening. We don’t have all the answers. That’s good.

Anne Sugar
Exactly. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. We talked about some broad concepts, but I’d love it if you could maybe even zoom in to a couple of tactical things in terms of some big dos and don’ts that are these little details that can make a world of difference.

Anne Sugar
Let’s see here. Some very tactical, impactful ideas for everybody. I think one is about asking a good question.

This individual that I was coaching, he was the director of sales, had a difficult time and unmotivated team. When we really drilled down into a lot of different areas, the one piece that he found was that people didn’t really think he cared about what they had to say.

He was really smart and he already knew the answer, but what he learned is asking just – this question is so impactful that really helps to motivate a team is it’s crazy simple, “So what do you think? “Just asking that person, “So what do you think?” opens up first, you might get an idea that you didn’t think of and frankly, people want to be heard, their point of view, whether right or wrong.

Maslow’s hierarchy of what we need, people want to be heard. I think that that’s one thing that is very tactical and specific.

I think something that I was just coaching a senior leader in HR today on is about the tactical piece of positive intent and that how when we’re working with somebody how do we look at it from a positive intent perspective.

Indra Nooyi from the CEO of Pepsi, she has a great quote on it. She looks at everything from a positive intent … and not looking of the problems all the time. How can you look at it from a positive intent perspective?

Pete Mockaitis
Positive intent means that we’re assuming that the person we’re talking to is doing their best, trying to support the team and make results happen, as opposed to – could you maybe sort of contrast real clearly, “Hey, this would be a negative intent versus a positive intent way to approach something?”

Anne Sugar
It might be for example this person was talking about they were all on instant chat and somebody was sending these terrible flaming remarks across. She really was trying to take a step back and assume that okay, maybe this person was upset because of X. When she pulled them into the office, she found that actually it was that way. But not assuming the worst in all cases.

Pete Mockaitis
Like this person’s a jerk, they’re a troublemaker, they’re selfish.

Anne Sugar
Right. Like “Why are you sending this flaming over the public domain to me? How can you be doing that?”

Then lastly, this is a tried and true, I just did a training on this, is actually taking the strength finder assessment. It was really impactful for this team to understand each other’s strengths. You can get the book the Gallup Cliff Finder StrengthsFinder 2.0 on Amazon. I think it’s for 18 dollars. You get your secret code and you take it.

I feel like a lot of times lately we’ve kind of moved away from the strengths piece but I think it’s important. You think about it too from almost a cross training perspective. How can I use this strength and this strength to help me here? Not so much of a blunt object, but how do I mold it into great together strengths.

Pete Mockaitis
Very nice. When it comes to doing some of these things with the trust, the understanding, the listening, the positive intent, the questions, how do we then sort of take this enhanced understanding to be more influential?

Anne Sugar
I think … but at the end of the day it’s how do you flex. Simply, how do you flex in delivering the information to the person that is the decision maker or that I need to – it’s my peers. How do I do that?

At the beginning when you and I were talking about the director of R&D. He wasn’t flexing. He wanted to go through all the details, but the senior leadership team just wanted the bottom line. It’s really understanding your audience and how they want the information served up.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you maybe unpack a couple continuums, continua, associated with how they’d like information presented? One could be the details versus bottom line. Another could be story versus data. What are a few more?

Anne Sugar
Another one might be process. I’m somebody that wants to see who went through the entire process. That might be another one.

Another way might be more from a people-oriented perspective. I want to hear about the impact of the people, how this will affect the people, not so much the process or the data in the details.

Two, think about that person sometimes when you go into a meeting they first want to hear about your weekend. You actually don’t want to talk about it at all. You’d rather just get to the bottom line details. That’s the disconnect and that’s where the conflict starts because they say, “Oh, you don’t care. You don’t care about the people.” They shut down and they’re not going to listen to what you have to say.

I’m not saying that people have to completely change who they are. It’s just about sharing of different modes and methods of delivering information and how you relate to people.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Excellent. I also want to get your take since you’ve done a whole lot of coaching, we had Michael Bungay Stanier on the show a couple of times talk about how professionals can be more coach-like. I’d love to hear what are some of your favorite go-to questions that really seem to have a nice track record of yielding good stuff, insights, conviction, brilliant ideas, it’s just power questions.

Anne Sugar
Sure. I think one of the biggest power questions that I use is people say to me, “Well, tell me what you think?” I say to them, “I will tell you what I think, but you first have to tell me three ideas,” so that I’m not clouding their interesting point of view with what I might think.

Another key question that I use is, “So I’m curious, tell me a time,” that works. Another key question I ask is, “So tell me a story of when it went right or when it went well,” because you can use that to diagnose. I think too what we’re talking about here is coaching people so that they come to you with solutions, that you’re not the leader who is force-feeding your ideas.

Pete Mockaitis
For the, “I’m curious, tell me a time,” is that in response to “No one ever listens to me,” or like a sweeping statement? That’s how you dig in or what’s the context for that?

Anne Sugar
It’s more. I think when I say, “I’m curious,” it could be I’m curious about that or I’m curious. When I say I’m curious, it lowers the intensity of the conversation because I’m just curious. “I just want to learn” is what I’m saying to you. It lowers the – sometimes it lowers the level of anxiety in a meeting. It’s just a – it’s almost like a door opener from a sales perspective.

Pete Mockaitis
Right, as opposed to I’m asking this question because you need to prove yourself or-

Anne Sugar
Exactly, exactly. One question that I caution people on is “So why did you do that?” If I said to you Pete, “So why did you ask me that question?” that almost implies a feeling of “Well, what did I do wrong?” I’m not saying that why is not a good question. I’m just saying that sometimes it can put people on the defensive as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Right, right.

Anne Sugar
It’s those little subtleties. That’s what we started talking about. It’s the small little details.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Anne, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Anne Sugar
I think that one thing that we – I want to stress and I coach a lot on this is conflict. The piece that I’d like to kind of convey for everybody is it doesn’t always – we want to be polite and kind in meetings, but actually conflict is good.

How do you look at conflict from a non-personal perspective and use the data and the facts. The piece about if I’m having a conflict and a debate, it’s actually that I care because I want to hear this different point of view. I think that’s one point that I want to stress to everybody because a lot of us shy away from conflict, but how can we use it and change our mindset that conflict is good.

Pete Mockaitis
And I just think all of the emotional stuff that’s wrapped into it.

Anne Sugar
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Any pro tips for just navigating those waters?

Anne Sugar
Yes. In fact, I was coaching a director of an oil refinery. He had 700 people underneath him. He dealt with a lot of conflict and crisis. If you think about it, there’s a lot of stress in the fact of damage and fires and all that.

I said to him, “Well, how do you deal with conflict? How do you deal with this crisis, the crises that happen?” He said to me, “It all comes down to dealing with the facts and not letting all the emotions get in the way, but … and really focus on the data and the details.”

I think another specific tactic that I would coach everybody on is when you’re debating an idea, don’t just debate one idea, but how can you as a team think about three different ideas that you debate.

Because when you’re only debating and having conflict on one idea, that’s where teams get competitive and that’s where the personal kind of piece comes in, “You didn’t like my idea.” But if you have multiple ideas, then there’s a less personal piece to it, so it’s about facts and many different points of view to debate.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Thank you. Now can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Anne Sugar
I really think it goes back to the Pepsi CEO quote about really just focusing on positive intent.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Anne Sugar
Strengths in terms of it really has popped up more and more lately for me in terms of “How do I focus on my strengths?” We all have these areas that we need to be focusing on.

But it’s interesting that this one gentleman was telling me in frustration, he had somebody working for him that he just wished he could be more strategic, but he was never going to be that strategic, visionary, but he had so many other different great strengths.

Sometimes it’s okay. We all want to be strategic, but it’s okay. That researcher saying leveraging your strengths and not having to worry about that one area as much maybe and trying to force fit that from research from that perspective.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. How about a favorite book?

Anne Sugar
I have so many. But I think one that I really like is the Heath brothers, The Power of Moments. It’s really about how as when you’re a leader, how do you create these moments that are impactful for your team because it really gets down to at the beginning of the conversation, Pete, that we were talking about sincerity and caring and relatability. It’s really about those people moments.

I like everything that the Heath brothers have written.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Anne Sugar
I think actually I coach this with a lot of folks and I think it’s reading. Whatever – it’s not the sexy kind of habit, but many executives that I see that are successful are the ones that are continually learning and reading.

Pete Mockaitis
Anne, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Anne Sugar
I would direct them to my website at AnneSugar.com. It’s A-N-N-E Sugar, just like sugar .com. They can also follow me on LinkedIn. I send out many … a day and ideas to help everybody.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you have a final challenge or call to action for those seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Anne Sugar
I think that the most important thing is to continue learning. How do you continue to learn? How do you listen? Lastly, just try. Leadership is about testing all different kinds of strategies and figuring out what the best ways. It’s all about experimentation.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful.

Anne Sugar
Leadership strategies.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Anne, thanks so much for taking this time and sharing your wisdom. I wish you lots and lots of luck with the coaching the speaking and that you’re up to.

Anne Sugar
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been great speaking to you as well.