In Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s book Executive Presence 2.0, she breaks down EP as an amalgam of qualities that true leaders exude, a presence that telegraphs you're in charge or deserve to be. Through extensive research and interviews with executives, she has determined that the largest component to EP is gravitas. Gravitas is how you act and affects much of how others perceive your intellect. The ability to project intellect is an important skill for product leaders who are looking to gain respect and cultivate influence. Most product managers have extensive expertise, but they might need some coaching or framing to be able to project that within their organization.
There are a couple ways in which product managers especially should be able to project expertise in their product, users, and objectives.
Know your stuff cold. You should know the salient details of your product strategy, user journey, stakeholder requirements, etc. by heart, being able to recount them fluently without much filler or stammering.
Be able to go 6 questions deep. Be able to answer questions at the root of the issue or topic - have the context necessary.
Read the room. That means tuning yourself out for a moment in order to tune in to the needs and wants of others. Then you can course correct on the spot to establish a connection. You want to make your audience comfortable so that when you speak, they hear you. You aren’t compromising your message, you are calibrating it.
Product managers very rarely lead by position, it is most often through influence, which is based on relationships and expertise. To garner the respect necessary to lead without given authority, product managers must be able to project their expertise and intellect to others in a convincing manner. That is a learned skill all product leaders should develop.
STAND-UP EXERCISE
Product team members may not feel like they are experts, despite their extensive knowledge on a subject. (In fact, the well-documented Dunning-Kruger effect shows a cognitive bias exists where people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities, and high performers in the domain tend to underestimate their skills.) Use a stand-up exercise to illustrate to team members that they do have expertise.
Ask team members if they feel like they are an expert in a domain. You’ll likely get a combo of yes and no’s. Then, ask each team member to write down five topics that they could speak on for 10 minutes without any advance preparation. You could have this be open to any topic, or attempt to narrow it to professional topics. This exercise is entertaining to see what topics team members generate (and a good get-to-know-you activity!) but also creates discussion on how easy/hard it was to compile the list. Do they feel like an expert in these domains? Would they be convincing to an audience speaking about these topics?
