Captain Brett Crozier commanded a nuclear aircraft carrier with 5,000 sailors. Dr. Eric Potterat spent 30 years as the performance psychologist for the Navy SEALs. Dr. Abbie Morano studies pro-social influence and persuasion. Dr. Nicholas Epley researches how humans read each other’s minds.
We’ve interviewed all of them on the Art of Charm podcast. And none of them described executive presence the way LinkedIn would have you believe.
No power poses. No “commanding voice” tutorials. No tips about standing with your feet shoulder-width apart.
Instead, they described something far simpler and far harder: the ability to make other people feel safe enough to follow you.
That’s executive presence. Not how big you seem. How safe you make others feel.
Executive Presence Is Not What You Think It Is
Most definitions of executive presence focus on the leader. How they look. How they speak. How they walk into a room. That framing is entirely wrong.
Executive presence is defined by the effect you have on other people.
Dr. Abbie Morano, who studies influence and persuasion, put it in biological terms on our podcast: “Above every instinct that a human being has, we will survive by any means necessary. We seek safety and avoid threats. When we feel threatened, nothing else matters except escaping that danger.”
If you walk into a room and people feel threatened by you, scared of you, uncertain about your motives, you have zero presence. You have intimidation. And intimidation is the opposite of influence.
“If you’re trying to influence someone and you become that threat, you’re creating more cortisol in that person,” Morano explained. “Cortisol blocks information retrieval. So when you’re being really aggressive and saying ‘give me this, give me this,’ you’re actually biologically reducing their ability to give you information.”
Read that again. Being aggressive literally makes people stupider around you. Their neurons can’t retrieve information because cortisol floods the system. Every leader who rules through fear is getting the worst possible performance from their team. Every time.
Never Skip Espresso: The Relationship Foundation
Captain Crozier learned his most important leadership lesson not in combat, but over coffee.
Early in his career, he was stationed at a NATO headquarters in Italy. Type-A fighter pilot. Laser-focused on answering emails, perfecting PowerPoint decks, using the correct fonts on his papers. Classic overachiever behavior.
Meanwhile, his Italian and German colleagues kept inviting him to espresso breaks. Multiple times a day. Short breaks. A shot of espresso, some conversation, back to work.
He resisted at first. Too much to do. Can’t waste time on coffee when there are slides to fix.
“When I finally kind of slowed down a little bit and took the time to go have espresso with these guys and get to know them, what I realized I had been ignoring was the chance just to get away from work,” Crozier told us. “I started to really enjoy it. It really helped us grow as a staff and a team.”
Then operations in Libya kicked off. Months of seven-day work weeks. Intense pressure. His initial assessment that these Europeans would never work as hard as the Americans? Completely wrong.
“These guys stepped up. They had my back every step of the way. A lot of that’s because we invested as a team on the relationship building. We still took our espresso breaks, which was good.”
His rule now: never skip espresso. Whatever your version of it is. Playing catch. Having lunch with your reports. Walking the floor. That time isn’t wasted. It’s the foundation everything else is built on.
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NKR: How to Build a Culture of Honest Feedback
On the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Crozier had a communication technique that perfectly demonstrates executive presence in action.
He would address the crew over the ship’s speaker system and remind everyone: “Things are Not Quite Right, I need you to let me know. NKR.”
Except he deliberately spelled it wrong. NKR instead of NQR.
“Not quite right is NQR, and NKR is not how you spell it. But I said it a couple of times and initially they’re like, ‘That’s the captain of the ship. I’m not going to tell him he’s misspelling not quite right.’ Maybe it’s me.”
Then, on the third time, a sailor stood up and said: “Hey, sir, NKR is not the right way to abbreviate ‘not quite right.’ It’s NQR.”
“And I used the moment to compliment them and say, ‘Yep, that’s exactly what I want. You all have a valuable role on this team. I need your feedback. If I’m going the wrong direction, you’ve got to let me know.'”
That’s executive presence. Not the performance of authority. The creation of an environment where a junior sailor feels safe enough to correct a captain. Because Crozier understood something most leaders miss:
“When you get that feedback, even if it’s wrong, even if someone tells you you’re doing something wrong but you know you’re right, you can’t discourage it. The win is that they gave you the feedback.”
People First, Mission Second (They’re the Same Thing)
Every leadership book talks about “taking care of your people.” Crozier actually did it, and it cost him his career.
But before the COVID crisis, the principle was already embedded in how he led every day.
“As I went through my career, I always tried to default to: how will the sailors be impacted? Say you have one or two sailors get in trouble. They came in after curfew. You could make a policy that nobody goes out, or make curfew earlier. But why would I make a policy that’s going to impact 5,000 people because of the one or two that made a mistake?”
This is what Dr. Morano calls “the long road” of influence. It’s slower. It requires more patience. You don’t get the quick compliance hit of barking orders.
“If you want long-term influence,” Morano told us, “if you want to not just create a sale but create a partnership, if you want a positive reputation and long-standing influence, this is where the positive tactics are so important.”
“Creating scarcity and fear will work for that one attempt. You might make that deal. But what about that relationship? If they feel hard done by, you’re going to be losing business. They’re not going to come back.”
Crozier proved this on the Roosevelt. When COVID hit and he had to make the hardest decision of his career, his crew trusted him because he’d spent years investing in them. He wasn’t suddenly asking for trust in a crisis. He’d banked it through thousands of espresso breaks, softball games, and walk-arounds on the ship.
The Vulnerability Paradox: Strength Through Openness
This might be the most counterintuitive element of executive presence: showing vulnerability makes you stronger, not weaker.
Dr. Morano calls it “pantsing yourself.” She shared a technique she uses when meetings turn hostile:
“Instead of saying ‘you’re being really aggressive right now,’ which creates shame and defensiveness, I say: ‘I don’t feel that I am emotionally equipped right now to be able to provide you what you need. I am really struggling with this conversation.'”
She puts the issue on herself. She’s the one struggling. Not them being difficult.
“It is really hard to do because we are ego-driven creatures. It takes a lot to put our ego to the side and show our vulnerability to someone we don’t have positive feelings towards right now.”
But it works. She shared an example of an aggressive customer email that she responded to by complimenting their drive for knowledge and apologizing that the product didn’t meet their expectations. The next email back was grateful, polite, and resulted in them buying more.
“You can shift someone from real anger to very sorry and very polite when you do this.”
Epley’s research supports this from a different angle. In his deep conversation experiments at the University of Chicago, he pairs strangers and has them discuss vulnerable questions. Before the conversation, 25% say they’d rather skip it. After? Less than 2%.
“We underestimate how positively others respond when we actually open up and take a genuine interest in them.”
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Speaking Their Language (Identity-Based Influence)
Dr. Morano’s framework for influence includes five principles, and the fifth, self-identity, is the one most relevant to executive presence.
“We all have our own identity of how we see ourselves. People want to feel consistent with who they believe they are. If I believe I’m a strong person, I want to feel like other people believe I’m a strong person.”
For leaders, this means: if you challenge someone’s identity, you’ve lost them.
“If they see themselves as really strong and you make a joke about them being weak, you’ve now created dissonance in their head. It triggers the survival drive.”
Instead, align your message with their self-image. If someone on your team sees themselves as a protector, frame the project as protecting the customer. If they see themselves as an innovator, frame the change as innovation.
Morano calls this “speaking their language.” Not mimicking their accent. Understanding their priorities.
“Pay attention to how they describe things. Do they focus on numbers or people or feelings or facts? That tells you a lot about their priorities.”
The 80% Decision Rule
Crozier learned in 30 years of military leadership that analysis paralysis kills more careers than bad decisions do.
“They say the enemy of good is great. If you’re always trying to get the perfect solution, you’ll miss all these other opportunities.”
His framework: most decisions don’t need 100% information. 80% is enough. Because the time you spend getting from 80 to 100 could be spent on three other decisions that needed your attention.
“Not all decisions are irreversible. If you’re in combat dropping a bomb, that’s irreversible. But most decisions in staff or in business, they’re reversible. You can always go back.”
“As a leader, we vote with our time. You have to know how to prioritize.”
Executive presence isn’t about being right every time. It’s about being decisive, being willing to adjust, and being honest when you get it wrong. That builds more trust than perfection ever could.
Building Your Executive Presence: A Practical Framework
Based on everything we’ve learned from these interviews and 17 years of coaching, here’s how to build genuine executive presence:
1. Audit your warmth. Ask yourself honestly: do the people you lead feel safe around you? Not comfortable in a lazy sense. Safe enough to give you bad news. Safe enough to say “I disagree.” If the answer is no, your first job is creating safety, not commanding respect.
2. Find your espresso. What’s the thing you can do regularly that breaks down barriers between you and the people you lead? Lunch together. Playing catch. Walking the floor. Coffee runs. Find it and make it non-negotiable.
3. Invite NKR. Create explicit structures for honest feedback. Don’t just say your door is open. Actively signal that you want pushback. And when you get it, reward it visibly.
4. Practice the long road. Every time you’re tempted to use authority or intimidation to get a result, stop. Ask yourself: will this build trust or spend it? The short road works once. The long road works forever.
5. Show your work. Share your reasoning. Share your doubts. Share what you don’t know. Vulnerability, done right, is the highest form of executive presence because it demonstrates you’re secure enough to not need the armor.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is executive presence?
Executive presence is the ability to make others feel confident in your leadership. It’s measured not by how you look or sound, but by the effect you have on the people around you. Leaders with strong executive presence create psychological safety, invite honest feedback, and build deep trust that sustains through crisis. It combines warmth (trustworthiness, approachability) with decisiveness (clear communication, willingness to act on imperfect information).
Can executive presence be learned?
Yes. Dr. Eric Potterat, who worked with 25,000 elite performers including Navy SEALs and Olympic athletes, is emphatic that excellence in every domain is learned, not innate. Executive presence specifically develops through practice in three areas: self-awareness (knowing your values and emotional triggers), relational investment (consistently building trust through small interactions), and communication skill (adapting your message to your audience’s identity and priorities).
How do I develop executive presence as an introvert?
Executive presence is not about being the loudest person in the room. Captain Brett Crozier’s most powerful moments of leadership happened through written communication and one-on-one conversations, not through commanding speeches. Introverts can build executive presence through deep listening, thoughtful questions, consistent follow-through, and the kind of genuine warmth that comes from actually caring about the people you lead. Research consistently shows that warmth matters more than charisma in how people evaluate leaders.
What’s the difference between executive presence and authority?
Authority is positional. You have it because of your title, rank, or role. Executive presence is earned. You have it because people trust you, feel safe around you, and believe in your judgment. Authority can get compliance. Executive presence gets commitment. The most effective leaders have both, but presence without authority is still powerful, while authority without presence is fragile.
Leaders who know themselves lead better.
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