Swati’s CEO sat her down and said “I have some feedback to share. You’re really great as an operator, you get so much done, but to make it to the next level, you’re going to need to work on your executive presence.”
(Deep breath.)
Swati: “Okay, thank you for raising this with me so I can address it. To make sure we’re on the same page, what does executive presence look like to you?”
CEO: “It’s really about how you lead meetings. I often don’t know what we’re going to cover beforehand. So, I don’t even think to prepare. Then once I’m in the meeting, I don’t have confidence that you’re going to drive the conversation to any meaningful outcomes, so I feel the need to jump in.”
Swati: “Super helpful. Do you see this as an issue only when I join Exec Team calls or is it more global?”
CEO: “Definitely global. It feels like your level of preparedness is the same for all settings — whether it’s a 5-person People team meeting or a 250-person All Hands call.”
Swati: “Okay, I’ll put together a plan to work on that and then check-in with you in a few weeks — as I’m working through my plan — to see if my meeting facilitation is improving to the extent and at the pace that you need.”
Swati’s situation is common. She has a skill gap that’s holding her back. In this case, it was brought to her attention and she has an opportunity to improve. We don’t always get that, so well-intended feedback — whether you feel it was smoothly delivered or not, whether you choose to incorporate it into your way of working or not — is almost always valuable. It helps you see yourself how others see you.
Swati does a few things well in this situation.
First, she takes a deep breath to calm her nervous system before responding. Receiving feedback can put you into emotional hyperdrive. Even a few moments of intentional regulation can help, whether that’s through your breath, touching something cold, taking a sip of water, or pressing your toes into the floor.
Next, she clarifies a blurry term: “executive presence.” That could have meant many things. By asking for more specificity, instead of responding defensively or with a rebuttal, she gets more information about the root of the problem.
Finally, she commits to a specific set of next steps to improve her meeting facilitation. So, let’s take a look at some specific frameworks and tactics she could use to improve:
The Four Questions Framework
Whenever I am planning a meeting, I like to ask 4 questions:
- How do I want attendees to feel?
- What do I need attendees to know or understand by the end of the meeting?
- What, if any, action do I want people to take?
- How expensive is this meeting?
Those 4 questions make preparing the content and structure of the meeting so much clearer. They also tell me roughly how long to spend preparing — if I’m hosting a $10k All Hands, that better be a gosh darn valuable meeting or it should be cancelled.
For recurring meetings or decks, I like to have these questions in the agenda or as a placeholder slide to be populated for planning and then skipped/deleted in the final version.
With AI, you can train a Claude Skill to always ask you these questions whenever you’re planning a meeting.
For a real example of how I used this in my role as the Head of People Ops at Kit, check out the first 5-minutes of this Modern People Leader podcast.
Be Clear: Are we here to discuss or decide?
At the end of the day, most meetings are some form of a discussion (sharing context, brainstorming, learning labs, etc.) or decision-making.
Be clear which one your meeting is.
If it’s a discussion, have a plan for how you’ll drive things forward if conversation lingers too long on any one person or topic. This can be a timer, a parking lot norm, popcorning between speakers, or something else, but you need a way to move things along.
If it's a decision, know what type of decision-making methodology you're using. Are you voting? Is it majority rules or do you need full consensus? Is there a presentation/consultation and then a sole decision-maker? Label what decision needs to be made, who is making it, and how it's being made upfront to avoid conflict down the line.
Always Add Agendas
Meetings should always have an agenda. This helps participants know what to expect and how to prepare. It helps facilitators make sure they have held the right amount of time and proactively shorten or cancel meetings if time’s not needed.
My rule of thumb: If you’re not the CEO, it’s not your first week, it’s not my first week, and your multi-person calendar invite doesn’t have an agenda… I’m not attending.
Maybe that’s brutal, but companies where everyone follows this are much more productive and respectful of one another’s time.
Plus, no one likes being in bad meetings.
The Four-T Playbook
Every edition, I share a proven tip, trick, tactic, or template. This time, it's a:
👉 Tip: Ask AI — Claude is my current favorite AI tool, which is really 6 tools — to share common approaches a high school or college teacher might use to boost participation and engagement in meetings (e.g., pair and shares, dot voting, etc.). Then, have these techniques as a Skill, GPT, or scratch pad "toolbox" that you can pull from to drive a specific discussion or decision or leave people feeling a specific way after a meeting.
Final thoughts
I recently joined Kit customers Daniel and Stephen Huerta on The Modern People Leader (MPL) to talk about 3 different frameworks for building a winning people strategy (audio, video).
If you haven't listened to MPL before, I encourage you to give it a listen and consider attending an MPL meetup in your area. I've increasingly found that small to medium-sized events (50 to 200 people) with real practitioners are beating out larger events, like Transform, for the potential to build connections that last and gleaning learnings that can be applied.
Until next time,
Melissa