Mastering Executive Presence - A Conversation with Sue Reynolds Frost

This is Leadership Beyond, your community of conversation. Joining us today is Sue Reynolds Frost. Sue is the managing director of Sloan Group International, a premier leadership development and executive coaching firm. In her role, Sue shapes Sloan's strategic direction oversees major client partnerships, and guides the evolution of the firm's flagship offerings, including its widely respected Executive Presence and Influence, EPI, program. She plays a central role in connecting Sloan's expertise to client needs, ensuring the firm delivers high-impact solutions to complex leadership challenges. Sue joined Sloan's leadership team in 2018 after more than a decade as one of the firm's coaches and facilitators. This blend of operational insight and practitioner depth allows her to bridge strategy with delivery, aligning Sloan's business growth with the real-world needs of senior leaders. Under her leadership, Sloan has strengthened its presence across key industries, including financial services, healthcare, real estate, and professional services. She has a vast client portfolio of many organizations, She is also the co-author of Deliberate Mindset: How Thinking Differently Can Help You Succeed in High-Stakes Presentations and Conversations, which draws from 30 years of experience helping leaders unlock confidence, influence, and clarity under pressure. Whether driving enterprise strategy or advising clients on executive presence, Sue brings an uncommon mix of candor, warmth, and strategic vision to every conversation. What becomes clear in talking to Sue is how true north for her is passion and finding out a way that individuals, teams, and organizations can align to that passion and show up in a way that's compelling. I really appreciate how Sue defined for us executive presence and somatic presence, but she also gave us some practical advice. She shares with us some common pitfalls that leaders make and techniques for helping to coach and improve on them. And I'm always a fan for reinforcing that feedback is king. Welcome, Sue Reynolds Frost. Welcome, Sue Reynolds Frost. Thank you so much for joining A Leadership Beyond. We are so happy to introduce you to our community. You have such a wealth of wisdom to share with us that is not only timely but so relevant, I think, to our people-first focus for leaders, right? So welcome. We've got Tom here, of course, as well. And let's get started. Um, but let's, let's kind of start with the, with the beginning and tell us a little bit about yourself and what led you And I know you've got an interesting journey to share, right? That every path is windy, I think, right? So what led you to leadership development, executive coaching, and really this passion for executive presence in particular and how that's come out in your coaching? Well, thanks. Thanks for having me too. It's wonderful to be here and share ideas and thoughts and collaborate with you both on this topic and just hear your thoughts about the clients that you work with and the community you've created. I'm just really honored to be here. So I guess my career did not start out with the intention or even idea that I would be in the space of anything learning and development, training, coaching, that whole bucket of talent development. I think that what I learned early on was that I followed my interests And it started out learning how to use a, a desktop publishing platform. And I was sitting in a class and really was in awe of the instructor. I loved the technology and I was not really sure what I wanted to do. I was in the PR space, marketing, sort of floundering around. And I just remember just being very drawn to her and what she was doing. And so That example, I think, carries through all the experiences I had in my career because I really pursued that even though I had no experience. And so I think I had to really persuade and influence her that even though I didn't have a software certification, even though I'd never trained people before, that I just knew that with guidance and mentorship that I could do it. And so eventually I think I just wore her down. And this was before cell phones. So I was stalking her a bit and she finally agreed to say, okay, come after one of my classes, have a 20-minute piece of content on something to train me on, which I did. And shortly thereafter I became software trainer. And it was a very high-growth time for me because that was when you had to be the perceived expert on whatever it was you were delivering. And this was when people actually needed to be trained on how to use a mouse even, or how to save a file. I remember those days. I know. So you'd have classes, everyone's in front of their monitors, they'd FedEx the floppy disks to you 2 nights before. It was like I was cramming for tests all the time. But I think the important thing as I reflect on that is just that, that focus and that drive and that high growth time for me was, it was just really thrilling and energizing. And so I carried on with that when I went into Spencer Stuart, which is an executive recruiting firm, and still was technical training focused. But with every expansion, I feel like my eyes opened wider. The aperture got broader in terms of the business world. And when you work for an executive recruiting firm, you know, you learn about all industries, all functions. And so it wasn't long after working there that I realized I'm not actually passionate about technology. I'm passionate about people, leadership, how people rise through the ranks, and the work that they did there. So I think that was really the launching pad for my passion about learning about emotional intelligence you know, conflict management, communication. And I was fortunate to have a very supportive boss at the time who indulged my curiosity and my passion around that. So that really led me down the path, honestly. And after leaving Spencer Stuart, I had a, a 3-year-old at the time and was pregnant with twins. So needed a, a tiny little timeout to figure out what I wanted to do. But that's when I immersed myself into the coaching world by meeting Carlyn Sloan, who was the founder of our firm, and all the wonderful coaches that were part of her network in the Chicago area. And it just changed the whole trajectory from that point forward. Wow. So as I was listening, as a good segue to executive presence, as I was listening to your story, before you understood that it wasn't the technology that you were truly passionate about, what was it about this teacher that really drew you in? Because even though you weren't thinking about presence, she must have showed up in a certain way that encouraged you to go deeper And of course, it was in technology, but that's not where we're going with this conversation. But, but what was it about her? And it wasn't just that she knew technology, because you could have had an expert in computers talk to you and been bored. So tell me a little bit about how that light started coming on for you. You know, that's why you're so good at what you do, Tom, because you just connected. The big dot, really. It wasn't her technical prowess. It wasn't the software per se. It was her. It was her ability to really connect with everyone that was sitting there regardless of their level of competence in understanding the software. She was encouraging. She was energetic. She was conversational. She just drew us all in. So I do think that that was a big piece of it, that she was inspiring.. And I wanted a piece of that, I think. Yeah. Great question. Yeah. So, and so this, this ties into your recent Forbes articles where you've, you've gone further and deeper into somatic presence. Would you define that for our listeners a bit? Because I think it is a little elusive, you know, for some. So what, what does that What does that mean? And then, and is it the same as executive presence? And how does that show up? So help us to unpack that a little. Sure. I think before I define that, I'm going to take one step back and just share that I was taught the art and science of coaching people on the skill of executive presence and presentation skills and did that for 9 years. So one of the things that I discovered in doing that work, and even more so now being at Sloan and working with very senior leaders, is what you just said. How do you define it? Mm-hmm. What is it? So I would ask you to consider that executive presence is the umbrella under which different facets of how you bring your presence to life sit. So somatic presence is just one facet of that. And we, we start with it. So executive presence, I'll just, just share, is, you know, communicating with positive intent, clarity, confidence, and influence. So how do you do that? Can you learn it? Absolutely. Like emotional intelligence, it, it is a skill that you can cultivate. Authentically for yourself. I think that most people, when they think about that, they think about the generic presentation skills, which is what we correlate with somatic. So it's, do you look confident? Do you project? If you're standing on a platform, do you look awkward, or are you using the space in a confident manner? All of those physicality skills that are really that initial way that people experience us. If they, if they can, even if they can see or not, if they can only hear or not, they're hearing your voice or they're seeing your physicality or a combination of the two. So it's that initial hit of how people perceive you is somatic presence. Okay. Yeah. And so I'm going to make a statement and then follow it up with, oh, go ahead, Adrian. No, no, no, no, no. No, I forgot what I was going to say. I was going to make a statement and follow it up with a question. And the statement— and your article addresses this somewhat. For those who haven't read it, we'll have the link in the show notes. But there is a belief that information is meaningful. And when we communicate information, particularly if we're the expert, we think the information speaks for itself. And that's why many brilliant technical professionals have so much trouble talking cross-functionally because they put the information out here. So the question I have for you is how important is it to make sure that this information is framed in a way that the counterpart cares about it? I would answer that by saying it has to do with congruency, if that makes sense. It does. Say more. I'll unpack that a little bit. So the question really is, how do I want to be perceived? And what am I trying— how do I want to show up? No matter what the circumstances. And most of us worry about it more when it feels like the stakes are high, or we've got a lot of data that's really important to influencing a senior stakeholder on making a big decision. So we tend to lean more heavily into the content, which I think is where you were leading with this. So the research shows— Morabian statistics say that when we're talking about our credibility, about earning trust with people, that they unconsciously, subconsciously put more weight on these initial, uh, interactions they have with us based on our tone, our vocal, uh, how we sound, whether we're fumbling around using a lot of fillers or being really clear and concise, and visually what they see. So that makes up for 93% of the weight that people might put on whether or not they can trust you or they think you're credible if what you're saying and how you're saying it doesn't align with the content. So content is king, but I think it's also important to recognize for any leader, especially technically, technically focused leaders in finance or IT, where all of the data is very meaningful to them. We try to coach people on two things. It's not what the data is, it's what the data means. And how you present it, how you show up, how you sound, how relaxed you are, how you want to be perceived allows that message to be heard by the listener. So it's about being very audience-focused and very much aligned with how you want to be perceived with the message that you're trying to deliver. Does that answer the question? Probably more than one. That does. And I would say yes, and because it's context as well, because they might say, tell us about the Glockenspiel, and we might show up and we may have no incongruence, and we may say great things, and they have no idea what you're talking about. So I always say that they want to know that you know. They don't want to know most of what you know, right? And so context and content with congruence is the home run here. Triple C, there you go. You just built a model for yourself. Yeah, you know, when you say context, it's funny because when we when we talk about executive presence, somatic being just one part of that. And those are skills that are very— you have to be very disciplined if you have an issue, let's just say, with eye contact. Most of us have fillers. It's about repetition and practice, all of those things that build the muscle memory to get better at it. Then when you add in things like context, That has to do with thinking about your message, thinking about the context of even the situation that you're in. So there's all these layers to what you need to be thinking about, um, as a leader, as really anyone, even a college student needs to be thinking about how they wanna be perceived, how they're showing up if they're delivering a message. That, that feels like so much to pay attention to. Like, so it does. It, I was in my mind, I was thinking, oh, okay, so this is like body language, right? This is like, yeah. Sitting like this and saying we really care about our people and we, you know, like, and we're very open to hearing your feedback when you're all crunched up, right? And you can't even not— to hearing feedback. Yeah, you can't even not smile. You're such a positive— I can't. You were trying to scowl, but I mean, I'm sure if you, if you get me on the wrong day, it's there, right? Ask my kids. Probably they're like, oh no, she She totally can. Yes. But it is, it's, it's more than, it's more than just body language. And so if, if I'm delivering a message and, and I'm thinking about, first of all, it's so natural for me to show up a certain way, right? So if I, if that's not an effective way, now I'm really worried about not doing that thing. That's right. And then saying it with the right tone. Right. Right. Making sure— I know Tom has coached me on making statements that don't sound like questions. Upspeak. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Still need that coaching. Right? Like, mm. So what are some— it's kind of a two-pronged question, I guess. What are some of the common pitfalls that people have? And Do you have tips to help with those common pitfalls? Sure. I mean, I think the first thing I would say is that if we think about this in the corporate context, right, if you're a mid-level manager all the way up to a senior leader, you're there for a reason. You're not just accidentally there. So the fact that you might be starting to put some extra focus on how you show up it can mess with your head because you forget about all the things that you're good at and you're hyperfocused on these things that are being pointed out to you by virtue of a coach or any awareness that you're building. So one of the things I'll just say as a sidebar comment is when I was doing this coaching work intensely for about 9 years, we talked a lot with our clients about mindset. Meaning if your mindset is diminished and you're in your head, all the skill, skills and practicing in the world aren't going to matter. And in fact, if you're new to doing the skill building, it's probably better to not think about it so much when you're in situations concurrently because it takes time for it to become second nature to you. And that's really the goal is no one's going to be perfect. We're never going to eliminate all the fillers or have a perfect stance. But when you practice it and have enough at-bats when it doesn't count, suddenly when the stakes are high, you're not thinking about that. That's really the longer-term goal. And my former partner, Jeff Hornstein, and I actually wrote a book called Deliberate Mindset, which directly addresses that aspect of building your executive presence. Because like you said, you know, depending on where you're at on your journey of learning this stuff, our mindset is what's gonna actually either set us up for success and empower us, and there's skills and tactics and strategies for that, or it could completely diminish everything about us that is actually strong and true and authentic. So it's not a one and done. There's layers to it. Does that help a little bit? Yeah, I think it does. I mean, I think just to directly answer the pitfall, I think the pitfall is people, especially if you're a high achiever, they, they have this awareness suddenly of things that they're doing and they expect to just be perfect overnight or to eliminate it overnight. And it can cause a lot of frustration when you're initially building that awareness and shifting from what we would call conscious competence, like I'm aware of this thing I do But how do I go to unconscious competence where I'm all of a sudden completely oblivious to the fact that I'm executing on something the way I want to? And it's just like anything that you have— want to get really good at in building habits is repeating and getting feedback and keep going. And time, allowing, like, being— not setting such a high expectation. That it will happen quickly. Yeah, I actually have a, a funny little story that correlates to this. So when I first met Jeff Hornstein through Carlin's network and I learned that his focus was presentation skills, it was a similar feeling I had when I was sitting in that software class. I want to do that. And so we had coffee and met a couple times, and he said, well, have you ever Have you done this sort of coaching before? And I said, no, but I've been a facilitator and a trainer. I'm sure I can do it. And what a humbling experience, because to get certified, I had to be the one on the other side of the camera. And so my confidence dipped for probably 3 to 4 months. Something that I thought I was really naturally good at, I all of a sudden realized all these annoying things I was doing. That for the life of me, initially, I just couldn't automatically eliminate. So I feel like that was a real great foundation for me to have when I started coaching people, because I remembered what that was like so clearly. And when you have to do that particular kind of training, you have to be perceived as someone that's got it all together. So I had, I had a huge incentive. You were modeling what you were teaching, right? Or you should be— you feel you should be modeling what you're teaching. Yeah. So I had a huge incentive to, to really work on it and build that unconscious competence. Well, we hope that listeners get coaching, help, and work on this, and we want to give them some tips that they can immediately put to work. What are some things that anybody can do to improve their presence right now where they are until they get coaching to the next level? Right. I think the number one thing is to get feedback. And there's two ways you can do it. If I'm about to go into any situation where I have a trusted peer or colleague that's going to be in the room or on the video call with me, asking them for feedback before you go into the situation and ask them specifically what you're looking for feedback on. So I might say, Adrian, you're gonna be on this call with me. Tom asked me to lead it. And I want you to pay attention to how I'm setting it up and am I actually engaging people. And let me know after. So you know exactly what I want feedback on. You're not gonna just give me that glossy, oh, you did great. Which means nothing. So that's part of it— asking for feedback prior to situations from people you can trust so you have a real-time barometer of how you're being perceived. The second thing is we, we don't always have the opportunity or perhaps the network to do that. So when you can, record yourself. There is nothing that is a better source of instant feedback than Hearing and/or seeing yourself on video. So you might be in situations where you might have regulations in your organization that don't allow you to record yourself, but you can record yourself practicing, um, a delivery and watch it back, and you'll see firsthand. So those are two practical ways to get started to actually build the self-awareness Uh, there's a few other little nuggets I can give on some specific skills if you're curious about that. Well, I think on the somatic, there might be some things around breathing and anchoring, a couple of, uh, a couple of things people can do. If you could share some of those. Sure. I think it goes back to what Adrian was talking about with what we would call upspeak, or the tone slipping up at the end of a sentence so it sounds like a question. I would put that into the bucket of fillers, things like, um, or hedging language, things that we say that might undermine us that just come out naturally, like, well, I'm not the expert here, but all of those things that we're doing ums, you knows, at the end of the day, all those things are really there in our brains to buy time when we're thinking about what we want to say next. So the coaching is really around, first of all, recognizing what is that thing for you, and then what do we need to do to interrupt it? And it really resides in punctuating your sentences, ending them, taking a breath, and then moving on to your next thought. So that pause and that breath not only gives you a chance to calm anything that might be going on, but to speak with more clarity, more brevity, and transition to the next thought. That's benefit one for you. Benefit two, probably more importantly in the grand scheme of things for the listener, is it gives them time to track with you. Yeah. A lot of times people will say, yeah, I've been told I speak too fast. That's usually not the case. It's that we don't stop talking. So it occurs to others that we're speaking too fast because they can't keep up. So by implementing speaking with punctuation, pausing and breathing, you're benefiting yourself tremendously. And you're allowing whoever is with you, one-on-one or otherwise, to track with what you're saying and to process. That's so great. Two things came to my mind. Early in my career, when I was working under— within an HR department, we had a leader who was notorious, notorious. I mean, he became famous. He might have even written a book about this. But— and I've borrowed it in Power of Pause now. I should give him credit. But he would often say, and I'm going to pause right here, and he would encourage us to just literally say it. And especially this was the time when I don't think we were really on Zoom calls, video calls yet. So it was still conference bridges. Remember those? For sure. So now you don't even have the real nonverbals, you know, visuals to show that you're just intentionally pausing. So he would just say it. I am going to pause right here for response, or I'm taking a drink of water to pause. Right. So I think maybe he was coached, kind of reading into this now, perhaps he was coached and that was his technique for being more intentional about that pause. And my other thought— Yeah, go ahead. I want to add something to that that I like. Obviously, if you do that all the time, it could be something that's annoying. Right. Like every sentence I'm going to pause. But what I like about it is that especially if we're in situations where— and we were talking about this offline, Adrian— where we find ourselves in the zone on a topic that we're really knowledgeable about. And let's say we're trying to influence someone's way of thinking, or if you're in a client-facing role, you're trying to influence them to engage with your company. We often can hear it in our head. Have you ever felt this? Like, I'm talking way too much. Like, I need to stop, but I don't know how. Sometimes I will say, you know what? I'm just going to put the brakes on for a second. What are your thoughts? Yeah. And even calling it out, you don't even have to say, I'm going to pause here. I'm going to take a break and get your reactions to this. And it gives you a chance to slow those gears down. I love that. What a cool way to role model it too. It was. It was a— I mean, it's a great strategy, right? And one that I think of today. The other thing that came to my mind was I mentioned, and most of the community knows, I've got daughters. My youngest is in 5th grade, and we practice reading out loud, and she will blow through punctuation. And so perhaps that's a good way if you're someone who just keeps going, is to just read something out loud, an article you're reading or anything that you're reading, just actually read it out loud and follow the punctuation because it's training your brain then to, you know, that there's a period there, there's an end. So take a little breath and then keep going. I love that. And you're reminding me that's a little hack that we used to tell people. When we were training them actively on this skill, read out loud. And then I'll add to that even more with today's technology, we're voice texting. And what do we have to do when we're voice texting? We have to speak the punctuation. Hi, Adrian, comma, how are you, question mark. It was so good to be with you today, period. It's this weird phenomenon that it's literally like you're saying, training your brain to think the way we write or the way we should write, I would say. That's a whole other topic. That's great. That's a really cool thing. As we come to a close of this conver— oh, I interrupted you. Go ahead, Cara. I was just saying that's a really cool thing in a fun way to be teaching your daughter at this house. It's really great. Yes. Yes, and she dislikes it, so that's why I make her do it even more, right? Because she's like, I don't like to read out loud, I'll read to myself. No, no, let's read out loud. Yeah. As we come to the close, we'd like to hear a little bit about the work you do and your company. Sure. But I have a question before that. Just do you prefer it called Sloan Group, Sloan Coaching, Sloan International? I've seen all three, and I meant to— when I refer to I just say Sloan. That's easy. How do you like the company to be called? And then tell us a little bit about the work you do and who you serve. The official name of the company is Sloan Group International. But for the past few years, we've been rebranding ourselves to just be called Sloan, mostly because when we develop relationships with clients, that's how they refer to us anyway. And it's less of a mouthful. So Sloan is great. That's what— that's— thank you for that. I saw it 3 different ways, and I just wanted to make sure I referred properly. Well, that's a good note. Maybe we should be more consistent in how we're talking about ourselves. So Sloan has been around for about 20 years, and our focus is on executive coaching and leadership development. We work with Fortune 500 companies, a couple Fortune 100 companies, with senior leaders that need executive coaching, with groups or teams that need team or group coaching for team alignment. And then our leadership focus on programming is really around executive presence and influence like we've been talking about today. And we do a lot of work, especially nowadays, with resilience. We've got some proprietary research and content around building resilience at work. So that's what we do. And who we serve are really, again, clients that have leaders that are looking to accelerate or high potentials that are looking to see where they get their leadership growth edge as they're ascending in their careers. And we work hard to help develop them and get them to where they want to go. And we talked about that it's not only executive level. Is that right? You're working with all levels within an organization or individuals in their career. That's right. I think when Carlin started the firm, there was a heavy focus on senior-level directors, VPs, all the way up to C-level. And in the last few years, I don't know if you guys have seen this, but that mid-level manager cadre has sort of been left in the dust a little bit. They haven't been focused on or developed. And we have a lot of content around becoming a great leader in that all of those areas that you might think about. So how communication skills, giving feedback, conflict management, emotional intelligence. So those skills that as a leader, especially if you're newer in your career to managing people and you previously were an independent contributor and a real technical expert, how do you shift out of that to lead and grow and develop people? So we have a lot of content around that. Well, that's great. Yeah, that's great. A great mission because that middle has been ignored for a long time and they're exactly where— Yeah, they don't get ignored when they dish out the work to do, but they get ignored when it comes to raising the capacity to do the work. Critical skills it takes. Yes. Not soft skills, those critical professional skills. Right. That's right. Right. And we see the companies that do it best, they invest. And they see that that's their future workforce. And as they're upskilling and they're looking for upward mobility within their organizations, they need to pay attention to those, those future leaders sooner. So it's encouraging to hear from most of our clients that their focus is starting to, to go there and they're looking to invest, which is really encouraging. It is. That's great. Well, thank you so much for making space for this conversation. Thank you. And, uh, we will put your contact information in the show notes. And any word of encouragement you want to leave, leave us with? I think just show up and be your authentic self and connect with people. There's a lot that's coming at us with AI and lots of transformations, but the people part of what we do isn't going to go away. So don't forget about that. I guess that's what I would say. Yes. What a great way to close. And that's— That's where our missions align. The people. Human connection. People first. Thumbs up for people first. Right on. Thank you for joining us, Sue. It's been great. Thank you. Thank you, too. It was really great to be with you both. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Beyond podcast. We hope you benefited from this conversation as much as we have. We invite you to join our community of conversation. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget to sign up at aleadershipbeyond.com for free materials and updates. That's aleadershipbeyond.com. Join us in 2 weeks for our next episode.