Executive presence generally defined is the skill of projecting confidence, authority, and inspiring trust through credibility, clear communication and composure. For an in-house counsel, that entails the ability to generate confidence around you by communicating clearly, staying calm and composed under pressure, understanding business priorities, and helping leadership navigate and make decisions around complex issues. This can be a daunting task, especially for lawyers coming into an in-house role from law firm experience. Even more so as women. The good news is that executive presence can be built.

Let’s start by redefining what executive presence means for an in-house counsel: executive presence for in-house counsel is the ability to position yourself as a strategic partner in the room, not a compliance stop on the way out. The following practical scenarios are all built around this definition.

Less is More

One of the biggest traps of executive presence is volume. This includes talking more, talking first, and talking with more certainty than you have. In an executive boardroom, the most influential person is often the one who speaks the least, but who speaks clearly when they do. Listening to others before speaking allows you to understand the issue from different angles before expressing your own opinion. Listening with intent also gives the business the chance to tell you what the real problem is. It builds rapport and trust with the business which will get you involved early on and more often, which results in less putting out fires and more preventative business strategy. Make it a habit to be accessible, allow the business to explain the problem, ask questions to get more context, and allow space for them to feel comfortable sharing information with you openly. Once you have the full picture, then give your opinion. This strategy will earn you loads of trust and political currency inside a corporation.

From Helpful to Influential

As lawyers, our careers are shaped by being exceptionally helpful. We respond quickly, we fix problems, we take responsibility, and we make ourselves indispensable. Although these are all valuable qualities, the most important transition for an in-house counsel is going from being the person that solves the problem placed on their desk to the person that helps influence decisions before the problem is created. This is achieved by building trust which allow you to get a seat at the table earlier. One of the ways of doing this is by learning and understanding the business. Don’t be afraid of asking questions and reaching out to different people who can explain all the pieces that go together. This will allow you to understand strategic objectives and anticipate issues instead of only reviewing the final contract. Exercising good business judgement early on turns trust into influence.
Read the Room, not Just the Documents

Lawyers are very good at analyzing text. Most of our legal training involves understanding and interpreting different texts. A lawyer with executive presence also knows how to analyze people. This skill requires exceptional situational awareness, which entails careful listening, noticing also what is not being said, and understanding the context and incentives of the people involved. This is the difference between playing office politics and having organizational intelligence. A few ways to practice this is thinking about: who actually owns this decision? Who has influence over this decision? Why is someone resisting a particular path or advice? Is the decision only about the legal/risk factor, or are there more layers of complexity to it like revenue targets, sales incentives, or deadlines?

Start with the Recommendation

As lawyers, we are used to showing our work. Starting at law school, we are taught to identify issues, explain the rules, analyze facts, discuss exceptions, and arrive at a conclusion. But in-house counsel roles require a different approach. You are viewed by the business as an advisor. Executives are looking for a solution to their problem, not a complex explanation of how you arrived there. This requires a lot of discipline. Being able to give a concise answer forces us to determine what matters instead of reciting everything we know. Clarity is one of the strongest skills you can possess that will help you project executive presence.

As a practical example, when asked for advice, start by giving your recommendation, spelling out any alternative options and risks, and shortly explain why you think that your solution is the right course of action. Then stop. If the room wants your legal analysis, they will ask you for it.

It’s OK to not Know Everything

The need to be accurate, even perfect, is deeply instilled in lawyers from the very beginning of law school. We are taught to not feel or have intuition, but to just know. Know what the law says, what the facts are, and how the law applies to those facts. Mistakes feel like they are unacceptable. This creates a deeply rooted fear of feedback and reprimand. We must seem like we know the answer to every question posed or else we are bad at our job. I find that in reality the business values an honest “I’m not sure” or “I don’t know” than a premature response or an elaborate excuse. As in-house counsel, our job is not to know everything, it’s to know a little bit about everything, know where to look for the answers we don’t know, and be able to communicate that in an effective way.

As an example, the next time someone comes to you with a tough question and you are not sure of the answer, try saying something like: “My initial view is X, but there are a few things I need to verify so I can give you a definitive answer. Can we revisit on X?” This gives you two important wins. It works because it conveys that you understand your current limits and that you care more about being right than appearing right. It also buys you time to come back with a good answer.
Credibility under certainty is what builds your executive presence.

From Legal Advisor to Business Advisor

The business comes to legal because it is seeking to understand what it can do, what it should do, and the potential consequences of its actions.

A big challenge for lawyers, especially those transitioning from a law firm role to an in-house position, is shifting their perspective from the need to be technically excellent to becoming a trusted senior advisor who considers the business’s objectives along with the legal implications holistically. There is a big difference between pointing out the legal risks associated with a course of action, and analyzing the risk against the commercial upside, and coming up with a solution that allows the business to carry out its objectives with the proper legal protections. The second option requires something more than just legal knowledge, it requires judgement.

This does not translate into ignoring risk or becoming a business advisor that happens to know the law. What it means is that you can understand business objectives well enough that you are able to evaluate legal risk in context and come up with legally sound solutions that allow the business to grow.

Your executive presence will grow when the business sees you as a source of sound judgement instead of a gate keeper.

The Art of Disagreeing Without Creating Resistance

As an in-house counsel, one of the most challenging scenarios that will test your credibility is when your answer is inconvenient. Sometimes our role requires us to challenge the opinion of a senior executive, question an assumption, or tell the business that a proposed course of action results in unacceptable risk.

Executive presence in this scenario is the ability to hold your ground without making the disagreement personal, and knowing when an issue truly requires escalation, and when it does not. This is another form of using good judgement and spending political currency wisely.

Many times, it’s a matter of how you say no, not the no itself that can cause unnecessary tension. Even though a simple “no, we cannot do this” is legally accurate, it can be strategically ineffective. A better approach is sharing the issue that you see, followed by asking the business to explain what they are ultimately trying to achieve. Once you have more context, you will most likely be able to come up with an alternative solution that preserves the business goal while protecting it from risk.

Executive Presence is Built in the Small Moments

Executive presence for in-house counsel is built through hundreds of small day-to-day interactions that define you in the eyes of the organization, like providing clarity in the midst of confusion, remaining calm in a frustrating situation, acknowledging uncertainty without losing confidence, being nimble and allowing room to change your mind when the facts change, knowing when to challenge and when to let something go, and deeply understanding the business to recommend the best way forward.

At the end of the day, it’s about making the people around you feel that you add value to any situation by being in the room. That is executive presence, and it is something that any lawyer can intentionally develop.