Leaders and team members sometimes get the feedback that they don’t show up as “senior” enough.
This is another way of saying they don’t engage or sound like peers when they are in the room with more experienced and seasoned members of their organization.
The view that a colleague has a style that is too junior or not senior enough can hamper advancement. Leaders who want to coach others up on this topic are often at a loss as to what constitutes a senior style.
While there are many behaviors and actions that contribute to a senior persona, three stand out for their impact and coachability.
Perhaps most surprising and uncomfortable for those with less experience is the need to express disagreement.
Far too often, those with less status in a room tend not to disagree when they hold views in contrast to their senior counterparts. Yet, it is this very disagreement that makes them trusted.
Senior leaders are too familiar with being told what they want to hear and are suspicious that others agree with them to avoid looking silly, being called out for a competing view, or simply to build goodwill.
When lower-ranking colleagues disagree, they show they have the courage and conviction to stand up for what they believe, and they immediately become more trusted in the process.
While disagreement shouldn’t be offensive or unpleasant, colleagues who never or rarely disagree come across as more junior and less peer-like.
Another of the critical behaviors of seniority is succinctness.
Experienced people can express themselves and their ideas without extra words and clutter. They value brevity in all communication, preferring to speak in headlines, bullets, and short, sharp sentences whenever they can.
While they are ready to go into the details whenever others want to engage at that level, they generally default to concision when communicating their ideas.
Senior leaders also know how to create emphasis when they advocate and respond well to those who have the same skill.
Pausing on keywords, using emotionally laden language, pausing between sentences, and elevating or lowering pitch and tone are some of the ways experienced leaders create emphasis.
For those highly skilled at creating emphasis, it is nearly impossible to miss what they want you to hear. So when less experienced colleagues display their own unique ways of creating emphasis, they show up as more peer-like and senior.
Figuring out how to display a higher-status style can be a riddle. No textbook or short course exists that teaches people how to establish a more experienced persona.
However, developing the skills of disagreement, brevity, and emphasis is a start toward a more senior style. Showing up more senior is something anyone can do with practice.
A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.
