Building your executive presence with authenticity, empathy, and impact with LinkedIn Top Voice Gina Riley

In our latest podcast episode, we dive into the art of making a powerful first impression, especially for those transitioning into leadership or executive roles. The episode is a comprehensive guide on how to project executive presence, which is key to commanding the room and leaving a lasting impression during interviews. As we unpack these strategies, our expert guest, Gina Riley, shares valuable insights on how to effectively showcase your leadership potential, communicate with clarity, and ultimately convince the interview panel that you are the right person for the job.

Gina Riley, a LinkedIn Top Voice, Forbes Coaches Council contributor, and certified UMAP coach, brings a wealth of knowledge in HR, executive search, and interview skills. She highlights the importance of confidence and decisiveness in those crucial first moments of an interview. According to Gina, understanding the environment and expectations is essential—something as simple as asking about the appropriate attire can set the stage for making the right impression. She emphasizes the need to show up sharp and authentic, which helps in establishing trust and respect right from the start.

One of the most insightful parts of the conversation revolves around how to dress appropriately for an interview while staying true to your authentic self. Gina points out that it’s vital to balance fitting into the company’s culture with staying true to who you are. For example, in a nonprofit sector interview, dressing too formally might create a disconnect with the audience, whereas dressing too casually might undermine your leadership presence. This delicate balance is crucial in making sure you connect with your audience while still asserting your leadership potential.

The discussion also touches on the role of modern leadership in inspiring confidence and trust. Gina explains that the key to projecting these qualities in an interview lies in being well-prepared with stories that resonate with the concerns and priorities of the decision-makers. Whether you’re talking to someone you’ll manage, work alongside, or report to, understanding what keeps them up at night and addressing those concerns directly through your stories can set you apart from other candidates.

Gina introduces the SOAR method—Situation, Obstacles, Actions, Results—as a framework for crafting compelling interview stories. This method helps interviewees organize their thoughts and present their experiences in a way that clearly demonstrates their problem-solving abilities and leadership skills. She shares an example of a candidate who, despite being highly qualified, failed to make a strong impression because he didn’t manage his interview time effectively. This highlights the importance of succinctly delivering your stories to allow for a full exploration of your qualifications.

Storytelling, according to Gina, is a critical skill for any leader. She explains that preparing these stories in advance and practicing them ensures that you’re able to deliver them confidently and effectively during the interview. The goal is to create a narrative that is not only engaging but also directly relevant to the role you are applying for. This preparation allows you to be agile during the interview, adapting your stories to the specific concerns of each interviewer.

Another key takeaway from the episode is the idea that these storytelling techniques are not just for seasoned executives. Gina explains that even those early in their careers can benefit from the SOAR method. She shares an example of how she helped a young woman turn her experience babysitting into a compelling story that highlighted her responsibility, time management, and problem-solving skills. This illustrates that no matter your career stage, you can craft stories that demonstrate your value to potential employers.

As the episode wraps up, Gina encourages listeners to think of themselves as unique solutions providers. This mindset shift can help you approach interviews with the confidence needed to convey that you are the right person to solve the company’s challenges. By understanding what the company needs and preparing stories that align with those needs, you can effectively position yourself as the ideal candidate.

In conclusion, this podcast episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to transition into a leadership or executive role. The insights shared by Gina Riley offer practical, actionable advice on how to project executive presence, tell compelling stories, and ultimately stand out in the competitive job market. Whether you’re just starting out, in the middle of your career, or aiming for an executive position, the strategies discussed will help you make a memorable first impression and secure that coveted role.

 

Transcript:

Mary (00:00.581)
Welcome back to the show, everyone. Today’s episode is all about making a powerful first impression, particularly for those of you who are transitioning careers and aiming for that coveted leadership or executive position. All right. You take a deep breath, you smooth out your outfit, and you offer a really confident smile. The interview room is sharp. It’s modern.

And it’s just a touch intimidating. You’ve researched the company inside and out, but there’s still a flutter of nerves in your stomach. This is it, the interview that you’ve been waiting for. But wait, before you answer that first interview question, let’s just rewind a little bit because nailing your interview isn’t just about your resume, right? It’s about projecting that executive presence. It’s about commanding the room with confidence.

clarity and a communication style that really leaves a lasting impression. So over the next 30 minutes, we’re going to dissect the art of executive presence and a career transition. We’ll explore how to showcase your expertise, communicate your leadership potential, and ultimately convince that interview panel that you’re the perfect fit for the job. Gina Riley is a LinkedIn top voice, a Forbes Coaches Council contributor.

and a certified UMAP coach. She brings extensive HR, executive search, and interview skills expertise to her career transition coaching. With her innovative coaching program, Career Velocity, Gina expertly navigates leaders and executives through the intricate dynamics of career changes. So Gina, I was reading your Forbes article, Apply New Rules of Executive Presence to Your Next Executive Interview.

And in it, you mentioned that you have three seconds to make a first impression. So how can executives use those first few seconds to really grab attention and establish themselves positively?

Gina Riley (02:09.852)
would actually tie that first impression to the top two most important things about executive presence overall, and that’s confidence and decisiveness. So showing up, like you said, I love how you said just showing up, the room is sharp, you be sharp. Show up sharp. I like to think of it this way. People will ask, well, should I wear a suit? What should I be wearing?

Mary (02:23.585)
Yeah. Yep.

Gina Riley (02:33.34)
You need to have already read the room in advance and have some sense of what people will already be wearing. And you need to ask questions of your recruiting team. Maybe it’s even the hiring manager who is inviting you in and facilitating that process. Simply ask. There’s no harm in saying, hey, would it be expected I show up with a suit and tie or fill in the blank? Or is there some other attire that would…

that would serve me better. And I like to go just one level above for attire than the people that I’m speaking to. So if everyone else is in maybe a button down and a tie, then I might be one level above that and just go down. In our tech industries and a lot of our companies, they don’t expect us to get super.

Super dressed up. So just read the room. Ask in advance because when you show up, you don’t want to feel uncomfortable that you’ve overshot the mark or you’ve undershot the mark. But as you mentioned in the Forbes article, and what I’m referring to is a Harvard Business Review article about the new rules of executive presence. There’s six of them. And when it comes to appearance, what I’m really encouraged by is it’s about authenticity. So now, you know, showing up.

Mary (03:39.995)
Mm -hmm.

Gina Riley (03:51.516)
as our authentic selves. And that doesn’t mean like letting it all hang out, but it, for a lot of us, for women, women of color in particular, a lot of things change through the pandemic where people are, you know, women are showing up with their natural hair, where before they were working really, really hard to conform to some kind of corporate standard that is now dated.

Mary (03:57.275)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (04:07.579)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Gina Riley (04:16.476)
which also left that people, and I don’t know about you as a woman, I know I have stepped into the room and tried to conform to what might be expected in a corporate environment. And this enables us to show up as ourselves, which also exudes more confidence.

Mary (04:20.347)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (04:25.211)
yeah.

Mary (04:36.603)
Yeah, I love that you said know the room before you show up. And that’s so important because it means that you’ve done the research. You know exactly what you’re walking into. And your wardrobe, you know, what you choose to put on your body and what you choose to wear really does make a first impression. So, you know, you say show up authentically. So, you know, how could you?

show up authentically in what you’re wearing. You know, if you… I’m gonna edit that out. I’m trying to get my thoughts out here.

Gina Riley (05:16.38)
This is it.

Mary (05:18.939)
If the work environment is super formal, but you don’t identify with a very formal work environment, how could you show up authentically in what you wear despite that?

Gina Riley (05:30.652)
That’s a really good question. I’ll come from the lens of where I coach and who I’m coaching. I’m typically coaching leaders and executives who are in a career transition. And they may be vying for roles across a lot of different sectors.

Let’s take nonprofit for example. If I really enjoy dressing up and showing up in a maybe a modern or fancy style, I’m using maybe that term. However, in my nonprofit, we serve an underserved population and a lot of the boots on the ground people who work with those clients, patients, et cetera, are not super dressed up. If we show up to those interviews dressed

overly fancy, we’re not going to connect with that audience. We will already diminish that first opportunity to have them lock into us. Does it mean you show up in the same clothes as those people who are serving maybe the underserved? No, you need to be a step or two above it to show that you’ve got the leadership presence to lead the entire organization. So again, I’m going to go back to reading the room, you know, and trying to strike that balance. And then you have to decide for yourself.

how you’re going to show up. Do you want to modify in order to land better with that audience? Or do you have a zero tolerance for not, you know, modifying anything about yourself? And maybe that culture is not the right one for you.

Mary (07:04.443)
Yeah, perfect. You know, and I kind of mentioned in the intro, modern leadership inspires confidence. It inspires respect and also trust. How can you effectively prepare for an interview to project these qualities while also presenting yourself as a top candidate?

Gina Riley (07:25.724)
It’s all hand in hand. You present yourself as a top candidate because you’re showing up with a certain measure of confidence that inspires trust.

How do we inspire that trust in the decision -making team who’s listening to our stories? We are prepared with our stories, and we are able to nimbly navigate the conversation so that we’re pulling the right stories for the decision -makers that we’re speaking to at that moment. So what I like to coach people on is, OK, let’s say you have a whole day of interviews, and you’re going to be interviewed by people that will work for you.

people that will work with you, and people who you will work for. All of those people are different stakeholders in the organization and they care about different things. So when you’re preparing your stories, you’re also empathetically thinking about what keeps all of those people up at night. And to show up as someone that people feel that they can put their trust in you, you need to be paying attention to what they care about.

Mary (08:33.211)
Okay, so let’s say that you’ve figured out exactly what keeps those people up at night. You know, it’s their family, it’s their kids, it’s their dogs, maybe it’s the softball game that they have tomorrow. So how do you really start to build that trust once you do dig a little bit deeper and figure those things out?

Gina Riley (08:55.388)
That’s an interesting question. I haven’t been asked that one specifically. I’m going to take a little twist on it. So if I was a leader and being interviewed by people that would be working for me, those people might be sharing professional things that keep them up at night, if you will, such as, how about my career advancement? I’m worried about making my next career move, or I’m having issues with my team, or…

I’m worried about getting product out the door, but no one’s been supporting me in my strategic efforts. So I’m kind of thinking of it from that lens. Now you may have someone who does open the kimono, if you will, and tell you about their personal stuff in the interview. I think that’s a little less likely in the interview process because that’s so early and people are just getting to know each other.

Mary (09:37.371)
Mm -hmm.

Gina Riley (09:46.556)
But another way to look at this is I work with senior leaders. And so let’s say it’s a VP who is going to be reporting into a CEO who is the hiring manager. What keeps the CEO up at night? Why are they hiring someone like you? To show up as that person back to your question about being the one that could be trusted to do this job, you need to figure out how.

you can help that person overcome whatever it is in their business that is keeping them up at night and stopping progress. Then with your well -prepared stories, you’re drawing from that repository or data vault to share with them the examples about how you can help them achieve success.

Mary (10:19.323)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (10:33.851)
Whether you’re an executive or just starting out or you’re at the middle of your career, I think that that’s valuable advice because if you’re in an interview, you’re trying to figure out a way that the hiring committee will remember you. How do you stand out from those other candidates? And one way to do that is to show, okay, I can solve this problem for you, right? Like you said, what are they up to?

at night thinking about what problems are they facing. So no matter what level you’re at in your career, you can show them, this is exactly the skills that I bring to the table that can solve the problem that’s keeping you up at night, right? And at the executive level, it’s on a larger scale than that. You know, of course, because you’re not just solving maybe one issue for one department, but you’re solving issues at scale.

Gina Riley (11:29.436)
Yes, you can thread this to all layers of people in their career and I mean realistically we show up to interviews and typically we’re pretty nervous, right? And we’re thinking about all the things that we need to say, all the stories we need to tell. If you’ve well prepared your stories and you know how you are a unique solutions provider, as I like to say it, if you’re well prepared then you can more nimbly

Mary (11:51.579)
Yep.

Gina Riley (11:57.532)
shift into inquisitive mode. Hey, tell me more about this organization. So even if your early career, you’ve just graduated from college and you’re all locked up about like, how am I going to explain my skills and I don’t have any skills and all those, the negative talk going on in one’s head. Once you find out what that future boss is working on,

and starting to lock it in with like, I do have a few skills that could apply to that. That’s where the conversation starts. That’s where you’re going to start to build confidence in that future hiring manager and build the trust needed to get the job offer.

Mary (12:27.835)
Mm -hmm, yeah.

Mary (12:36.251)
And you mentioned storytelling as well. So I want to dig into that a little bit. How could executives use storytelling to really tell a, having, how can executives use storytelling to tell compelling interview stories?

Gina Riley (12:40.412)
Hehehehe

Gina Riley (12:52.444)
Okay, I could talk about this all day. You’ll have to cut me off when you want to. So I’m an interview skills trainer. I work with a company called Talents Group Executive Search and we go into corporations and teach interview teams how to craft effective questions. And I use that kind of training to reverse engineer for my coaching clients. So I’m just giving you context for where I’m coming from.

Mary (12:55.067)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Gina Riley (13:20.38)
Many of us in coaching roles, and you included, we use different frameworks to help people organize their stories. To tell interview stories, we like to use the SOAR method, which is, tell me about the situation, what were the obstacles you were overcoming, what were the actions that you took, and if you’re a leader, I wanna also hear, and here’s what my team did. So you balance the I and the we.

with some humility, and then what results did you achieve? And when I’m working with my clients, they’re building those stories based on skill -based questions, and it’s easy to do. You throw the bullet points of what’s expected from a job description into chat GPT and ask it to create behavioral and skill -based questions. Then you start building your source stories. Then start talking them out. Review them.

And if you have someone that you can bounce the stories off of, they may be able to give you feedback on where to shave it down. Because what you want to do is enable enough time that you’re getting in as many stories as possible as the interviewer can squeeze in. And you don’t want any of those stories to dominate the majority of the interview time. I’m going to give you an example where executive presence went south. I was leading an executive search.

Mary (14:35.063)
Yeah. Okay.

Gina Riley (14:40.572)
for, it was a CFO role. And every single candidate, I gave them an hour on that first big phone screen. We did a 15 minute screen. Now we’re doing the deeper dive for an hour. I had eight skill -based questions to ask and I told each candidate, I have eight questions to get through. I only have an hour. I need your help watching the time. And the first question is,

I’d like to hear a little bit about yourself. Tell me about yourself. I need a five minute quick hit story arc. One of my candidates who was very experienced talked for 20 minutes of the 60. So this was someone that I was not going to be able to put forward in front of a board of directors and a CEO as a good communicator because they didn’t read the room and they didn’t.

helped me when I was so clear about watching that time. And I didn’t get through eight questions and I didn’t get to vet him. So these things are really important.

Mary (15:37.076)
Yeah.

Mary (15:47.284)
Yeah, is there a time that really stands out that you’ve worked with one of your coaching clients and they were just one of the best storytellers that you’ve ever heard? And could you give us an example?

Gina Riley (16:03.26)
Goodness. I am not having one specific person come to mind. And the reason is when people haven’t had to interview for a long time, they’re not in the habit of sharing their stories succinctly. And they wind and wander through the story trying to grab the thread that’s important. And so actually the practicing is what produces the sharp stories. And back to your point,

What is it that you’re doing to show up to be able to tell those stories effectively? It’s the framework that helps the mental model to walk through it and stick the landing with the result. Some stories are so complicated that you’ve got to write them out. I was working with a technology leader at a major global bank and he was facing challenges both technology related and leadership related.

So as he would tell his stories, and he was a really good storyteller actually, he was super engaging and very lively, he would start telling me the technology issues and then he’d say, yeah. And then I have this teammate that I had to like do a performance management thing. And then he would keep going with the technology issues and then he’d say, yeah. And then I had to go and do cross collaboration with three other departments and get their buy -in.

And he lost me. By the time he said, yeah, the second time I was done. Like I couldn’t do it. So what we did was we, I modified the SOAR method and I said, okay, what we’re going to do now is you’re going to take every story and you’re going to do a SOAR for every problem, technology issues, people issues, leadership issues. And you’re going to tell your listener,

Mary (17:28.174)
Mm -hmm.

Gina Riley (17:51.068)
Okay, this is a very complex story. First, I’m going to tell you all the technology issues I was trying to overcome and the problems I was solving. And then I’m going to underpin it with all the leadership issues that I was also handling so that you can see what I was doing in tandem, but I don’t take your attention off of, you know, what you need to hear from me. And that was the turnkey for him. He was able to like, that made so much sense. So it’s really about getting it written down.

Mary (18:15.308)
Hmm.

Gina Riley (18:21.148)
sharpening it and getting it really tight. And every story needs to be under five minutes. It depends on the story. Sometimes it could be three.

Mary (18:25.996)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (18:30.602)
That’s so important for me. If I want to tell a great story, I need to think about it first. I need to write it down and then I need to practice it. Because if I just try to communicate my thoughts, sometimes it doesn’t come out in the way that I think it should come out. It’s kind of rattling around up there in my brain somewhere and I’m like, feel like I’m trying to grab it. And then you’ve lost the listener, right? So how do you work with clients to help them?

write down that story and practice the story so that they can use really great storytelling methods when they are in their interview.

Gina Riley (19:09.628)
Yeah, again, I am loving Chat GPT. You can take the bullets right from a job description and feed it into chat. And I used to spend two hours doing all this by hand for all of my clients. And thanks to the power of AI, you can reverse engineer it. And so let’s say…

Mary (19:24.84)
Yeah. Yep.

Gina Riley (19:29.277)
I’m making this up out loud, right? On the fly, but let’s say it’s build a strategy and lead a team to execute on something. Let’s say that’s the first bullet point. You can have chat, reverse engineer that. Tell me about a time when you developed a strategy and built the plan and collaborated with the team to execute on a product development, something, right?

Mary (19:55.206)
Mm -hmm.

Gina Riley (19:55.228)
Then you just put in underneath that the SOAR method. What was the situation? S O A R obstacles, actions, results, bullet points underneath. Know what I have one client who felt like they needed to write it out in prose, like really write it out. And that’s fine. I’m like, great. When you’re done, I want bullet points. You’ll never read this. You’ll never, even if on zoom, you’re never reading it. It’s always just by the time.

Mary (20:12.838)
Yeah. Yeah.

Gina Riley (20:22.172)
My clients actually are in an interview, even if it’s on Zoom. I don’t want any of that written down in front of them. I only want the name of the story to trigger them. yeah, if I’m going to tell a story about strategy, it’s going to be about the XYZ project. Boom. Yes, I have a story about strategy. Here you go.

Mary (20:41.892)
Yeah. Yep. It’s kind of – Yeah. my gosh. Yeah. Yep.

Gina Riley (20:43.964)
But all this, it takes work, right? You’ve got to have the big funnel and then you’ve got to start working it down till you have all these precise stories that you can flexibly pull out when you need it. Like the CEO of a company might want to hear the strategy stuff, but the person that reports to you might want to hear about how you lead people in teams and help develop employees, right?

Mary (21:05.858)
Yep. Yep. Yep. So you want to have it worked out. You want to have the answer worked out before the question is even asked. And that’s, you know, something that I’ve heard in the past before where it’s like, prepare all of these stories and advance using that method so that when almost any interview question is asked, you can pull from a variety of stories and answer a variety of interview questions using

Some of the same stories, really.

Gina Riley (21:37.724)
Absolutely, and what I’d love to do is also draw a correlation because I’ve been talking a lot about leadership level. But I have two college kids. They’re 21 and 24. And I’ve volunteered in their high schools and done the mock interviews and resume reviews. This scales, the SOAR method scales, and then showing up to explain your stories.

is applicable even if you’re 16 years old. So I was in one of our high schools talking to this young woman who

felt like she didn’t have anything to offer and didn’t have skills to talk about. And she had one line on her resume about babysitting. And once I started to dig into what that really entailed, what I uncovered, and I’ll tell you just very briefly, there was a lot to it. She was once a month going in and babysitting three kids. One was under the age of two, and the parents would let her or hire her for…

to, you know, an overnight stay while they would go have like a date overnighter somewhere else. She was caring for three children. Think of the responsibility, bringing in the mail, driving the oldest to swim practice, you know, making them meals, all of that. There’s so much juice in there about responsibility, organization.

probably patience, dealing with three children. So once we started to unpack the skills that underpinned the babysitting job, she was walking pretty tall when she walked out of that mock interview.

Mary (23:09.949)
yeah. And that’s, I work with a lot of clients who come to me and they say, I don’t really have any achievements. You know, I did this, this baby job, babysitting job, right? Or if they’re an entry level client, I worked at this retail location. But if you dig a little bit deeper, there’s always more to it than just that.

You can think about different processes that you put into place, different systems that you’ve put into place, how you’ve boosted that bottom line. There’s always a way to twist it and figure out what it is that you’ve done that have really made an impact on the company, no matter what level you’re at in your career.

Gina Riley (23:54.94)
Agreed. I literally have only met one person. It was in the student scenario who could not come up with one single thing. Had no, you know, no job, no clubs, no activities, couldn’t refer to a group project. I mean, even group projects are rich with all kinds, you know, there’s conflict. There’s trying to get a project over the finish line and get a grade. You know, there’s something everywhere if you just look for it.

Mary (24:02.298)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (24:08.89)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (24:18.265)
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And I’ve even run into it at the executive level where people attribute all of their success to their team too. So they’re not, from a resume writing perspective, they’re not willing to write that or they don’t think that they should write that on their resume because they’re like, I didn’t achieve this single -handedly. Well, of course you didn’t achieve that single -handedly, but you played a role in it. You led your team to achieve that. And as a leader,

That’s something that you wanna project and that’s something that you wanna highlight and bring into your interview as well.

Gina Riley (24:53.18)
I am so glad that you brought that point up. I see it more with women, but not exclusively. But what some people tend to do is they’re so humble forward that they don’t take credit for what they led. So even though your team executed on the strategy, did you lead the strategy? Did you hire the consultant that helped you formulate some of the plans?

Mary (24:58.68)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Gina Riley (25:21.98)
what did you do to guide the process that and then you need to stick the landing? That’s why I like in the SOAR method.

I like to break up the A for actions. What actions did you take as a leader to lead the thing? And then what did your team deliver on? And holding this in balance shows great executive presence because what do we want to hire in people? I like to refer to Patrick Lencioni’s model of humble, hungry, smart from the ideal team player. We want to hire someone who’s hungry for the job that we have open.

We want to hire somebody who is humble and shows up willing to make, not just make mistakes, but admit mistakes. And then smart, meaning not IQ, but EQ. Do I have the emotional intelligence to read the room, collaborate, problem solve, and work with people?

Mary (26:09.14)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (26:14.684)
Yeah. Yep.

Leading with inclusive leading with inclusivity leading with inclusive

Let’s try that again. Leading with inclusion is so darn important in today’s market. How can executives weave stories into interview responses that highlight their commitment to diversity and leading with empathy?

Gina Riley (26:27.132)
Would you like to talk about…

Gina Riley (26:46.235)
Yes, this is really, really important in today’s environment, especially coming out of the pandemic. And it is a focus. And it’s especially a focus in certain sectors, such as nonprofit. You’ve got boards of directors and leadership teams paying attention to things like this. So I use a…

a model, a leadership model called the adaptive leadership model has six principles of adaptive leadership. And it’s not the model of all models for leadership, but what I like to do is pull out language about how leaders lead people during stressful times of change and transition. And principle number six of the six is bringing in voices that are otherwise not heard. And so,

When I’m working with leaders, I’m having them read the article that I wrote, look at the model, take a 30 question survey, and then start journaling out or reflecting within the model how they lead people.

when it’s all about change today, right? Everything is about change management. So what I would encourage people who are listening to think about is it’s how do you include people in the change process? How do you communicate and over communicate? And what are those channels? When you show up infusing some of those leadership aspects into your source stories, that is how you convincingly come across as someone who is inclusive.

Mary (27:55.598)
Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Gina Riley (28:22.574)
of listens to people. And if you, reflecting on the article that I wrote based on the Harvard Business Review information, it is about including people and listening to people in an authentic way. It’s called, I think, Listen to Learn in the article. Like actually listen and then doing something with the information.

Mary (28:39.851)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mary (28:46.915)
I always try to incorporate a piece of inclusivity and diversity when I’m writing a resume, especially when I’m working with an executive leader. And I’ve had executives come back to me and ask, where did you see an example of this in my career? And I always have to encourage them to think deeply about that, you know, because it is important to most employers. They want to know that you have this dedication to diversity.

and inclusion. So you need to be prepared for that when it comes to the interview too. So you need to really reflect on that. Like you said, you know, Gina, how do you include different perspectives in the change process and how are you really listening to people in an authentic way and incorporating some of their perspectives into your processes and procedures at work?

Gina Riley (29:42.204)
Absolutely. One of my…

All time favorite clients would just go get her CEO, started multiple companies. And he was a boots on the ground kind of hands on person. And he would talk about, I’m using the term shop floor, but he would go right to the people doing work and saying, how’s it going? What problems do you have going on? How can I help you? What’s motivating you and making you tick? And he knew it wasn’t a huge organization. He knew.

Mary (30:02.568)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Gina Riley (30:14.11)
his people. He knew and then he knew how to make their jobs more enriching for them personally and and then they felt connected to him more you know more emotionally if you will. Low turnover. So the stories the results of his leadership approach is low turnover which reduces costs.

Mary (30:27.272)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (30:35.08)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it’s an easy concept, but sometimes it’s not simple to put into practice to actually go boots on the ground and ask your employees, how are you feeling? What do you need? You know, what’s it like out here, you know, on the field and how could things be better?

Gina Riley (31:02.236)
Absolutely. And they’re, gosh, coming out of the pandemic, so many leaders had to operate in a different way. I’m working with like five people that have been laid off from the same company. I got hired to help five of these folks. And across the board, these particular leaders talk about holding town halls, taking one -on -ones.

having to listen differently and react and respond differently in order to keep people’s mental health intact, right? And then threading that to how they were keeping the business moving because they had to adapt as a leader to really listen to people and their challenges and their problems.

Mary (31:42.145)
Yeah, and that makes me think about just your overall character too, right? So could you share some interview strategies for really showcasing that depth of character and how to earn respect from your colleagues and also the stakeholders that you’re working with?

Gina Riley (31:57.532)
Yeah, so through the interview process or through the interview process. Okay, so I’m going to thread it back to showing up from the moment you make that three second, you know, impression with each person all the way through to reading the room.

Mary (31:59.968)
Yep, through the interview process.

Gina Riley (32:17.596)
and coming prepared with the right stories, which I think is a respectful way to enter the ecosystem of the entire interview process. You’ve done so much homework and the people that I’m working with that are at the CXO CEO level, they will have been preparing up to 40 hours worth of time to build those stories, do research and homework on the company, listening to company recordings if they’re available, financial reports, what’s in the news. And they show up and they’re just ready and prepared. That’s going to instill the

confidence and the trust and start to make people believe that you’re interested in being that candidate of choice. Does that help?

Mary (32:57.117)
It does. And what about after the interview process? So once they’ve stepped in, they’re in a new space because, you know, they’re pursuing a pivot. How can they step in and showcase that depth of character in that situation and gain respect from their colleagues?

Gina Riley (33:14.3)
Can you ask the question one more time? I’m not.

Mary (33:16.216)
So once they’re in their new position, so they’ve started a new role, maybe they’ve pivoted into a new industry, they’re just starting out, right? It’s maybe the first week, the first month. How can they show that depth of character right off the bat?

Gina Riley (33:30.46)
Okay.

Gina Riley (33:35.868)
Gotcha. So the leaders that I talk with who are the most effective are ones that

have planned, made their 90 day entry plan. And in fact, I have one of the books that I recommend to people for, especially at the leadership level is the first 90 days. It’s a best seller by Michael Watkins. It’s like one of the top best business selling books. Go in with the plan and the plan is always meet with as many people as you possibly can and gather data because you get to be the one who can kind of play dumb on the front end.

when you’re finding out about what everybody cares about, what’s the state of the business, and going in deep to really, before you go and have a coming out party with some kind of strategic plan. We don’t do that in a bubble. That’s the first way to…

Mary (34:30.177)
Mm -hmm.

Gina Riley (34:31.004)
have the opposite of trust happen is that you’re behind closed doors making some kind of strategic plan and you haven’t even talked to the people doing the work. So my number one piece of advice to engender trust is you’ve got to ask open -ended questions and you’ve got to listen and then you have to feed back in some kind of format what you’ve heard from the people.

Mary (34:55.545)
How would you recommend that an executive would, you know, after they’ve built that trust, how do they highlight their strengths, but also, you know, kind of remain open for growth and professional development?

Gina Riley (35:09.372)
You know, I think humility goes a long way. I think that the people that find the balance between the decisiveness and confidence, and then they’re balancing that with that openness and humility and respect for people, that is the thing that carries the furthest. There is a tipping point, I feel like, when a leader doesn’t…

lead with some measure of humility. You have to have enough confidence and decisiveness to make decisions. You have to have it to have executive presence. It’s in the top two most important things. But today we’re expecting our leaders to have some empathy and to be humble.

Mary (35:50.645)
Yeah. Yep. Empathy is important. And how would you help somebody establish their credibility in that situation too?

Gina Riley (36:00.156)
I’m going back to the listening. Got to listen to learn. One of my clients says that he had to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable because it’s all about change. And so showcasing that you have a flexible mindset, that you’re open to those new ideas. I think that’s probably the best piece of advice I would have.

Mary (36:25.973)
So you’ve provided a wealth of information today. Could you summarize the three key insights that our listeners could take away from this conversation?

Gina Riley (36:35.812)
Three key insights. One, prepare your interview stories. Walk them down and figure out how they tie to each company that you’re interviewing with. So that’s one. Be prepared. Second thing is, brush up on what executive presence is and make sure that you’re ticking off at least some of those boxes. For example, to establish that trust, you need to read the room.

show up with confidence and decisiveness, but also balancing that with some of the new rules of executive presence, such as authenticity and listening to learn, right? The third thing, hmm, I don’t know. Do you have a third one that stands out?

Gina Riley (37:27.132)
Those are my top two.

Mary (37:27.952)
I think, yeah, I think that those are good ones. Yeah, I think those are perfect. So what are you up to now and where can we find you on social media?

Gina Riley (37:38.492)
Yeah, I hang out on LinkedIn every day. I write newsletters, articles, and do posts. I’m a Forbes Coaches Council contributor, so I’m writing articles generally once a month every six weeks. I’m also working on the Career Velocity book, which is a chapter book outlining my entire nine -step model of how to successfully navigate a career transition. So those are the big things right now.

Mary (38:05.904)
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming on today.

Gina Riley (38:09.788)
Thank you. Thanks for having me.