Executive presence for women leaders [PODCAST]

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“Research conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI), a nonprofit research organization in New York, defines the three pillars of executive presence (EP) as gravitas, communication, and image. Stated differently, EP reflects how you act, how you speak, and how you look. CTI concluded that when people are perceived as capable of becoming leaders, they are more likely to be promoted into leadership roles. This is particularly important for aspiring female leaders who continue to battle both conscious and unconscious gender bias.

Studies show that men are more often associated with leadership qualities and women with nurturing qualities. This forces women to confront the need to master an intricate balancing act that simultaneously conveys both softness and strength.”

Nandita C. Gupta is a cardiologist.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “Executive presence for women leaders.”

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show, we have Nandita Gupta. She is a cardiologist, and she wrote the KevinMD article “Executive presence for women leaders.” Nandita, welcome to the show.

Nandita C. Gupta: Thank you so much, Kevin, for inviting me. It’s a real pleasure and an honor, and I congratulate you on the great work that you’re doing bringing physician voices to the forefront.

Kevin Pho: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. We’ll get into your article in a little bit, but first off, can you share your story and your journey to where you are today?

Nandita C. Gupta: Happy to, Kevin. My name is Nandita Gupta. I’m an assistant professor of cardiology at Oregon Health and Science University. I’m also the medical director of our cardiovascular service line at OHSU Health Hillsboro Medical Center.

My journey in cardiology began at a very young age. I was born with a congenital heart defect and underwent open-heart surgery at the age of eight. That is what inspired me to be a physician, and particularly a cardiologist, and so this has truly been a lifelong journey of learning and passion for the field. I did my medical school training in New Delhi, India, did my residency in New York, and did my fellowship training at Oregon Health Science University here in Portland, Oregon.

Kevin Pho: Wonderful. And during the pandemic, and we’re speaking in the middle of February, tell us a little bit what you’re seeing from the lens of your practice.

Nandita C. Gupta: Yeah, I think the year 2020 has been an unprecedented year in the history of mankind, I would say, but in health care in particular, what I have seen has been a tremendous story of resilience of the human spirit, to survive together, to grow together, to share together.

From the cardiovascular perspective, we face some unique challenges, where we’ve noticed that patients are delaying care with the worries of coming to the hospital and the risk of infections associated. So we worry about the long-term sequelae of the cardiovascular health of our patients as they are choosing to stay away from the health systems. I think this pandemic has also highlighted the disparities in care, so patients who do not have easy access to the technology, to the telephone services, or the tele platforms that we are increasingly using are, I think, impacted in greater proportion.

Additionally, as you may have come across in the news, in December, about 140,000 job losses in the United States were entirely for women. So being a passionate advocate for women’s heart health, the disparity and the disproportionate impact of this pandemic on women’s jobs, on their professional careers, and secondarily on their own health care needs is what has been most profound to me as a practicing cardiologist and an advocate for women’s heart health. So I hope that in the year 2021, it is our opportunity to close this gap that this pandemic has highlighted in terms of racial and gender disparities in cardiovascular care.

Kevin Pho: Great. Let’s transition now into your KevinMD article. It’s titled “Executive presence for women leaders.” Now, for those who didn’t read the article, can you just walk my audience through it and share the story of why you decided to write it?

Nandita C. Gupta: Thank you, Kevin. That’s a great question. Basically, this article came together from my curiosity and desire to understand the unique aspects of leadership, particularly for women. Executive presence, to me, reflects how you act, how you speak, and how you look. I feel there are three key pillars to executive presence, and this has been highlighted in some prior articles, and particularly in some research that looked at the key elements of what inspires confidence from your peers, from your colleagues, from your leaders in your own ability and potential for great achievements.

The three components that I highlight in my article are gravitas, communication, and image. Gravitas is the core of executive presence. It composes about 70 percent of all your executive presence. Basically, this signals to the world that you know your stuff. It’s not just about performance; it’s about how you signal your preparedness for your next chance. The behaviors associated with gravitas include exuding confidence, acting decisively, projecting vision, and demonstrating your emotional intelligence.

I think the next step is communication, which is about 25 percent of your executive presence. Communication is your ability to reflect your vision in a compelling, credible, and precise way, knowing your audience. A few common missteps that I feel particularly women make are gossiping, oversharing, being oversensitive to criticism, and these are the things that we need to watch for as women leaders.

Now image, in some ways, some may say is very superficial. It really truly does compose only 5 percent of your entire leadership presence, but it is an important element, because it is through this lens that people then perceive your gravitas, then come to appreciate your communication skills. People tend to evaluate you based on what you put out there. So it is not that image is the most important thing, but lack of an image can set you back, so it’s something to be mindful of as you go through your leadership journey. That’s what I hoped to highlight in this article, particularly from the lens of women leaders.

Kevin Pho: So let’s go into a little more detail on some of these traits that you mentioned. When you talk about gravitas, can you share a story or an anecdote, an example of the importance of gravitas, say, in a clinical or hospital setting?

Nandita C. Gupta: When I think about gravitas, the thing that comes to mind is actually the vice presidential debate and the famous quote by our current vice president, Kamala Harris: “I am speaking.” I think that, to me, reflects the presence, your own presence, the executive presence of performance, of recognizing that I can do and will do, and I know what I’m speaking about, so pause and listen to me. That’s what I can take away for gravitas from a national perspective.

From a health care leadership perspective, I’ve had the unique opportunity of being part of a health system where the dean of my academic medical school, Dr. Sharon Anderson, is one of the 18 percent of deans in academic medical centers across the country. My current CEO in my health system is 1 percent of the women CEOs across health systems. And both of these women exude to me what gravitas is: knowing what they’re saying and saying it in a manner that is perceived and received with confidence, but with warmth.

Kevin Pho: So there are plenty of physician leaders who are smart, they have tremendous knowledge, but they may lack gravitas. Now, can something like this be taught, and if so, what kind of techniques and advice can you give to help improve someone’s gravitas?

Nandita C. Gupta: I think, Kevin, leadership is definitely an acquired skill. It is as much an art as a science, and how you present yourself shapes your leadership journey. One of the most important things you can do is be prepared. There is tremendous value in being prepared for your work, for your role. Equally important is to have a vision and to be able to articulate it well. So a lot of preparation, a lot of practice, particularly before crucial conversations, and a sense of awareness of how others experience you.

Building your communication skills: There are so many different tools available, both in the audio, video, written format, but also executive coaching, as opportunities and ways to improve your communication skill. And lastly, as I highlighted before, make sure your appearance isn’t a distraction. When people are perceived as capable of becoming leaders, they’re more likely to be promoted into leadership roles, and I think this is particularly important for aspiring female leaders who continue to battle both conscious and unconscious biases.

Kevin Pho: In your work as a clinical leader, and from what you’ve seen from other physician clinical leaders, what are some red flags? What are some things that you’ve seen anecdotally, or if you could share a story, some things that they may need to improve on in order to become optimal physician leaders?

Nandita C. Gupta: I think in clinical and health care leadership, it is particularly important to realize as physician leaders that health care is a teamwork sport. So recognizing the voices of the front-line workers, be it your nurses, be it your office managers, be it your medical assistants, be it your technologists. Listening to their voices, listening to their opinion can give you a lot of information that you may not otherwise appreciate when it comes filtered through the lens of senior administrators or senior nursing leaders. So going to the front line and gathering data from them.

What I’ve also seen is people coming to meetings late or unprepared. Even in a virtual or a visual format, it is very important; appearance matters. So coming prepared, coming with a clear agenda, running concise meetings. Running meetings is as much of a science as it’s an art: having a clear agenda, having a clear outline of the material that you want to cover, but making sure to engage key stakeholders in that work.

And I feel a lot of times leaders make the mistake of being more directive rather than being more communicative and eliciting various opinions. That’s where I think physician leaders, particularly physician leadership as a position, can be perceived as a position of power, can be perceived as a position of being superior to the other members of the team, and recognizing that we need the voices, all the voices in the room, to be able to arrive at a good decision. So decision quality is very important, and it’s actually a science in itself. Systematic processes of making logical key decisions, particularly in the time of pandemic, where we’ve had to make very rapid and very quick decisions, do involve working together with the team and giving each team member a voice.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Nandita Gupta. She is a cardiologist, and she wrote the KevinMD article “Executive presence for women leaders.” Nandita, I think you mentioned before that fewer than 20 percent of deans are, in fact, women. What are some of the things that need to happen in order to increase that number?

Nandita C. Gupta: I think with women in leadership in health care, particularly, that cartoon comes to mind where we have a male and a female physician both starting off at the starting line, and the woman has so many obstacles ahead of her in terms of child care and household responsibilities, in terms of conscious and perceived biases. A grassroots-level effort to build that pipeline, all the way from medical school through residency, through fellowship, through academic promotions. Dr. Julie Silver from Mass General talks a lot about this aspect of women in health care leadership.

And I think the key is to build your advisory board of mentors and sponsors. Both men and women need to recognize that with 50 percent women in medical school, the leadership on top needs to reflect a similar proportion, and a conscious effort to promote women, to give them a seat at the table, needs to come for both male and female health care leaders. And I think that’s where the work ahead lies.

Kevin Pho: Now, for those who want to improve their leadership skills, what are some favorite resources that you could recommend they look for online?

Nandita C. Gupta: One of the resources that I particularly found helpful last year: I attended the Harvard Women in Leadership conference, and not only was the content of the conference itself very helpful, but it also highlighted to me some of the key leaders in the health care space, and subsequently the ability to follow those leaders through social media channels, through their writings, and through their work. I connected with great health care leaders as well as coaches, such as Jennifer Hunt, Julie Silver, Amy Oxentenko, and many others.

Participating in conferences dedicated to your area of interest, to your area of passion, and then going back and circling on the resources shared. What came out of that particular course was a series of books and articles that were recommended, and material that was shared that you can then pursue on your own, in your time.

And this conference is held annually, so this is an opportunity to go back and brush up on some of the knowledge that you may have acquired in the previous year, and to gather new information and make new connections. This year was a virtual format, which is different from the usual conference, which is in person, but I think it also allowed for greater flexibility in terms of being able to accommodate it into your schedule, and being able to interact on the side, in the chat format, with many more attendees than you would have otherwise been able to. So it had its unique positives to it.

Kevin Pho: And my final question: What is your take-home message that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience?

Nandita C. Gupta: Well, my take-home message is that leadership comes with a desire to lead and not necessarily a title, a position, or a role. If you’re passionate about certain aspects of your clinical, professional, or personal life, then pursue it with curiosity, humility, perseverance, and self-discipline. When we aspire to be leaders, the underlying context of that aspiration is the desire to lead, to make a positive change, to inspire others to be better, to perhaps head an organization, and to perhaps make an impact in such a way that maybe we lead a lasting impression or a legacy, or effect a positive change in our environment.

Kevin Pho: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story and insight, and thanks again for being on the show.

Nandita C. Gupta: Thank you.

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