Sponsors are not mentors. Sponsors are powerful leaders who see potential in you and, provided you give them 110 percent, will go out on a limb to make things happen for you.

So ask for feedback. A sponsor or mentor should be able to give you a good sense of what you need to work on. Then get to work—because a lot is at stake.

Executive presence is not what you do with your presence, it’s also what you do with other people’s presence.”

Before you enter a room or open your mouth, your reputation speaks for you—never more so than today, when word of your latest blunder or scandal races at lightning speed around the globe in 140 characters or less. People will have formed an opinion of you before you’re in a position to help them form

IF YOU CAN’T GET ACTIONABLE FEEDBACK FROM YOUR SUPERIORS, ASK FOR A COACH—OR PAY OUT-OF-POCKET YOURSELF

“If I am participating in a meeting, my first communication cannot be meek,” she explains. “I do not speak up unless I have a really good point to make or insight to add. I usually wait to speak until I am prepared to make a counterpoint, or ask an insightful question.” The opposite applies, she stresses, if she’s leading the meeting. “I take charg

Be proactive and honest if you know this is not a work situation that you can turn around. “What’s important,” says Garcia Quiroz, “is that you show you’re going to take responsibility for your career—by managing the terms of your own exit.”

Forty-one percent of professionals of color said they had felt the need to compromise their authenticity in order to conform to EP standards at their company. White respondents also conceded they felt the need to conform, of course, but people of color were significantly more likely than whites to feel this tension. Among people of color, responden

And here I want to underscore the word telegraph. Executive presence is not a measure of performance: whether, indeed, you hit the numbers, attain the ratings, or actually have a transformative idea. Rather, it’s a measure of image: whether you signal to others that you have what it takes, that you’re star material.