Kim Zoller - Enhancing Your Executive Edge

Copyright 2014 by Kim Zoller and Kerry Preston. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-182566-5

MHID: 0-07-182566-5

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To each other and to all our clients
who support and challenge us to be
the best we can be every day

W E WOULD like to first thank our wonderful literary agent, Laura Yorke, who has been an advocate of our work since the moment we met her. We are so grateful to Casie Vogel as our advisor, editor, and partner at McGraw-Hill. We want to thank Casey Ebro from McGraw-Hill for jumping in and bringing this book to life, and also Janice Race and her team for making sure that the book was perfectly edited and for keeping us on track. We cant thank you enough.

We would also like to thank the wonderful leaders who spent their time sharing their mindsets, philosophies, and stories. The content is so valuable and will help all the readers grow personally and professionally. Thank you to Graciela Meibar, John Roth, Gretchen Snyder, John Murphy, Paul Naquin, Bronwyn Allen, Robert Dobrient, Beth Hopkins, and Lynne Stewart.

We thank each other for true friendship and dedication to our relationship. After 15 years of working together, we are stronger in every way. There is nothing better than a long run challenging each other to grow personally and professionally. We are grateful to have each other and our partnership.

We want to acknowledge the people on our team who stand by us both and support our endeavors. We are incredibly grateful to them for their dedication, hard work, and friendship.

We thank and acknowledge our husbands, Keith Lebowitz and Tim Reinagel, who have supported us through our third book and gave us the time to disappear and write.

We thank our families, especially our children, Benjamin, Samuel, Luke, Wes, and Nate.

E XECUTIVE EDGE. What is it exactly?

We ask thousands of people a year and get a variety of answerswhat sets you apart? Is it your presence, the way you carry yourself? What gives you the edge over someone else? When we ask people to describe exactly what Executive Edge is and how you obtain it, most people do not know how you get it and how you really describe what it is. Make sure to go take our online assessment to find out your Executive Edge. Go to: www.whatismyexecutiveedge.com.

More than ever before, our clients are including Executive Edge or Executive Presence in their competencies. In order to be promoted, it is a necessary competency. The problem is, how do you train for something you are having a hard time identifying, when you are not sure what the behaviors are that describe the competency?

The thousands of people whom we work with every day and who sign up for our Executive Edge sessions want very specific outcomes. Where are you in your career? Do any of these outcomes match what youre looking to achieve?

To get promoted

To appear more as a leader

To know how to build a road map and plan for more visibility

To learn better presence

To build a strategy to increase comfort in executive situations

To build self-confidence

This book discusses what Executive Edge is in detail and how you go about getting it. What we know for sure is that in todays competitive world, you have to have Executive Edge if you want to get ahead in your career.

Ultimately, the question is, why do some people get ahead while others do not?

We got a call from a client, and he asked us to coach one of his rising stars who had come to a stop. David was an executive who had continued to be promoted through his 30-year career. He and his peers had all risen through the company at about the same pace. But then his peers kept going and his career had come to a standstill. He went to his Human Resources department manager and asked, Whats going on here? Why am I not being promoted? At the end of the day, David was not being promoted because he lacked Executive Edge.