The Three Pillars of Leadership: Presence, Performance, Integrity
My coaching practice has been based on three pillars for a while. This summer I heard what they sound like in real conversations, and they stopped being a framework.
The three pillars of leadership my coaching practice is based on are Presence, Performance, and Integrity. Presence is how you feel walking into the interview, or the first meeting with a new team, because that decides the conversation before your resume does. Performance is doing the work that matters, including the feedback you have been avoiding. Integrity is being one person, the same at work and at home, so the job is never the only reason you have something to say at a party. The pillars are fixed. What each one asks of you is not.
Presence, Performance, Integrity have been on my website for months. Three words, three definitions, on a website I've redesigned more times than I'd like to admit.
This summer I spent more hours on coaching calls than in any stretch of my life. Career transitions, individual contributors becoming founders, people in burnout. A lot of overlap between the three. Almost everyone looked fine on the surface.
Somewhere in there the pillars stopped being a page and turned into three questions I kept asking. Here is what each one sounds like when there is a person on the other end.
What is Presence, and why does it decide the interview?
Interview prep is where I see this most. Somebody with a strong resume, every technical round cleared, losing at the conversation round. They come in wanting a tactic for one awkward question.
What I end up saying is some version of this. You are trying to prove yourself. You are trying to be more than a resume. But you have already affirmed it. They reviewed the resume. They know you have the experience. What they are trying to see now is simple. Is this a person? Can this person communicate? Are they going to work well with other people?
You could have everything on paper and be the perfect candidate, but if you show up and the energy is not there, or you are just not connecting with the interviewer, it's an uphill battle. How you feel going in matters.
That is Presence. Showing up fully on screen and in yourself. The question I end up asking has nothing to do with what you will say. What needs to happen for you to feel comfortable having a conversation like the one we are having right now?
The answer is almost never a script. If you don't take the time to fill your cup, go exercise, go for a walk, catch up with friends you haven't seen in weeks, you will find yourself more anxious than you need to be. We are all at our best when we let ourselves enjoy the simplest parts of life.
What does Performance look like once you lead people?
Performance is the pillar people think they already have. They were promoted based on results. They surpassed their quota and all the heavy KPIs, so here is a team you're responsible for.
Then the job changes underneath them. Being responsible for a team, trust is everything. How they perform affects your role, and it affects the relationship you have with each person. And the results you were promoted on came from doing the work yourself, which is exactly what you can no longer do.
The place this shows up first is feedback. A lot of new managers coach like a cheerleader. Acknowledging what someone is doing well is a great start, but if that is all you do, where is the opportunity for growth or improvement? What I ask is plain: if you do not give the direct feedback, what is the cost? Then the challenge: how could you give that feedback in a way that is also rooted in empathy?
The other place it shows up is the hours. I have asked more than one new leader some version of: how much of your value are you tying to being physically present? First in, last out, feeling like a failure for leaving before the team. That is effort. Performance is something else.
Performance is doing the work that matters, with intention behind the effort. Control what you can control: the prep, the one-on-one calendar, how you open the pipeline review. Then, what is one step?
What is Integrity, and what is left when you take work away?
This one is quieter and it is the one I care about most.
I coach people who are confident at work because the role gives them a reason to be there, and lost at a party because nothing does. Identity that is entirely the job. Take work away. What is your identity?
Integrity is one you. The same person in the Monday leadership meeting and at the dinner table on Sunday. No work self and home self. A life that holds together under pressure instead of splitting in two.
In practice it is small. Your backpack from work, or a set of keys. You take a moment and acknowledge, okay, this is my work. You put it on the key ring. You put the backpack by the front door. You do not carry the day into the kitchen.
And it is a question I like asking. Imagine you are at your retirement party and they give a speech about you. What do you want them to say? Nobody has ever answered that with them crushing quota.
Why three, and why do they have to hold together?
Because each one alone is a familiar failure.
Performance without Presence is the person who hits the number and feels nothing. The number resets and you are back to zero, chasing a number again.
Presence without Performance is somebody who feels great and never tells the rep who is slipping that they are slipping.
Both without Integrity is a role you play from nine to five, and it is where burnout lives. On paper it looks like everything is fine.
Hold all three at once and they compound. That is the whole framework.
Which pillar is thin right now?
You already know. I am not here to tell you what to do.
There is no training manual for the moment that throws you off, the executive presentation that goes sideways in the first two minutes, or the one-on-one where the feedback lands harder than you meant. The tricky thing is finding a practice that works for you, and it is entirely up to you whether you explore one. A lot of the meditations and reflections I run are really a note-taking exercise. You notice something. You start to acknowledge patterns about yourself. You start doing your own data analysis.
You are not alone in feeling like you need to tackle all of your problems at once and build the life of your dreams in the same breath. Pressure makes diamonds, but it also makes for exhausted parents, partners and friends. Give yourself enough grace to acknowledge your wins, measure your next move and step into it with intention. One step at a time. One breath at a time. You are always exactly where you need to be.
