I dislike “executive presence.” Consider this instead.

My client spends her days in rooms full of talented, well-respected people. She mentioned in a recent coaching call that lately she started to wonder if she belonged among them.

She watches herself back on meeting recaps and like many of us, she cringes. She gets nervous that she'll come across too junior, or her words, like a 13-year-old girl in a room full of executives.

She asked me the question so many high-achieving women ask, is there a right way to do executive presence? And should she act more like the men around her?

I strongly dislike the phrase "executive presence." When I hear it, I picture some very old, white-haired man who once decided the people at his table needed to be a certain way so HE could feel more comfortable in the room.

When my clients start overanalyzing executive presence, I ask them to list three people who they believe have "it". She named:

• Leader 1 who is calm, clear, and concise.

• Leader 2 who has calm, commanding energy.

• Leader 3 who is loud and challenging and runs on command and control.

Three very different people, they all had a presence she admired. But most importantly they all had a confidence that exuded.

She is not wrong. Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, whose research first defined "executive presence," went back a decade later and found confidence and decisiveness still anchor it. But the old mold is fading. Authenticity is one of the qualities on the rise in what reads as presence today (Harvard Business Review, 2024).

Here's what's tricky. I have sat with CEOs who are terrified before a board meeting, and then I watch the tape and you would never know (see my TEDx for more of this!). Presence was never about feeling confident all the time, it's about showing up as yourself, in alignment with your values, while you also feel nervous. You can feel it when someone is personifying "a leader" instead of just being one.

By the end of the call she landed here: Trying to be someone she is not would come across worse than just being herself. When she performs a version of a leader, she gets stuck in her head, worried about what to say next, and then she stumbles.

Which, counterintuitively, was everything she was worried about at the start of the call.

🔥 Where did you learn that presence has one right look? And who taught you that showing up as yourself was not enough?

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PUT THIS IDEA INTO ACTION

Before you try to “fix” your presence to align to some vague definition, get clear on whose approval you might be chasing. Will all of this shape shifting move you closer to, or further away from, the leader you want to become? 

If you want to show up in a way that's most aligned with your true skills and approach, consider the following: 

1: Name the people you think have "it," then look closer.

• Write down two or three leaders you would say have real presence, you admire how they handle themselves.

• Notice how differently they each show up. There is no one “right way,” and the proof is likely there on your list as you admire different qualities in each of them.

2: Catch the tendency to drop into “proving energy.”

• Notice the moment you start coaching yourself mid-meeting with shoulds that sound like:

  • I have to be tough 

  • I have to be more strategic

  • I have to be more _________.

• When you are constantly managing how you are coming across, you cannot be present with the people in front of you.

• Remember how proving energy feels on the receiving end. Have you sat on the other end of someone who you felt like they were trying hard to prove something to you? Or, play a certain role? 

• What's more important? To show up a certain way or to make people feel seen, heard and understood?

3: Post your values where you can see them.

• Get clear on the handful of values you lead best from, and put them somewhere you will actually look, behind your monitor or on the wall.

• Ask yourself: If I led this meeting fully leaning into my values and strengths, what would that uniquely look like for me? 

  • That is your version of presence, and no one else can do it.

4: Find your own evidence.

• Think of a time you led something well as yourself, especially a time you did not have all the answers and led anyway.

• Ask yourself: Who did I have to be? What did I have to believe about myself? What actions did I take because I believed it?

• Then transfer all of that into the situation you are in now (or will about to be in).  

TRY THIS NEXT: 

Pick your next meeting. Before you walk in, name the one thing you want people to feel when you lead (seen, prepared, clear, whatever it is for you), and decide what leading from that would look like. 

Afterward, notice one thing — were you more present with the room, or more in your head trying to be someone else?

Kelli Thompson is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive coach who specializes in helping women advance to the rooms where decisions are made (or build her own room). She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck

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