What Is Executive Presence (Real Talk, No Jargon)

Executive presence gets thrown around like a corporate buzzword — but most women secretly have no idea what it actually means. And if you’ve ever felt fake trying to “act confident” or “build a brand,” you’re not the problem. The language is.

In this episode we'll discuss:

• What executive presence actually is (minus the jargon)
• Why ND and high-achieving women feel fake doing this
• The 3 essentials people trust in the room
• How to show up with presence that feels real, not forced

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⚠️ Disclaimer:   This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal, or psychological advice. Any stories, examples, or scenarios discussed are illustrative and may be composites or anonymised accounts. They do not refer to any specific individual, client, workplace, or organisation. 

Transcript

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Michelle Kevill: 0:37

Hello, my corporate survivalists. How are we today? Okay, so I just want to start with a confession. I absolutely hate buzzwords. First of all, any corporate buzzwords like, let's circle back around or not, milk a cow from the inside, which I've never actually heard anyone use before, but things like executive presence and personal branding, it's just a word wrapped up in like some corporate LinkedIn nonsense. It feels so fake, performative and so exhausting for me, and I still cringe every time I hear it like you need to elevate your presence or build your brand. I hate that, because if you know me, and I think for a lot of neurodivergent women as well, we're not freaking like, we're not our resume, right? We're human beings. We have so much more depth than like, what's your brand? It just feels so fake. But I have realized over time that they sound like this because it's wrapped up in that fake corporateness that I feel a lot of neurodivergent people. And I would say anyone really can kind of sense, and they are actually really important. So what I have done as part of this episode is I have just cut the BS completely out of it, and I have made them so much simpler, way less gross. You know, there's no mystery, there's no fluff, right? So I'm going to tell you exactly what executive presence and personal branding really is in real simple terms. So you are using this, leaning into it and being more strategic. So okay, when anyone says to you, you know, elevating your executive presence, all that means is just inspiring confidence and trust in other people. That's all it fucking is. I hate it so much because I'm just like, when I heard it the first time of my career, I was like, okay, inspiring confidence. Can we just call it that? But anyway, so executive presence is inspiring confidence. Personal Branding, that is just what people say about you when you're not in the room, right? So one is like, what people are thinking about you when you're you know, not there. And then the other one is in that moment when you're, you know, leading a meeting or something, you're inspiring that confidence, that trust, that leadership energy, that's all it is. And I feel like when you say that, it sounds so much more human to me, and I resonate so much more with it. And I get that we have these terms and whatever, but like it just to me, inspiring confidence and what people say about you, great, awesome, like, cool. Let's get to it. So that is what I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you how to build both in a way that's genuine, strategic and entirely BS free. We're going to bring that authenticity back in and look, if you're ready to actually build a personal brand that actually feels like you not this fluffy corporate fake nonsense, then you should really subscribe to my email list. You can find it in the show notes anywhere I'm online. I actually give you real tips that feel aligned with you and your values, because you do not have to give up who you are to be thriving in corporate. Okay, so this is what we're going to cover today. I'm going to go through exactly what executive presence and branding really means, and what it doesn't, why it's so easy to feel like fake doing this, and how to stop feeling that way and bring more of that authenticity in, and how to actually build presence and brands strategically, step by step with examples. If some of this feels really gross for you after this episode, go listen to my two parter office politics series, because that helps you decode the corporate nature and corporate world. And it really helps you to understand why you should be stepping into what is like the corporate game. But I'm explaining it in real world, like world terms, not like this fake and really all it is like, I talk about this all the time, office politics, it's like, corporate culture. Corporate is a culture, and you need to understand it like, when you break it down and you look at it at like, with much simpler I feel language. It feels like my clients, including people that I speak with, it's so much easier for them to just kind of sit with that and be with it. And it's like, Oh yeah, it's not like, this complex thing that, like, is super hard to decode anyway, so go listen to those two later. But let's start. Okay, what the hell is executive and brand? Sorry, executive presence and branding. Okay, so if I paint a picture for you, I want you to imagine like you're walking into, like, a big meeting. Okay, so maybe it's a room of like, senior stakeholders, and you've got your notes, and you're feeling a little bit nervous, and in your head, you might be thinking things like, Am I coming across as confident? Do these people even know what I'm talking about? Do I sound clear professional? Like, am I just winging this? That feeling is what executive presence addresses. It's literally just whether or not people trust you and know what you're doing. It's confidence made visible. But branding, on the other hand, is what people remember about you after they leave the room. So presence is how you hold yourself in a meeting. Branding is what they say after, such as like, she's always making complicated stuff sound easy. I trust her to deliver. She really cuts through some of that noise. So together, you have presence and branding, and it shapes your reputation, and a clear, strong reputation helps your career in massive ways. And of course, on top of that, being a little bit more strategic so that you can make those big career moves and progress forward. Okay, so before we jump into like the tactics, I want to call out why this feels so icky, because, especially for any neurodivergent woman like you may have been told since childhood or even just felt like under the surface, that you need to blend in. You cannot make waves, and you definitely cannot come off as too confident, especially as just women overall. Then you step into the corporate space and suddenly it's like, define your brand, be confident, have a executive presence, and it feels like whiplash, and you're either too much or not enough, like you're too direct or you're too bubbly and like there's no happy medium, right? And it's a lot of the times, it's this emotional pool that's there inside us that you are trying to reconcile with. And then you might feel that like branding yourself is like grossly self promotional fake or performative. But here's the truth. Like, if you are deciding what your brand is like strategically, as in, like being a little bit more aware of it, someone else will, but to be real, it's not just that they will define it. Often you are defining it subconsciously in how you show up, especially if you're operating from fear, doubt or old programming. So this is what I mean when I say it's not always. What about others? People think it's about what you assume they think that drives how you act. And if you are one of my clients, or you know, all this coaching work, you will totally understand when you're talking about how thoughts impact your feelings impacting your actions. This is what I mean when I say and again, I've talked about this before, on how coaching and like those concepts can be a little bit of a double edged sword, because how you think they think of you if you were thinking that they knew, my God, they suck. They hate me. Whatever that is going to drive how you're acting and how you're showing up in those meetings, right? Because, look, we got to be honest here, like some people are just not going to like you. That is totally fine. Your job is not to win everyone over. That is not possible. And I talk about this in, like, some of my other episodes around, like, people pleasing and strategic. People pleasing, like, it's not about winning everyone. And if you think that's what it is like being liked by everyone, that's likely coming from a place where you felt everyone needs to like you, to feel safe. But actually, if everyone's liking you, then, if I'm completely honest, like, where is your authenticity coming out? And I don't mean that to hate on you. I mean it's just like, if you as who you are, as a person, if that is really shining strong, there are just going to be people out there who just aren't really going to like that, right? Because it's actually about you being grounded in who you are, so that the right people are drawn to you, and when you add that little bit of a strategic lens that is going to help you so much further in your career. So I'll give you an example, right like back when I was an intern, like many moons ago, like I used to always apologize for absolutely everything, even when nothing went wrong, and when someone like finally said to me, like, Hey, you don't need to be apologizing. That's not actually the feedback that I needed. What I really needed to hear was like, You are not owning your agency. You are acting like you don't belong here. That was the real brand that I was putting out there without realizing it when I was over, apologizing all the time. So presence isn't about perfection or making everyone like you. It's about owning who you are, your mess ups, your authenticity, bringing it out and showing up within. Attention. So when you do that, it doesn't feel fake, it feels powerful. However, yes, that can feel a little bit unsafe at times, right? And especially as neurodivergent women, we've also just got this like message deep underneath that, like, you know, don't be revealing too much of who you are. And I will suggest some episodes as well after this that are going to help you deal with kind of like the deeper root stuff that's maybe stopping you from bringing out who you are authentically. But now what I want to get into is I want to show you three key things that I think you need to do to actually build your executive presence and your brand without the growth vibes. Okay? So the first one is confidence. Oh, my God, the stay with me. Okay? Because confidence isn't about knowing everything. It's about believing you can handle whatever comes up. It's about backing yourself even when you're not 100% sure. And let me be clear, I'm not just talking about like stating like facts that you haven't verified or lying about your knowledge. It's about being honest about what you do know and confidently acknowledging who you might need to speak to or where you need to get more information. Because this is a trip up that I see between men and women. Men typically base confidence on their capability, right? Like I'm gonna figure this out, whereas women are basing it off proven ability. IE, I've done it before, therefore I can do it again. And women over rely on proof. But real presence is about trusting yourself before you've proven anything. And this is the thing, when we talk about confidence, this is actually what it is. It's more actually like when you think of confidence, think of self trust, think of discernment, which is like, what my whole theme of this episode, or my, sorry, my whole series and the corporate Survival Guide is it's really just about Bill building up women's discernment and self trust in themselves, that, yes, I have the capability to do this, right, not this, like, super fake, like lying or, yeah, I can do that without, like, anything underneath. It's being. This is where the authenticity, this is where the self trust and the openness comes in. It's like saying in a meeting, like, actually, I don't have this info, but let me come back to this or let me go speak to this person. I'm not the subject matter area in that area. So one way to think of it is like a surgeon, right? So you do not want someone standing over you, like, super nervous and unsure, right? Like you want someone who knows, even if things get messy, even if the surgery goes downhill, that they'll be able to handle it and that they'll be able to, like, pull in the right specialist or get the right tools done. That's what you want. It's that self trust. So when you think of confidence, I want you to be thinking about that self trust within you. Next one is clarity. Okay? Because most corporate presentations, oh, my God, it's basically handing your stakeholders some flour, some yeast, some tomatoes, some olives, some cheese, and saying, make your own pizza, right? Like you're getting them to do all this work and energy to put it together. No one has energy for that. Executive presence is strong. Branding is delivering a fully cooked pizza, clear, concise and easy to digest. Your execs, your senior people, are fucking tired. They are making constant decisions and, like, not just about, like, minor things. Like, here's the thing, they're not in your world. They are thinking about KPIs, budgets, risks. They've been pulled into this emergency thing for this audit, like these things that keep the business moving at like this level, they do not have time to decode your thinking or read between the lines. You need to make it as simple as possible for them, give them clarity, not clutter. So next time you're preparing a presentation, I want you to ask yourself like, am I handing over a finished pizza, or am I making them do the extra work? And you'll hear more about this metaphor in my office politics part two, because I talk about this all the time. Like, there's no issues, by the way, with having like, like, I work in analytics, so I get it like, I love a good graph and I love data, but have that in the appendix, like, give them what they actually need, how it answers that specific business need, make it less wordy, then if they have questions, you've got that all at the end, you can still showcase that. Remember, they're not in your world. Give them a pizza. Don't make them. Make the pizza. And number three is authenticity. Okay? You I remember 10 years ago hearing the worst advice, right? And I'll give. And this relates to it, right? Like it was always, like, you know, make sure to like, speak up in a meeting, even if you don't really have anything to say, because you want to be remembered to like, raise your profile. Like, sure be visible, but be meaningfully visible. Okay, here's the thing, your authenticity is literally only thing that separates you from everyone else around you, okay, like, is you. There's no other you. You need to bring that out. Okay, presence, to feel silence, speaking without purpose. Like your brand isn't about forcing a certain image, which is what I feel has been taught so much like this is how you should show up, versus looking at who you are and how to bring those strengths out right? Like mimicking others pretending to be a polished corporate robot who never ruffles any feathers, that is forgettable and it is exhausting and it dilutes your impact, there are always going to be strictly stakeholders who just end up not liking you. That is just the reality of corporate but when you show up, grounded in who you are, your value will be unmistakable. Oh, my God, unmistakable to those that matters, and that is what drives your brand and career forward. So this advice around like it's very to me, fluffy, like it's very much like trying to be like to me speaking up in meetings when I had nothing to provide just felt so fake to me. But what was aligned with me was Yes, speaking when it was meaningful and that made sense. And there's a difference between speaking and bringing like meaning to something versus being too afraid to speak at all. And I have podcast episodes that I'll go into that will help you with that, but it's about taking all these things that you will hear throughout your corporate career around, like, this is what you should do, etc, and actually aligning it to your own values and feeling safe enough to bring out some of your authenticity. Because here's the thing, and this is so freaking important, like, please remember this your amazing strengths will always come with a weakness. Okay, let me say it again, your strengths, they have to come with weaknesses, because you are not a video game character with, like, maxed out 100 over every single attribute. Do you know how boring a video game would be if, like, you could just easily blitz through everything like think about it, a wizard is going to be high on intelligence but low on strength. Why? Because they're a freaking wizard. Okay, they need to be high on intelligence because they got to do all these spells. You can't be focusing on strength stuff. And it's the same with corporate maybe you're absolutely exceptional with connecting ideas or influencing stakeholders, but yeah, that probably means you're not great at detail. You want to know mine. I'm so freaking detail orientated. But that, or being detail orientated, comes at The con of me being a little bit narrow minded and sometimes needing to pull my head out of the sand and look at the bigger picture. But that is okay. You own it. You're aware of it. You really bring those strengths out there. That doesn't mean you ignore all your weaknesses entirely. You're not aware of them, but you need to be bringing those to the surface, right? You can't be trying to max out every single trait to fix yourself, because there's something wrong with you. Instead, I want you to ask yourself these questions, are you being you, or are you trying to mimic someone else's idea of success? Then look at what your strengths are, and how can you start to bring them in the room and show them clearly own that write out your strengths? I think I note this in the office politics part two. One, I want you to write out what you're really good at and how you can bring them more out. Focus on that there isn't like it's not about fixing your weaknesses or anything like that. It's about leaning in on your strengths and bringing that out and being confident and self trusting enough in you to believe that, yes, this is who I am. This is who I stand for. This is my brand. Okay, to recap, executive presence, all it is is confidence that makes people trust you. All right, that's all it is. That's when you're in the meeting room and you're handling people. Brand is the impression you leave behind, and it should reflect you and your strengths, not your fears or weaknesses. I know these sound like buzzwords, and they're how people experience and remember you, and yet it will feel gross if you're faking it, because pretending to be someone else never works. Real Presence and branding comes from you owning who you are, not trying to tick some corporate box. And we broke down to three key areas that you need to start focusing on to elevate your presence and your brand. One is real confidence, not that fake bravado stuff, okay, which is when you think of confidence. I want. We think of self trust. It's building that clear communication. We are not having a pizza party, right? We're not getting them to make the pizza. You are delivering a clear, fully concise, done thing and as best as possible, right? Like, don't be like, mean to yourself. Just be looking at, how can I get more clear? And the next one is authenticity over mimicry. It's showing up as your damn self and real and focusing in on what your strengths are and bringing those in. Now, if this all feels a little bit too hard, I'm going to share three podcast episodes that are going to help you so much to do a lot of that inner work to get to this point. And if you want one on one, help doing that. Head to my website and check out my corporate glow up program. It's my one on one, six month coaching program. I've revamped it completely. It's got frequently asked questions and everything there. If this is something that you want personalized help with, so that you can move to the next stage in your career. Okay, so again, if you know what your strengths are, and you can, like, write that down, but you can't even can't even look at you. Like, listen to this like, Michelle, I can't even muck up the courage to speak up when I do want to add value into the room. I would strongly start with these episodes. Okay, so the first one is how to feel confident instantly in a male dominated industry. So if you're in a space where you constantly feel outnumbered or overlooked, I'm going to explain some of those thoughts underneath all of that. The next one is how to not change a thing about you and still be confident. AF, because, again, you need like you don't need to fix yourself to show up powerfully. And the next one is what to do when you don't feel like a good fit for corporate. Again, it's really embracing that authenticity when you feel like the odd one out. So like, presence and branding done right, can actually feel powerful because they're letting you be strategic and real at the same time, which is the whole premise of not just my program, but the idea with this podcast and everything that I do, you do not have to, like, dull yourself out. You just need to show more of your strengths and just do that a little bit more strategically. And I talk about in the office politics one which like, please if you haven't go listen to that. After this, I tell you how like you're already doing that. I just want you to bring in a little bit of self awareness, because that is going to help your career so much. Okay, that is all for today. I will see you in the next two weeks.