Leveraging Leadership
Leadership is messy. Most advice isn't built for the reality of competing priorities, difficult stakeholders, limited time, and imperfect information.
Leveraging Leadership is a practical leadership podcast for Chiefs of Staff, executives, founders, and senior operators who want to lead more effectively and navigate complexity with confidence.
Hosted by Emily Sander, former Chief of Staff and executive advisor, each episode delivers real-world lessons, practical frameworks, and candid conversations with leaders across business and beyond.
Topics include executive communication, leadership presence, decision-making, delegation, organizational influence, operating rhythms, team effectiveness, and the often-unspoken challenges leaders face behind the scenes.
If you're looking for thoughtful conversations, practical takeaways, and leadership advice you can actually use on Monday morning, you're in the right place.
Leveraging Leadership
Boost Your Presentation Presence With This Simple Technique
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Emily Sander shares a simple trick to boost energy and engagement in presentations: think about something you love, like movies, then bring that same excitement to your business talk. She uses a real story about bombing a dry run at a Risk Summit and how talking about her favorite movies helped her improve. Chiefs of Staff and executives can try this method to sound less flat or nervous during important presentations.
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Want to show up with more confidence and energy in your presentations? Book a clarity call w/ Emily here.
Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.
Time Stamps:
00:32 Why Presentations Fall Flat
02:31 Practice and Record Yourself
04:31 My First Big Dry Run
07:08 The Bombed Presentation
13:41 Monday Redemption Moment
16:10 Risk Summit Stage Debut
18:23 Beyond the Trick Long Term
20:37 Try It and Share Back
22:10 Wrap Up and Sponsor
Welcome back to Leveraging Leadership, where we unpack the art of business leadership. I'm your host, Emily Sander, chief of staff to an executive leadership coach. This show is all about finding your points of greatest influence and leveraging them to better serve those around you. Here is a tactical and practical tip and trick you can use to bring new life into your presentations.
Why Presentations Fall Flat
So I speak with loads of chiefs of staff and other executives who are making numerous presentations each week, and some of them sound nervous giving their presentation. Some of them sound bored giving their preso, which is boring. Some of them just sound flat and, and just uninteresting to listen to. And so if you know that you're coming across this way, especially if you've gotten feedback like, "Hey, by the way, like your presentation kinda came across this way." Or if you sense that this is happening when you present, you can kind of read the room and you're not overreacting, you're not being too critical of yourself. Or if you've seen tape or heard an actual recording of yourself and objectively like any average person on the street would listen to it and go like, "Yeah, uh, you sound kind of, you sound, sound kind of bad in that. You might wanna revisit that." All of these things can transpire to bring you to this point, which is like, "All right, what do I do? Like, what, what do I do? I have to fix this quick, um, and I can't take, you know, six months of speaking courses between now and next Thursday. What do I do?" Here's an interim thing you can try Think of something that you are naturally and genuinely excited about or interested in or people come to you for. So if you're the go-to person for, I don't know, like gardening clogs or whatever, and you're like, "Hey, gardening clogs, this is my jam. Let me tell you about all the different categories and types and colors and textures and sole qualities of a gardening clog." If that's your jam, cool. It could be, um, what music inspires you or what painting, like, brings you to life and just sucks you into the painting and the depth of it. Okay? So pick whatever thing is-- whatever thing that does-- uh, elicits that type of reaction for you. Bring that to mind. So you wanna bring that to mind. You wanna think about that and maybe talk about that thing
Practice and Record Yourself
for a little while. So ask some questions, just some made-up questions to yourself. Like, uh, when did this first start? When did this, uh, painting first get drawn? Uh, when did this song first come on the scene, and then what are some cover artists for it? What are some cover versions that I like, or like I dislike this one, I hate what they did with this one. It could be, um, hey, like what's your first memory of-- What's your first memory of a good gardening clog? Like, kind of ask some questions and some prompts around that and then answer. You could even have someone ask these questions to you if you really wanted to, kinda do a partner exercise, and then record that and/or notice your energy. So record that and listen to your voice and how it sounds. Record that and listen to your body language and what you do naturally. Or just kind of take note, mental note of how that feels in your body when you're delivering those answers. Like, oh my gosh, this is my favorite thing ever, and here's how I talk about it, and just notice that. Okay. And then go to your presentation and say, "All right, I know the content of what I wanna say in my presentation. The energy that I infuse into that content has to change because I've gotten that feedback. And so now I'm going to think of the thing I really like and I'm really interested in and I'm really in-inspired by, and I'm going to think of that and bring that energy into the content of my business presentation." and see how you show up differently, and maybe record that or maybe do a dry run of that and get some feedback. So this is something that I've used with numerous executives and chief of staff and people in new roles where they're having to do more presentations than normal and/or different types of public speaking, so different types of presentations that they're not used to giving. So anywhere where you have to level up. And I have a personal story I'll share with you.
My First Big Dry Run
So, um, back when I was first starting to make presentations, uh, I kinda got thrown in the deep end, which was our company had an annual risk summit that we put on that was in London, and we would bring in clients, which were financial institutions from all over the world. We would fly them in, they would come in, we-- they stayed at a nice hotel, and we would have two and a half days of, uh, s- speakers and panels and keynotes and workshops and things like this. And I was tapped to give a relatively low stakes training presentation. It was kind of a training workshop type thing, but it was my first time standing on an actual stage with a huge screen behind me. And there were, like, rows and rows and rows of seats, and we had the comfort monitors, which are the monitors you look down and kind of know your place, so you can look down and still be facing the audience instead of turning around and looking at your slides. I had the clicker, I had a microphone, the whole thing was mic'd up, and there was lighting and everything, and I was going into this from, like, "Hey, I've led a team meeting of five people." Does that count? No. I mean, yes, but for me, no. Like, not the same category of thing. So we were doing these dry runs for the various presentations all up, leading up into the risk summit. We had dry runs and workshops. We'd like rework kind of parts of it, or we'd work on the overarching story of like, if you say this in your presentation, and I tag onto in mine, and then you follow up and kind of bring it home in the end, that'll have a nice story arc to it. So we were doing all these types of things. So we had, uh, people doing their dry run stuff, kinda trying out different bits in their section and up, you know, at the, at the head of the conference table, doing the slides, making sure they don't look at the slides, they look at the audience. And we had, like maybe three or four people that day that I was giving my dry run, dry run go ahead of me. And I was like, "Man, they sound good." These were people who were like salesmen and had done this a million times. They were people with charisma. One of them was our actual co-founder who had... was a visionary and had visions for days and could sell, you know, could, could sell, uh, ice to an Eskimo, is an old saying. Um, might not be PC right now, but that's what I know it as. He could sell at-- He could go, he could go to Alaska, like literally, he could fly to Alaska and sell ice to native people from Alaska. Like, I would bet all the money in my bank that he could do that. It was ridiculous. He was so influential. He was so persuasive. He was so charismatic.
The Bombed Presentation
And then I got up there, and I was so nervous, and I wanted to get everything word perfect, and I had practiced over and over again my, my rote thing. And then I got up there, and this was just a conference room, and all the people were staring at me. There were probably like twenty people in the room, and we had our kind of to-go food and drinks, and people were kind of putting their feet up, and people were kind of taking notes. And, uh, I delivered probably the worst dry run presentation our company had ever seen. I was so nervous, I was so flat, I was so serious, and I was so clipped, and I was so r-- I have to get the words exactly right. I would look down, I would look down, and I would pause awkwardly, get the... And then, and then I just like started sweating, and I sat down And the room was silent, probably like in real life for maybe like, I don't know, like eight seconds, maybe 10 seconds, which is a long time. Like count to 10 real slow, and that's a long time. It felt like a year. I like sat down because you, you get feedback afterward, and I sat down and no one said anything. And no one made eye contact with me. And the person who was facilitating and coordinating and running this, uh, this event for us, Cassandra, who like I was friends with, um, and she was awesome. But she was like on point for this risk summit. Like this risk summit was going to be operated seamlessly and be put, put together at a very high quality. And she just like stared at me, and she could not hide her facial expressions. And she was like, her face was just like, "What the actual F did you just do? Like w- like I like you, but like w- you are not going to ruin the risk summit." And she didn't pull any punches. She was like, "Okay, Emily, um, yeah." "Let's maybe rethink that presentation," and just kinda trailed off. And I was like, "Oh my God," like rethink as in like me not doing it or rethink as in like whatever. And I knew I was nervous going into that, but I actually thought I was gonna do a little bit better than I did. The fact that I face planted and bombed so hard was a wake-up call. So anyway, that was on a Friday. So the entire rest of the night I was fretting about this thing, and I was fretting about it, and someone came into my office to kinda talk to me, and his name was Manish, and he was like awesome. And I was like, "Oh my God," like, "I feel terrible. I have to do this thing." And he kinda gave me some pointers. And I was like, "I'm gonna come and pr- practice this, you know, all weekend, and we have another dry run on Monday." And he was like, "Do you want me to come in tomorrow, and I can be kind of your audience, like an audience of one?" And I was like, "No, no, no, no, like it's the weekend." Like, "I don't wanna, don't wanna ruin your weekend or take time from your weekend. You work a lot." He's like, "No, no, no. I'd be happy to. Like I'd be more than happy to. It'll just be me." And I said, "Yeah, I mean, like if you're willing to, like for sure, like come in for half an hour, an hour, or whatever." And Manish, God bless him, stayed for several hours while I worked through the different sections of my presentation. And, um, it was just him and I on a Saturday in the same conference room, and he could tell I was so nervous, and I was coming across so strong, and so serious, and so clipped, and so rigid. And he finally said like, "Emily, like sit down. Like just tell me about, you know, what, what you, what do you like to do on the weekends? If you weren't here, you could do whatever. Like what, what would you like to do? Um, what do you love more than anything?" And I was like, "I love, I love good stories. I love good books. You know what? I've always loved going to the movies. Ever since I was a little, little kid, I've always loved going to the movies. You're with other people. The lights go down. You have the big screen, and it tells a story, and you get immersed in it." And, uh, he said, "Oh, yeah, like what's, what was the last movie you saw?" And I was like, "This one and this one. Here's the plot, and here's what happened, and here's the actor, and he's my favorite actor." And he was like, "Oh, cool." And Manish was like, "What else has he been in?" I was like, "This movie over here and this movie over here." And he's like, "Who's your favorite actress?" And I was like, "This, this one like this, and Cate Blanchett, and you know, blah, blah, blah." And he was like, "Oh my gosh. Okay." And then he was like, "Now, give, give your presentation." I was like, "What?" And he was like, "Right now." And I was like, "Okay." And I gave it, and I, I was a little bit nervous, and I kind of went into business mode. Like, you just asked me about movies, but now you're asking... Okay, I'll go into the business presentation. And I, I could tell that I sounded a little bit differently. And then he was like, "Emily, you were so excited about movies, and that's what you love. And you love it so much that you know movies really well. You can quote scenes from them. You know the actors and actresses. Y- you're like the go-to person for movies. Pretend like you're talking to me about a movie. It's just me. Tell me how much you love movies through the tone of your voice and give the content of your business presentation." And I was like, "Huh." Okay, like interesting, like never heard that exercise before, but that sounds kinda cool. And so I brought the energy and the love and the passion I had for movies and storytelling and the experiences of like seeing a great movie and seeing a great s- great scene like, oh, oh, the writer, the director, the actor, the lighting, the facial expressions in that scene, oh, that just hit me to the core. That's gonna stick with me. So bringing all of that into my presentation for this risk summit. And we did that second take where I talked about movies and thought about movies, and then we did one more take where we just kind of like brought it all together and I was gaining momentum. And by the end of that day, I felt so, so much different. I felt so, uh, differently about my presentation. And I was like, "Oh, I can do this." I-- It's kind of a trick and a kind of a sleight of hand because I'm thinking about something else, but the way my voice carries through and the emotion that I convey was like night and day. It was just like night and day. And so I went in on Sunday, and I did a few more practice reps, um, where I kind of was a little bit more flexible with my wording and not so rigid. Um, I asked myself some Q&A questions 'cause we would do Q&A in the, in the dry run on Friday. They didn't even do Q&A for my section. They did it for everyone else, and they were just like, "Mm, no. We're just gonna skip that part," um, which made me feel even worse. And so I did like some mock Q&A with myself on Sunday.
Monday Redemption Moment
And then on Monday, the same group was there, and Cassandra was sitting there like with her notepad like taking notes and like basically like grading people. And we did the... We did a few people who had gone before, but some of them were good enough and had done it, s- done presentations so many times before. They didn't have to practice the same, same way or the same level. So I think like one or two people went before me, and then I got up there, and there was kind of like a, like a bracing of like, "Oh, shit," like, "Is this gonna be as bad as before?" Um, and Cassandra just like kind of put her head down. And I got up there, and I was like, I had my favorite movie in mind. I have my favorite scene. I smiled when I thought of this actor, and I gave my dry run presentation. And I was, I was a little bit nervous 'cause I was in front of this big group again, and I knew I hadn't done well before. But the fact that I infused the energy about movies and about storytelling, like brought to life, and my, my face kind of lit up, and I could tell in the, in the tape, like my face was just in a different place than where it was before. And people like started looking at me like mid-pres-- They're like, "Whoa." And they started looking at me, and they started like looking around, and they started smiling, and they were kind of surprised, and then they were like really into my presentation. And I got done And I was like, "Oh God, okay, what's the reaction gonna be?" And people were silent again for several seconds, and I was like, "Oh no," like I did all this work over the weekend. I did nothing else this weekend besides work on this freaking presentation, and people are, like, giving me the silent treatment again But they were looking at me, and they were looking all around, and Cassandra was like, "Did, did you spend all weekend working on this presentation?" And I said, "Yes, I did." And she's like, "It shows." And I was like, "Oh my gosh! Thank God. Okay." That was so validating. She was like, "No, Emily, like, that was so good. You kicked so much ass in that presentation." I was like, "Really?" She's like, "Yes. Whatever it is, I need you to do that the presentation for the Risk Summit." I was like, "Okay, got it." And I did, and I brought that energy, and I brought that tactic into the presentation for the Risk Summit. So I have personal experience with that, and, uh, hopefully you can hear my energy in my voice now. It, it saved the day. It literally saved me. I remember that moment of giving that presentation on Monday and then, "What's the reaction gonna be?" And I was like, "Oh, no." Then it was like, "Oh, yes." So it was a huge relief and a huge boost to my confidence.
Risk Summit Stage Debut
And I used it in the Risk Summit, and I remember being so, so, so nervous for my presentation. Um, I am and was a sweater, so I sweat easily, and I sweat profusely. Um, and I was so nervous, I just started sweating. I was like, "Cassandra," like, "I'm sweating." She's like, "Don't worry. I'm gonna put a fan, um, I'm gonna put a fan on the stage so you can stay cool." And I was like, "Don't put a fan on the stage. That looks so stupid to have a fan on the stage." And she's like, "No. I'm gonna put it behind the podium, like inside the bottom part of the podium. It's gonna rotate, so just come back. When you look at your notes, you'll get a little bit of breeze, and then, you know, walk out to the middle of the stage and give some presentation, and then just casually walk back to the podium, look at your notes, get cooled off, and go back." And I was like, "God bless you." Like, "Thank you so much." Like, "You're gonna save me." And I was, like, sweating so bad, but it wasn't as bad as it could've been because of that fan, so I'll be forever grateful. So I gave the presentation, and I was thinking of movies, and I had my comfort screens down below. And the presentation came off pretty darn well. Like, especially for my first presentation ever, it came across pretty darn well. You probably couldn't have told me, like, that was the very first presentation. It wasn't like, oh my God, like, you're the next Tony Robbins. Like, you should do this all the time. But it was solid. It was solid. The Q&As were a little touch and go. Some questions that I had prepared for, I did very well. Some questions that I wasn't prepared for, I didn't know how to answer questions on the fly very effectively at that time, so I flubbed a little bit, and my colleague had to step in. But it was fine. Like the Q&A, even the Q&A was fine. And that was a huge lesson of me standing on a stage with lights and everything for about two hundred and fifty people, which at the time was the biggest crowd I'd ever presented before, um, uh, before, before that. So it was a big deal, and I did it. And I did it. So this is a, a, a tip and trick I have personal experience with, and I've also worked with several, um, several types of executives on this. So chiefs of staff and CEOs and different people giving different types of presentations. so I know it works. I, I can remember the feeling and experience of it working. And I use this over and over
Beyond the Trick Long Term
again. And while I did that, while I used this tip and trick, thinking of movies, thinking of things I'm excited for, I also worked on some longer term, um, changes. Some longer term changes to, okay, why am I so nervous up there? Well, I don't wanna get it wrong, and I wanna be perfect and polished when I'm up there. Okay, let's work on, on changing the angle of that to let me be authentic, let me effectively convey the information that I have and the audience wants to hear. It could be I don't wanna mess up, and every time I even do a slight little misspeak or little flub of a line, I have to start over. It might be, no, unless you tell people you've, quote unquote, messed up, no one knows. And in fact, little flubs or little kind of trying to find the white- right word humanizes you. Filler words like um, uh, uh, can humanize you if they're used in a way that isn't distracting. So if you're doing Nothing but saying, "Uh," and "Um," after every single sentence, that becomes distracting and it pulls away from your message. But if you are so polished that you're like a Stepford wife giving this presentation in a perfectly da, da, da, it's like, uh, that's kind of off-putting in another type of way. And so working through all of those types of things, right? That took, that took years of time for me. Faster for other people, but I was kind of entrenched in my, in my way of thinking about things. But working on the mental aspects, on the technical delivery aspects, so getting practice, getting repetitions, communicating effectively, all of those things I did in parallel over time. So that's why I say it's an interim step. It's kind of, uh, like training wheels in a sense, while you're working on the long-term sustainable pieces to put in place. So hopefully that makes sense, and hopefully I'm explaining w- where I would be using this tool. I'm not saying this solves every single public speaking or presentation issue. It does not. Sometimes it works better with certain people than others.
Try It and Share Back
So if you're like, "I don't know if that would work," try it. Try it. I would say try it. If it doesn't work for you, then move on to something else. If it doesn't work for you the very first time, maybe try it one more time. If it does work for you, awesome. Run with it. Build out that practice. Find more things you're interested in, um, like your s- kind of movies and this other thing, movies and sports for me type of thing, and find that for you. And then also, in parallel, put some of the other pieces together. Put some of those pieces in play that typically take a little bit longer but are more sustainable, and build that solid foundation where you don't have to do a, a somewhat of a surface level trick to get yourself to bring new energy into your presentation, but you can actually do that from a place of, "Okay, I'm rooted and grounded in giving this presentation, and I know I can deliver it effectively and in a compelling way." So anyway, that's my, that's my trick for you. Um, I've seen this work loads and loads of times, so give it a try. I would strongly encourage you, if you're giving presentations, if you're speaking in front of groups and you wanna take that to the next level or you've gotten feedback about it, then here's a tip and trick you can try. Let me know how it goes. Let me know your, your, your topic. Um, I always find this interesting. Let me know what gets you excited and what's like, "Oh, I could talk about this forever. And people love talking to me about this, and I, and I smile when I talk about this, and I light up." Let me know what that thing is for you, and then let me know after you try this a couple times how it's working out for you.
Wrap Up and Sponsor
All right. That's a wrap on this one. I will catch you next time on Leveraging Leadership This episode is brought to you by Next Level Coaching. If you or anyone you know would like to learn more about executive leadership coaching, please visit www.next level Coach.