Executive Presence Coaching

You probably need this if the feedback is about how you show up, not what you know

Presence becomes the issue when your results are strong but your influence does not match them. These are the moments leaders describe to me most often.

• ✦You prepare thoroughly for an executive committee, then hear yourself rushing and over-explaining once the questions start.
• ✦A peer makes the same point you made ten minutes earlier, and the room responds to them.
• ✦You were told you are “not quite ready” for the next role, with no clear reason beyond presence.
• ✦You go quiet when a very senior person, an older colleague or the founder of a family business enters the conversation.
• ✦On video calls you feel invisible, and in person you feel either too careful or too forceful.
• ✦You lead a multicultural team and are unsure which version of yourself lands with which audience.

Presence built on a script breaks under pressure

Many presence courses teach posture, pauses and power phrases. Those details have their place, but a borrowed technique tends to collapse at exactly the moment it is needed: when a board member challenges your numbers or a meeting turns tense.

Lasting presence comes from knowing what happens inside you under pressure. When you can notice the urge to justify, please or defend, you can choose a different response. Leadership isn’t built from the outside in; it grows from the inside out. That is the principle behind every piece of executive presence coaching I do.

Three things we strengthen: composure, gravitas and voice

I break presence into three working parts so we can be specific about what changes. For a fuller definition of the term itself, see what executive presence actually means.

The first session starts with one real room

In our first session I ask you to describe a specific meeting where your presence did not land, and one where it did. We look at what was different: who was in the room, what you were telling yourself, what your body was doing and what you said first.

From there we agree two or three situations coming up in the next few weeks where you will try something new. I won’t hand you a list of rules. I ask questions until you can see your own pattern clearly, because that is what you will still have after coaching ends.

Between sessions, presence is practised in your real calendar

1. 01

   Choose the moment

   We pick an upcoming meeting, presentation or one-to-one where presence matters.

2. 02

   Set one intention

   For example: state your view in the first two minutes, or pause before answering a challenge.

3. 03

   Notice what happens

   You observe your reactions and how others respond, without judging yourself.

4. 04

   Debrief and adjust

   In the next session we review what shifted and what still pulls you back.

Why a former HR leader is useful on presence

I spent more than 26 years in leadership, HR and talent development, in financial services, FMCG, entrepreneurship and government. Talent decisions often turn on “presence”, and working in talent management showed me how senior people read it and how rarely they explain it.

I am an ICF Professional Certified Coach with more than 4,500 coaching hours, and an NLP Master Practitioner. NLP is useful here because it helps you notice how language and state shape the way you come across.