Executive Presence for Women Leaders

The double bind is real, and it is not your fault

Many women leaders describe feedback that cannot all be true at once. The table below shows the pairs I hear about most often, and what we do with them in coaching. The aim is not to find the perfect middle point. It is to stop letting the contradiction decide how you show up.

Being heard the first time, not the third

A familiar moment: you make a point, it passes without comment, and ten minutes later a colleague says something similar and the room agrees with him. Presence for women is partly about reducing how often that happens and partly about responding well when it does.

We look at how you open, whether you signal that a point is important before you make it, and how you reclaim an idea without sounding defensive. A short, calm “Thank you for building on my point earlier” can change the pattern in a room. For more on the mechanics, see how to speak up in executive meetings.

Voice, dress and the attention you did not ask for

Many women leaders tell me they receive comments on how they sound and look that their male peers do not. You may have been told your voice is too soft for a large room, or that you should smile more. You may spend time each morning deciding what to wear for a particular audience, whether that is a suit, an abaya or something in between.

I will not give you a dress code or a target pitch. Instead we look at where this attention costs you energy and confidence, and how to settle it so your mind is on the meeting, not on yourself. Some women decide to change something practical; others decide to stop changing. Both are valid when they are your choice.

• ✦Breath and pace, so your voice carries without forcing it.
• ✦Physical presence at a long table or on a stage, including where you sit and when you stand.
• ✦A short routine before high-stakes meetings that brings you back to your own judgement.
• ✦How you respond, in the moment, to comments about your appearance or tone.

Presence in Gulf rooms where you may be the only woman

In many Gulf organisations, senior meetings still include few women, and hierarchy and respect for seniority are strong. Presence here is not about dominating. It is about speaking with authority while honouring the norms of the room, and knowing which of those norms you choose to follow.

Visibility and modesty can feel like opposing pulls. We explore where you can be visible in ways that sit comfortably with your values. The guide to being the only woman in the room covers that situation in more depth.

Sessions focus on your actual audiences

We work with the people and settings you face, not generic exercises. In our first session I ask you to describe two or three audiences where your presence matters most: a board, a regional leadership team, a client, a family business council. We look at what you want each to see in you and what currently gets in the way.

Between sessions you test one small change in a real meeting and notice what happens. I use tools from NLP and mental fitness to help you see how your inner state shows up in your voice and body. Over time, executive presence for women becomes less about effort and more about ease.

Why this work matters to me

I spent more than 26 years in leadership, HR and talent development, in financial services, FMCG, entrepreneurship and government. Talent work shows you how easily a capable woman can be described by her tone rather than judged on her thinking, and how rarely anyone explains that to her.

With Amal Kooheji I co-authored Seen Yet Silent: Coaching Arab Women to Lead, a book about the challenges Arab women face in leadership and how coaching helps them lead. I am an ICF Professional Certified Coach and an NLP Master Practitioner, and I coach in Arabic and English.