Lucy Gernon (00:04)
Let’s talk about executive presence. If you’ve ever felt like you need to sell yourself as a female leader in the corporate space to be taken seriously at the leadership table and the very idea of doing this makes you cringe, this week’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast is for you because here’s the truth. Executive presence has nothing to do with self promotion. It is not about being the loudest voice in the room. It is not about constantly proving yourself. It’s about how you carry yourself before you even speak.
how you communicate so people listen and respect your input, and how you position yourself as a strategic leader without over explaining or justifying your value. And if you don’t master this, you’re gonna stay stuck in execution mode, working harder, but not getting the recognition or influence you deserve. But here’s the good news. Executive presence is a skill you can learn. And in today’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast, I’m breaking down.
All of it, including the mistakes that are holding you back, a big mindset shift and real life stories from women just like you who have stepped in and stepped up into their next level of leadership. I hope you enjoy.
Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Lucy Gernon, a multi award winning executive coach. I work with women in big companies like Google, Pfizer, Amgen, PwC and everything in between all the way down to SMEs. And I just love everything that I do. I love working with accomplished women leaders just like you. And the reason I wanted to record this today is because executive presence is a really elusive term.
that is kind of bandied around the corporate world and people don’t really understand what does it actually mean? is it something you were born with? Is it something you can develop? Well, I’m here to tell you, lovely lady, that anyone can develop executive presence. So
first I want to kind of just clear something up that might be in your mind. Executive presence is honestly not about bragging or being the loudest person in the room. Yet so many women hold back because they don’t want to seem like they’re being too much.
I hear things like, I don’t want to be seen as too pushy. I hate promoting myself. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging or I’m full of myself. But here’s the thing, executive presence isn’t about you at all. It’s actually about how you make other people feel when you speak. And when you shift your focus from, need to promote myself to how can I lead this room with confidence, everything changes.
Just ask Sarah, she is an associate director in the pharmaceutical industry. And she was one of our students in my course, the Executive Presence Blueprint, which is a self-paced digital course that is getting unbelievable feedback for the last year since I launched it. So if you want to go and check that out, you can go to lucygarden.com forward slash EP. And she was moving struggling because she wanted to move into a more senior director role because every time she went for
feedback on like how to do it. She was told this lovely five word phrase, which maybe you’ve heard before, which is, you need more executive presence. Now she came to me because she actually DM’d me because she was feeling really frustrated because she was literally already doing the work. She was delivering results. She was leading projects. She was making strategic decisions. She was working long hours and she was like, what more can I do? But she wasn’t being seen as a leader.
So she enrolled in my self-paced course, the Executive Presence Blueprint. And after just one module, she told me, which I love module one, it’s probably one of my favorites, is she decided that she wasn’t going to second guess herself anymore. And she said to me, it made me realize if I don’t believe in me, who else will believe in me? And I remember afterwards, I asked all my students for feedback on each module. So the next week was module two and she was going through it.
And she had to present to a team of global senior leaders about her team scope and her strategy. Now, she told me that normally she would be really nervous. She would over prepare and, you know, make sure her slides were perfect. And she was still doubting herself. But this time she walked in with clarity and confidence. And after the meeting, somebody actually called her aside and said, God, you’re a great public speaker. Like she was buzzing because she said nobody had ever said that to me before.
And that’s what I want for you too, because executive presence is honestly not about changing who you are. It’s learning the tools to show up with authority. So today, let’s talk about the three biggest mistakes that you might be making that are holding you back from that right now.
Before I get into the three mistakes, let me just share this with you, is if you struggle with executive presence, I want you to know it’s not your fault.
It’s not something that everybody is born with because sometimes these are skills just like technical skills that need to be developed. OK. But once you become aware of these mistakes and honestly, if you take my course, the executive presence blueprint, it’s a digital self paced course guys. has everything you will ever need for executive presence. You will have everything you need, the exact blueprint to go and fix it. So please go and check it out if you feel called. No pushy sales here. I hate.
Talking about anything like this on the show because I just want to give you free value. But there’s only so much I can give you on a podcast, right? That’s why I created the course so you get the templates, the cheat sheets, the PDFs, the whole lot. So if you are feeling cold, go check it out. We link it in the show notes or go to lucigarden.com. Okay. Now let’s get in to the three mistakes. The first mistake that you’re probably making when it comes to your executive presence is you are over explaining.
instead of leading with authority. It’s like you’re justifying yourself. Now we have spoken about this before the show, where I’ve explained to you that senior leaders just don’t have time for long winded explanations. They’re busy, they want high level detail. And you might think, well, I’m giving them all of the detail. I made this decision. Like one of my clients was telling me, she’s like, I don’t understand. Like I made this decision. I started explaining everything.
everything to them. I made a really great decision. She had all of these pages and pages of reports and data and she was walking through it. And she’s like, I was I kept getting cut off. So I shared with her inside the course actually that the do it decision making model, which is a framework to help you to make strategic decisions, but also to like it’s really concise. It’s like a one page template that will help you to kind of formulate your thoughts with four sections in it.
And she was able to communicate with confidence in half the time because you have got to be able to give that high level detail or high level summary instead of all of the details. So when you make decisions, it’s really important that you’re able to hit the kind of four areas when you’re communicating. OK. The second mistake that you might be making, and again, we’ve talked about this in the show lots of times as playing small in meetings without even realizing it.
Maybe you like are hesitating before you speak or maybe you wait to be invited into conversations or sit there wondering like, God, do I even have anything to say? Do I sound stupid if I say this? If I ask this question, like, am I going to sound like I do not talk about or you’re overthinking your responses? This is nothing more than habitual conditioning. And you can rewire that.
Just like one of my other students in my course, Executive Presence Blueprint, Emma, who is an SVP in tech. And she said to me, and she literally summarized it perfectly, which is she’s like Lucy, I’m just reading it here. She said, this course was about self leadership rather than leading a team. And now I know that being a good leader has got to start with how you lead yourself. And she’s right. The very first step to being taken seriously as a leader is just making an empowered decision.
to own your voice, to take up space, to claim it. The third mistake then that I see is, can you guess what it is? I said it already at the start. It’s thinking executive presence is something that you’re born with. Most women assume that confidence is just a personality trait, but I promise you, confidence comes from taking action.
It comes from personal growth. It’s why I am obsessed myself personally with personal and professional development. Because when you invest in your own personal growth, I cannot tell you like you just flourish. Like I invest so much in learning in in courses, in books, in coaches, in going to retreats and events. I will soak up everything I can. I listen to my clients. learn. So executive presence is exactly the same thing as you going
and taking a course on AI, for example, you’re learning a new skill. Well, executive presence is the same and confidence is something that can be learned as well. But more so than learned is that you’ve kind of got to take the action, OK, to see the results. You’ve got to have the right tools and frameworks to support you. And as one of my students in the course said, she said, this course allowed me to challenge myself, adjust my communication and move forward on my goals. I would recommend it to anyone who is keen.
keen to take action. So let’s talk about how you can get access to the course. Because I know lots of you are going to be like, Lucy, you have a digital course. I thought the only way I could work with you was in 360Liters Club. And it’s not. I just don’t talk about this course often enough. So today, I’m going to tell you exactly what’s in the course. So it’s called the Executive Presence Blueprint. And it is my five step proven system to build your executive presence, even if you’re not sure exactly what it means or how to do it.
so that you can lead with certainty and make the impact you know you’re capable of. So there are five modules in the course. And by the end of the course, which is, it’s all self-paced, it’s drip fed to you over six weeks, you have time, there’s implementation weeks, so you’re not gonna be swamped with having to be on calls live or anything like that. You can take this course in your own time and you get lifetime access as well. And so by the end of the course, you will definitely have developed a powerful executive presence.
You’ll have crafted your authentic personal brand. That’s true to you. Your unique essence that give you the whole structure and how to do it. You’re going to have enhanced emotional intelligence and be more inclusive and actually be able to, my God, like the most amazing tool in there. I just remembered it is an inclusive decision making tool that literally if you whip this tool and out with a meeting, you’re going to stand out a mile because it’s going to show that you’re being highly inclusive and highly strategic as well.
You’re going to master communication and gravitas. You’re going to have an elevated online presence and an in-person presence because we’re going to be talking all things visibility. I’m going to be telling you how to update your LinkedIn, what to post. Like this course is so value packed, it’s giving you everything. And you’re definitely going to have boosted confidence and charisma. OK. But above all else, this digital course, Executive Presence Blueprint, honestly, it’s going to empower you with the confidence to know you can make an impact.
at senior level and stand out. please go and check it out. See if it’s for you. Just go to LucyGarland.com forward slash EP. And if you have any questions on it, please let me know. But the testimonials that we have will speak for themselves. So I hope that you enjoy if you take the course. And I’m always here for any questions anyway. So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show, guys. I hope that you found it valuable. I want you to the key takeaway that I I really want you to take from today is
Executive presence is not actually just for executives. It’s actually you need to show up now as the leader that you want to become. So if you have aspirations to get to more senior levels, you’ve got to already be acting as if you’re at senior levels. And here’s a hint, actually, that I wish somebody told me. There’s this thing that goes around the corporate world, which is to get to the next level, you need to already be performing at the next level. But that doesn’t mean doing the job. What it means is showing up.
with more executive presence. That’s it. What it means is showing up as a more strategic leader, which means executive presence. What it means is showing up as a more confident leader, which means executive presence. What it means is being able to make rapid discipline decisions, which equals executive presence. And this is all stuff that you can learn once you have the right tools. OK, so please know that.
If you’re sitting there going, ⁓ my God, where do I even start? Like, I’m here for you. Go check out the course. See what you think of it. And I did do a podcast series as well. A three part podcast series on executive presence, which I will link in the show notes wherever you’re listening to this. Just check in the description below wherever you’re listening to it. And there’s a there’s a deeper dive into the three parts of executive presence in that podcast series that I would recommend that you listen to as well. You’ll get tons of
Golden nuggets from that too. All right, lovely lady. That is it for this week’s episode of the 360 Leadership podcast. I’d love to know what you’re enjoying the podcast. I love hearing from you. Just comment wherever you’re listening to this. Send me a DM and like, let me know what you want me to cover or if there is specific guests that you’re like, my God, this this guest would be amazing for the show. Please let me know. And my podcast team will be in touch to assess everything.
handle all of the podcast guests for me. Okay, I hope you have a great week. Until next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.
