Executive presence shapes how people experience you before you even say a word. Years ago, while preparing for a keynote, an investment banking managing director asked me a question I’ve never forgotten: “Do you look like you deserve the business?” It was a stark reminder of how quickly people make judgments about whether to trust us, listen to us, and ultimately believe us. Those judgments can be messy, unfair, and biased, but they have real consequences for leaders and their organizations.
“Do you look like you deserve the business?”
I’ll never forget that question.
It was over a decade ago, and I was preparing to deliver a keynote on executive presence. Doing my due diligence before the conference, I spoke with a few managing directors in investment banking to hear their thoughts on executive presence.
One said to me, “The average fee size in our industry is $15 million. That’s an enormous check for someone to write. Do you look like you deserve the business?”
Your executive presence either builds or undermines whether or not someone believes you. And that question – do you look like you deserve it? – shows the complexity of believability. It is messy, it’s unfair, and it’s biased.
Who do you believe, and what’s the cost when someone doesn’t believe you?
These are the questions I’m researching for my next book on Believability. As AI makes it easier to produce words but harder to trust them, who do you believe?
When you lack executive presence, it’s harder to keep people’s attention. It’s harder to inspire, motivate, and earn trust. When senior executives ask me to work with their direct reports, they say things like, “We can’t put her in front of the board. She can’t get to the point, and she falls apart during tough questions.”
Our executive presence speaks before we even say a word.
In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Harvard psychologist Nalini Ambady found that students viewing a two-second clip of a teaching fellow in action (with no audio!) gave that fellow the same rating as students who had spent a full semester with that fellow. As the article’s author put it, first impressions of complete strangers predicted evaluations from students who had actually taken the class for months. (You can read a summary of the study here.)
Ambady later ran a similar test finding that a surgeon’s tone of voice (warm vs cold) could predict malpractice claims. There is a financial cost – both to you and your organization – when your presence is miscalibrated.
So what do you do about it?
- Get in the right mindset. Asking “Why You? Why do you care…about your audience and the impact you want to have?” helps ground you in a sense of purpose. It calms your nerves and builds your confidence from within.
- Ground yourself with positive intent. Before difficult conversations, I encourage my clients to identify three intentions for the meeting, such as: respectful, appreciative, excited. Your energy will imbue your voice and tone and lead to a more positive conversation.
- Speak with 100% intention. In my keynotes and workshops, you learn how to harness your best energy to command a room from the moment you enter. Speaking with 100% intention ensures you bring your best self to every situation, as opposed to your tired, overwhelmed self.
This is what Believability is built on: not just what you say, but whether your presence backs it up. It’s the difference between speaking to a room that just nods along versus a room that actually acts.
Who do you believe, and why?
I’d love to hear from you. Who do you believe, and why? Send me an email and tell me what makes you believe someone. I’m collecting these stories for my next book, and I read every response.
And if this is a conversation your leadership team or your next conference needs to have in person, I have a little room left on my fall calendar and I’m now booking for 2027. Reach out by email and let’s find a time to talk.
Until next time,
~Allison
Allison Shapira
Harvard Lecturer. Executive Advisor. Hall of Fame Speaker. Bestselling Author.
Three Elements of Believability
In this short video, I share three areas that shape whether people believe you: how you act, how you communicate, and how your message lands.
Watch the video to learn more about what it takes to earn the right to be believed.
Watch the clip →
