Executive presence coaching: leadership communication and influence
"Executive presence" is one of the least useful phrases in leadership development, because it describes an effect while pretending to describe a quality.
Nobody has presence. People do specific things — they speak less, they state a position, they stop hedging, they answer the question that was asked — and those things produce an effect in other people, which someone then labels presence. The label is the last step, not the first.
This matters practically, because the feedback almost always arrives as a characterisation. "You need more gravitas." "You do not come across as senior enough." That is unactionable as stated, and the entire useful work of executive presence coaching is turning it into behaviours you can change on Sunday.
This page is about that conversion. Broader senior work — mandate, decisions, stakeholders — is executive coaching.
ICF ACC · MBA · Riyadh · Arabic and English
Convert the feedback before you act on it
Whatever you were told, do not work on it as stated. Work on what it might mean, and find out which.
| What they said | What it might actually mean | How to find out |
|---|---|---|
| "More gravitas" | You talk too long, or you hedge | "Can you give me an example of a moment where you noticed it?" |
| "Not senior enough" | You report rather than conclude | "What would you have wanted me to say instead?" |
| "Too in the weeds" | You lead with method instead of with the answer | "Was it the content or the order?" |
| "Not visible enough" | You do not speak in meetings where decisions are made | "Which meetings are you thinking of?" |
| "Needs more confidence" | Vocal or verbal habits, not belief | "Is it what I say or how I say it?" |
| "Not strategic" | You answer the question asked and not the one behind it | "What was the question behind the question there?" |
Ask for the moment, not the quality. One specific instance is worth more than five adjectives, and asking for it is itself a senior behaviour.
If nobody can give you a moment after two attempts, the feedback may not be about your behaviour at all. See below — that section exists for a reason.
The four things the label is actually made of
1 — Economy. Senior people say less. Not because they are withholding, but because they have decided what matters before speaking. The practical version: make your point in three sentences and stop. Most people make it in three sentences and then spend ninety seconds defending it before anyone has disagreed.
2 — Position. Having a view and saying it as a view. "I think we should do X, and here is what I am uncertain about" outperforms a balanced summary in almost every senior room, because a balanced summary tells people what they already have.
3 — Signal. What your language and delivery do to your content. Hedges — "I just think maybe", "sorry, can I add", "this might be wrong but" — subtract authority from correct answers. So does speed. So does answering before the question has finished.
4 — Reading the room. Knowing what this meeting is for and what the most senior person in it needs, and giving them that. Someone who needs a decision does not want your analysis; someone who needs confidence does not want your risk list first.
Economy and signal are mechanical and improve in weeks. Position and reading the room take longer and matter more.
Reflection scorecard
Score against the last two weeks. 2 = consistently, 1 = sometimes, 0 = rarely.
| Score | ||
|---|---|---|
| E1 | I made my point and stopped, without defending it unprompted | |
| E2 | I did not repeat myself in a meeting | |
| P1 | I stated a view rather than presenting options | |
| P2 | I held a position through one round of pushback | |
| P3 | I said "I do not know" once, cleanly, without padding | |
| S1 | I opened a contribution without a hedge or an apology | |
| S2 | I let a silence sit rather than filling it | |
| R1 | I knew what the most senior person needed before I spoke | |
| R2 | I led with the answer, then the reasoning | |
| R3 | I said something that could have been disagreed with |
Economy (E) /4 · Position (P) /6 · Signal (S) /4 · Room (R) /6
Your lowest block is your month. Not all four.
P3 is the one people are surprised by. Saying "I do not know, I will find out by Thursday" cleanly, without apology or padding, reads as more senior than any answer you could have improvised — and almost nobody scores 2 on it.
R3 is the quietest killer. If nothing you said in two weeks could have been disagreed with, you were present in the room and absent from the discussion.
Action worksheet
One meeting a week. Not all of them — one, chosen in advance.
THE MEETING: ______________________ DATE: ______________ BEFORE What is this meeting actually for? ________________________ Who is the most senior person, and what do they need? ___________________________________________________________ The one thing I want to be true when I leave the room: ___________________________________________________________ My position, in one sentence (not a summary of options): ___________________________________________________________ DURING — pick ONE [ ] Say my point in three sentences and stop [ ] Open without a hedge [ ] Hold my position through one round of pushback [ ] Lead with the answer before the reasoning [ ] Let one silence sit AFTER, within an hour Did I do the one thing? Yes / No / Partly What happened when I did, or did not? _____________________ What did I say that could have been disagreed with? _______ ___________________________________________________________
Copy the block — nothing to download and no email required.
One behaviour, one meeting, eight weeks. People who try to change four things in every meeting become self-conscious, which produces exactly the effect they were trying to fix.
When the feedback is not about you
This section is here because the honest version of this subject requires it.
"Presence" feedback is sometimes a description of behaviour and sometimes a description of the listener's expectations. Accent, age, being quieter than the room, coming from a different background or a different function — all of these get labelled as presence, and the person receiving the feedback is left trying to fix something that is not a behaviour.
The test is the one above: ask for the moment. If two attempts produce no specific instance — no sentence you said, no meeting, no observable thing — then what you have is a perception problem, not a performance problem.
That is still worth working on, and it is a different problem. Perception problems are addressed by visibility, by sponsorship, by whose name is attached to which piece of work, and sometimes by deciding that a particular room is not worth the cost. They are not addressed by changing how you speak.
And some rooms are simply not going to be persuaded, which is information about the room. A coach who tells you that everything is fixable by adjusting yourself is not being honest with you.
What a session does
Converts the feedback into two or three behaviours, using the table above with your actual examples.
Records you. Most signal habits are invisible from the inside and obvious on playback within thirty seconds.
Pressure-tests a position — someone pushing back so you can practise holding one, which is not something you can rehearse alone.
Prepares a specific high-stakes moment if there is one: a board paper, a committee presentation, a first meeting with a new chief executive.
What it does not do: change your personality, promise how you will be perceived, or make an unfair room fair.
How this works here
There is no product named "executive presence coaching" on the services list. For senior work the relevant engagement is For Executives: Reach C-Level Roles — 6,000 SAR, two sessions over two hours, including a Work Personality Assessment and six months of follow-up. Where presence work sits inside a specific workplace situation rather than a career move, Navigate Workplace Challenges is a one-time engagement with no published price, settled on the discovery call.
Which fits is decided on the call. Sessions run in Arabic or English.
Figures are the prices currently listed, and are confirmed before anything is agreed.
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In the Saudi market
Holding a room in your second language is a real and separate skill. Economy helps more than fluency does: three prepared sentences delivered slowly outperform a fluent paragraph, and preparing the two or three sentences that matter in advance is the single highest-return move available.
Board and committee settings reward brevity sharply. Where a paper has been circulated, restating it is the most common way to lose a room. Say what you recommend and what you are uncertain about.
Speaking order carries meaning. In more hierarchical rooms, when you speak is read alongside what you say. Knowing whether your contribution belongs early or after the most senior view is part of reading the room, and asking someone who knows the room beforehand is entirely legitimate.
Deference and clarity are not opposites. Respect for seniority is normal here, and it is compatible with stating a position. What reads as weak is the hedge, not the courtesy.
Bilingual meetings need the decision stated twice. If a meeting moved between languages, restate the conclusion in both before leaving. This is a presence behaviour as much as an operational one.
Common questions
Is executive presence just confidence?
No, and treating it as confidence sends people to work on how they feel rather than on what they do. Behaviour changes faster than feeling and usually changes the feeling as a side effect.
Can this be coached, or is it innate?
Economy and signal are learnable in weeks. Position and reading the room take longer. Nothing here is innate, though some people arrive with more of it.
I am naturally quiet.
Quiet is not the problem; absent is. A quiet person who says one thing that could be disagreed with in each meeting reads as considered, which is a stronger position than talkative.
I have been told I am "too emotional" or "too intense".
Ask for the moment. If it can be converted into a behaviour — volume, interrupting, how you react to being contradicted — work on the behaviour. If it cannot, read the section above.
Does this work over video?
Yes, and some of it works better, because recording and playback are easier and the habits are more visible on screen.
I need this for one specific meeting in two weeks.
Then it is preparation rather than development, and that is a legitimate and much shorter piece of work.
Start with the moment
Go back to whoever gave you the feedback and ask for one specific instance. You will get either a behaviour you can work on, or the information that there is not one — and those two answers lead to completely different months.
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If the question is larger than how you come across — the role itself, the mandate, the transition — that is executive coaching.
A useful next step, matched to this topic
If you want support applying what you just read, start with the option closest to the problem in front of you.
Saad Al-Wuqayan
Career & Executive Coach — ICF ACC, MBA
Saad Al-Wuqayan coaches professionals and executives in Riyadh. Nearly two decades across engineering, business development, financial leadership as a CFO and government transformation sit behind every session.
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Work on this with a coach
If the decision in front of you is specific, a session is usually faster than another month of reading. Bring the situation as it actually is.