There are many hypergrowth founders and senior leaders at enterprise companies who are thriving and positioned to advance in their career and enjoy great success along the way. Perhaps that means taking on a bigger role in a new company, receiving a promotion, or running a startup they’ve founded that suddenly takes off and grows at an extraordinary rate. Each of these leaders has a profound opportunity to have an impact on the world around them.
However, what often happens to a lot of these leaders is that they are plagued by wretched moments of self-doubt. Despite their success and advancement, they find themselves shrinking from these moments and generally feel like an imposter.
What these leaders are told [or believe] is that leaders should know what they’re doing – that they should have all the answers, and that this inherent knowledge empowers them to command the room and their team. They think of the many commanding executives they’ve seen, heard of, or even directly reported to themselves, and they draw a haunting conclusion: the most successful executives all have a certain kind of presence, and they don’t have that presence themselves.
This comes at a great cost.
By operating day to day with the belief that they’re an imposter they’ll conduct themselves from a place of tension, anxiety, and stress. They will then make decisions from a place of fear, which during times of change will compel them to play small and compromise on the vision that got them there in the first place. This then prevents them from ensuring that their company thrives.
But what has them carry this burden? Ultimately, it comes down to what they believe a leader must be.
They believe they don’t have this elusive executive presence because to have such a thing is to possess a certain set of behaviors and qualities that defines a successful leader – that a leader is made by those who demonstrate those qualities, by one who conducts themselves a certain way. If they don’t see themselves as exhibiting those qualities, they conclude that they are not worthy of the role. And so they chase after this executive presence as something beyond themselves and always out of reach.
They believe the treasure exists outside of them.
This may be surprising for others to learn about the experience of these founders and leaders. This is especially so given how they have attracted the momentum they have by the time they step into the role that causes them so much tension.
And yet their struggle follows a classic journey of the exceptional being: when they were younger the people most influential to them likely attempted to control, stymie, and even shame their most exceptional qualities. As they struggled to achieve what they wanted to achieve, they were told to [wo]man up, deal with it, power through the nerves, overcome the doubt, and simply handle the change. They were told to ignore their feelings in favor of getting results. But to deny their feelings was to deny their truth, and to deny their feelings was to deny their trust in themselves. As such, their trajectory required them to reject their own truth in favor of all that was external to them.
Still, these leaders have gotten where they are because there is something profound and quintessentially them that lives inside.
When they try to fit themselves into someone else’s notion of what they’re meant to be they perpetuate their sense of feeling like an imposter. While they may think that an executive presence is X and X only, there’s so many versions of what it means to be a leader.
These leaders may have been called out and shamed when their exceptional qualities made it hard for them to toe the line, but the inverse of this is that it’s what makes them a compelling and powerful leader.
There is only one version of any given leader.
And true executive presence comes from that essence.
To create massive impact with both their results and their relationships, leaders get to understand and accept who they are and then express this truth. They no longer get to hide who they are, what they think, and most importantly what they feel out of fear of how they’ll look or what people think.
They get to see themselves as worthy of the role they’re meant to play, and want to play.
There isn’t one version of executive presence, in fact, there are countless.
And each leader’s version is one of them. Their version is whatever – whoever – they are.
We achieve an executive presence not when we chase after certain qualities yet rather form a greater understanding of our most treasured aspects of ourselves.
This is the fundamental advantage available to the most impassioned, transformational leaders – to define their leadership based on their worth rather than other people’s opinions or societal expectations. This shift – what we can call the Self Worth Advantage® – will move leaders from feeling like an imposter and wondering what others feel about them to trusting themselves to be and handle whatever comes their way.
This work can be as simple as taking a moment to listen to themselves to understand what has them feeling like an imposter in any given moment instead of ignoring it. They can take it a step further by understanding where that feeling is coming from so they can reconcile it, regulate and coach themselves so as to trust themselves once again.
You can experience the Self Worth Advantage® for founders and leaders through our
- Self-paced, online course, which will be available Q1 2024 [hop on the waitlist here]
- Hire one of our coaches to work directly on this approach
- Attend our workshops and retreats starting in Q2 2024 [email us for details hell@selfworthadvantage.com]
Your team and organization can also experience the Self Worth Advantage® for leaders through
- 1:1 Executive Coaching
- Online, Self-Paced Course
- Facilitated Course [in-person or virtual]
- Workshops, Retreats, Offsite Sessions
- Keynotes, Talks, and Speaking Engagements
- Development Programs
Book a conversation with us to learn more, or check out selfworthadvantage.com
Self Worth Advantage® is for leaders who are ready to amplify their authenticity, self-awareness, and self-regulation. Leaders ready to define their executive presence from the most treasured and authentic aspects of who they are because they are ready to cause massive impact and value for themselves, their team, their organization, and the world around them.
