Executive Presence: How Women Build Credibility, Confidence & Visibility | Julie Fairhurst

Promotions don’t hinge on performance alone; they hinge on perception. In this 4-minute video, Julie Fairhurst breaks down the research behind executive presence and translates it into practical, repeatable behaviors ambitious professionals can use immediately, especially women navigating leadership spaces still shaped by old norms.

You’ll learn why high-performing women are often admired but overlooked, how quiet contributions lose leverage in meetings, and what actually shifts perception with decision makers. Julie shares a simple system for building a powerful, grounded presence: speaking early to frame conversations, using decisive language without defensiveness, anchoring calm through posture and breath, and designing key moments before they happen.

This isn’t about being louder or more aggressive. It’s about structure, clarity, and conviction, signals that communicate leadership before titles ever do.

If you’re ready to turn credibility into opportunity, try one tactic in your next meeting and notice what changes.

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Who Is Julie Fairhurst?

Speaker • Author • Business Strategist • Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a force of nature disguised as a woman with a pen and a business brain built for impact. As the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program, she has opened the door for women around the world to share their truth, heal their past, and rise into their power. Since 2019, she has published more than 30 books and over 350 true-life stories — without charging a single writer a dime! Why? Because women’s stories deserve daylight, not gatekeeping.

With 34 years in sales, marketing, and successful business leadership, Julie knows how to turn storytelling into influence and influence into income.

Her mission is clear and unapologetic: break generational trauma one story at a time and help women elevate both emotionally and financially. She doesn’t just publish books, she builds brands, confidence, and possibility, giving women the tools to rewrite their futures, grow their businesses, and lift their families with them.

Julie's Website

Chapters

• 0:24 Framing The Challenge For Women
• 0:58 What Executive Presence Really Means
• 1:57 Communication, Body Language, And Magnetism
• 2:37 Barriers In The Boardroom
• 4:06 Building Your Powerful Voice

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

I'm Julie Fairhurst and I want to talk to you about women leaders and finding your strong and powerful voice. Before we get started, you need to ask yourself a few questions. When you speak, do people stop and take notice? Do they listen to you? Do you have the ability to command the attention of a room? If your answer is yes, then you understand what it means to have an executive presence. If not, then it's time to find your powerful voice. Executive Presence, the Center for Talent Innovation, a nonprofit organization in New York that specializes in research, completed a study on leadership. What the study determined was that the perception of being leadership material is an essential aspect of gaining a promotion to a leadership position. According to the 268 senior executives that took part in the survey, having an executive presence accounts for 26% of what it truly takes to gain promotion. Executive presence is the ability to project confidence, to be poised under pressure, and display your decisiveness and gravitas. Those were seen as core characteristics to around 66% of the senior executives who were surveyed. Moreover, communication and appearance can also contribute to the perception of executive presence. When it comes to communication, this includes assertiveness, speaking skills, as well as the ability to read a situation and an audience. Women who can communicate with a strong and powerful voice exude a magnetism, an X factor, a wow factor, and have the ability to influence others easily. People who have an executive presence speak up using clear and strong language, learning to communicate with energy and passion. Part of this is using a tone of authority, as well as displaying positive body language. We know that there is still a gap in the presence of women in the boardroom. Women and racial minorities struggle to get into the upper echelons of companies because the corporate culture has historically been the stronghold of white men. According to Forbes, 81% of women in business cite that feedback is confusing and contradictory, making it difficult to act on it as a result. Harvard Business Review found that many high-powered women who are extremely effective in their positions stumble when it comes to meetings in the boardroom. These women are admired by their colleagues and inspirational, yet they struggle when it comes to meetings because they don't use their voices to assert their opinion. They often become defensive when challenged, which leads to a fluster and a failure to effectively communicate. They are hardworking women who arrive on time and leave when the meeting is done, while the men arrive early to network and hang back to finish off chats. Part of finding your voice is in using your voice to network and become more comfortable with the colleagues you work with. All is not lost though, because you can enhance your executive presence. And a large aspect of that is finding your strong and powerful voice. If you are willing to deal with situations that are unpredictable, that are typical of the leadership responsibilities at an executive level and at your baseline, you are self-confident, then you can learn new behaviors. You should start by asking people you trust to provide you with honest feedback. Don't ask people that will softball you or approach the feedback carefully. You want to know how others perceive your presentation skills because how can you hone that without knowing where you're going wrong? Public speaking is an important part of any business job. And if you want to grow within a company, you need to be able to communicate effectively and powerfully. To find your strong and powerful voice, you must identify your personal communication assets, such as speaking and thinking on your feet, listening as well as maintaining composure under pressure.