Harvard Business Review: When Executive Presence Backfires

Picture a senior leadership team debating a key strategic initiative. Around the table, you’re probably imagining confident, decisive voices—people who project polish, command attention, and always have the answers. In my new piece for the Harvard Business Review, I argue that the very behaviors that help establish executive presence early in a career often backfire as leaders advance into the C-suite. Here are the three traps to watch for.

Read the full article: When Executive Presence Backfires

The Expertise Trap

Leaders build reputations by becoming deep experts. But as they take on greater responsibility, that instinct can become a liability. I worked with a client I’ll call Sunita, promoted from CFO to CEO, who kept diving into financial decisions that should have belonged to her team. When she didn’t like the results, she’d step in and do the work herself. Her team felt mistrusted, disengaged, and stopped taking initiative.

The shift required a fundamental identity change: from “the expert who knows” to “the leader who builds other experts.” That’s what organizations actually need at the top.

The Unshakeable Confidence Paradox

Projecting unshakeable confidence—even when the situation doesn’t warrant it—can look inauthentic and out of touch. I’ve seen a CTO consistently assure his executive team he had every risk under control, while failing to engage on actual issues. Senior leaders stopped trusting him, compared notes behind closed doors, and he was eventually let go.

The most effective senior leaders know when to set confidence aside. Admitting uncertainty makes it safe for others to do the same—and contributes to a culture where real problems surface before they become crises. By 2022, research showed “forcefulness” had been displaced as a top leadership trait by a “listen to learn” orientation.

The Value-Add Trap

Marshall Goldsmith calls this “adding too much value.” A team member brings a good idea. You improve it—maybe 5%. Their ownership drops by 50%. It’s no longer their idea, and people don’t fight for ideas that belong to someone else.

The fix is to speak last, ask more than you tell, and recognize that your job at the top is to make other people’s thinking better—not to replace it.

The most effective leader in the room isn’t the first to speak or the one with the most polished answer. They’re the one who asks the question that unlocks everyone else’s thinking. And the most powerful person in that meeting isn’t the one with the most to say—they’re the one who knows exactly when to stop talking.

Read the full article on HBR.org: When Executive Presence Backfires and subscribe to my newsletter to get my articles delivered to your inbox twice a month.