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How to Build Executive Presence, Resilience & Real Influence with Whitney Faires (Part 2)

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🎧 Episode 174: How to Build Executive Presence, Resilience, and Real Influence with Whitney Faires (Part 2)

In Part 2 of this high-impact conversation, executive coach and leadership expert Whitney Faires returns to unpack the deeper barriers holding leaders back—and how to break through them with clarity, confidence, and courage.

We dive into the real cost of unchecked ambition, how to coach even the most resistant high performers, and what it takes to develop executive presence in a noisy, distracted world.

If you’ve ever struggled to slow down, stay present, or shift from proving to truly leading—this episode will hit home.

We explore:

  • How to redefine executive presence in the age of Zoom, distraction, and burnout
  • Why imposter syndrome is more common at the top than you think
  • The keys to coaching high performers who are stuck in ego, resistance, or exhaustion
  • How ambition can sabotage your impact if left unchecked
  • Why mid-level leaders are the most overlooked (and most important) tier in every company
  • One daily gut-check Whitney uses to help leaders align with their values
  • The most powerful advice Whitney would give if it were her last day on earth

🔑 Key takeaways:

  • Executive presence starts with internal clarity—not external polish
  • Resistance isn’t a personality trait, it’s often unprocessed fear
  • Ambition without awareness can hurt your leadership brand
  • You don’t need a title to lead, but you do need intention

💡 Quotes to remember:

“If you’re not feeling imposter syndrome, you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough.”
 “Sometimes the greatest things we do are the ones only we believe we can do.”
“Development doesn’t have to be expensive—it just has to be intentional.”
“We’re not here to drift toward greatness. We have to choose it.”

📚 Resources mentioned:

✨ Learn more about Whitney’s work and coaching:
 www.whitneyfaires.com

📲 Connect with Whitney:
Instagram – @whitney_faires
LinkedIn – Whitney Faires

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!

Check out my website: www.evokegreatness.com

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Speaker 1:

How many times were you on paper not ready? How many times did you feel like I don't know if I can be successful in this and draw upon those as a source of proof that you can do it? I think it's so important because a lot of times, once we have this big success, we think, oh my gosh, we did this and you remember it as this great, perfect time when you're standing on the stage winning the award. The majority of the experience wasn't like that. It was hard, there were setbacks. You question yourself, things didn't work as you planned them, and so we have to remember that journey. And that journey is what tells us that we were here once before and we overcame it. Even if we didn't get the desired result, we did something great and we can do that again.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Evoke Greatness, the podcast for bold leaders and big dreamers who refuse to settle. I'm your host, sunny. I started in scrubs over 20 years ago doing the gritty, unseen work and climbed my way to CEO. Every rung of that ladder taught me something worth passing on Lessons in leadership, resilience and what it really takes to rise. You'll hear raw conversations, unfiltered truths and the kind of wisdom that ignites something deeper in you your courage, your conviction, your calling. This show will help you think bigger, lead better and show up bolder in every part of your life. This is your place to grow. Let's rise together.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to part two of how to Build Executive Presence, resilience and Real Influence with my guest, whitney Ferris. In part two of my conversation, we dive deeper into what really holds leaders back and how to coach through resistance, ego burnout and the fear of not being enough. We also unpack how to coach the uncoachable, what fearless communication actually requires, why your self-worth can't be tied to your job title and a daily gut check that every leader should be asking themselves. This is a no-fluff conversation for leaders who want to grow, with integrity, clarity and intention. And if you missed part one, episode 173, go back to last week and check it out.

Speaker 2:

We talked about identity shifts, the power of resilience, whitney's excellence equation framework and the mindset tool she uses to break through negative thought spirals. Together, these two episodes are a masterclass in courageous leadership. Okay, let's hop into part two. You also help leaders develop a sense of executive presence, and I'm curious what that looks like in an age of constant distractions and social media and virtual meetings, and what does that look like in creating that with all of those things coming at us on a day-to-day basis?

Speaker 1:

creating that, with all of those things coming at us on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, Well, you know, executive presence is often seen for all the things on the surface, kind of like I talked about with development, which is what you're saying, how you say it, how you come in the room, you know how you show up, what you're wearing and what you look like and does it match your audience, and all those things are a component, and so I wanna say yes, that it's that. And when I look at executive presence, I wanna know a couple things. First is what specifically are we trying to solve for? Because I think executive presence is one of these topics that, at least in my experience as a coach, at all levels people get the feedback from their leader. You need to really elevate your executive presence to be ready for that next job or to be more effective in that meeting. But what does that mean? Remember, I just said that it could be what you say, how you're saying it, how you're showing up in a meeting. So what is it then? What is that executive presence thing?

Speaker 1:

And so you have to define what the problem is.

Speaker 1:

So that's number one. The double click on that is what's the driver of it and I'll give you a great example. I have clients that when they're trying to get to you know, VP or a C level, they're getting feedback that you're defensive when you get pushback or objections, or your body language changes or you just come off as a totally different person than we know you when you're doing the presentation, and a lot of times that's driven by confidence, self-doubt, some insecurity. So we can give them all the strategies to prepare better and how do you have more intention in your voice and kind of control the pace of how you're speaking? But if you don't solve that problem, you'll never really get sustainable change in executive presence. And so to me, we want to show up as approachable, yet in command, and someone that inspires others to listen and take action. That's executive presence, and to do that you have to know what's in your way and solve for that facing that discomfort of imposter syndrome, feeling like all my thoughts are coming into play.

Speaker 2:

Can I do this? Do I really have the skill set to do this? How can you help them navigate the discomfort? Because I don't think it's about avoiding the discomfort. I think it's about almost how do they go through that barrier of discomfort.

Speaker 1:

Well, the first piece of advice I would give is everybody has it, literally everybody. And it's so interesting to me, whether I'm coaching a COO or I'm coaching a director in an organization, there's always this initial hesitation to admit that I don't think I'm at this level or I don't know if I have the skills of this person. But they all experience it, it's just in what way are they experiencing it? And so I like to normalize it, because I think people they isolate themselves and they don't want to talk about it because it's going to make them look weak or they're going to be judged. And you have to know we all experience this. If you're not experiencing imposter syndrome, you're likely not pushing yourself far enough, you're playing it way too safe.

Speaker 1:

And the second thing I would say is look back at all of the things that you have accomplished or strived to accomplish in your life and your career. How many times were you, on paper, not ready? How many times did you feel like I don't know if I can be successful in this and draw upon those as a source of proof that you can do it? And I think it's so important because a lot of times, once we have like this big success, we think, oh my gosh, we did this and it's just like you remember it as this great, perfect time when you're standing on the stage winning the award.

Speaker 1:

The majority of the experience wasn't like that. It was hard. There were setbacks, you question yourself. Things didn't work as you planned them, and so we have to remember that journey as you plan them, and so we have to remember that journey. And that journey is what tells us that we were here once before and we overcame it. Even if we didn't get the desired result, we did something great, and we can do that again, and this time is probably not much different.

Speaker 2:

When people seek out executive coaching and it's usually the desire either A that they want growth, or B they're in a situation where they're being told they need to grow. That is what I found kind of are the two avenues, and so one embraces. How can they lean into? What can they learn? What can they unlearn, unlearn? What do you do when a client comes to you who's resistant, who's burnt out, who's stuck in ego, like how do you, how do you help those?

Speaker 1:

folks break through. Yeah, so the hardest client is one that isn't ready for change. I would say readiness is, without a doubt, in my opinion, the number one factor for success. And so a lot of times when people come to me which more of my clients come to me with at least curiosity of what can happen. If they do this, you know, maybe not eagerness, maybe they, like you said, they were prompted. Hey, you got to really work on some things if you want to get to where you want to be. But those that come stuck resistant, it's. Honestly.

Speaker 1:

I ask them a lot of different questions about. You know what drove you to take the meeting with me. You know your boss encouraged what drove you to take the meeting. What do you, you know, tell me what you think makes you as successful as you are, as you are Now? What are the areas where, if you elevated those, you could continue to grow? And you know, a lot of times you get like the soft, like high level answer first and then.

Speaker 1:

But if I can get one or two of those answers, I can usually dig into that and talk about what's the potential of doing that work and what's the impact to your team or the organization or to you, to you as an individual, and how you feel doing your job right, and that usually starts to slowly open the door With clients who are resistant.

Speaker 1:

I actually tell them I don't know if this is the ideal time for you to do this I think you need to think about is this something that are you inspired to take a hard look at yourself and explore whether changes are needed?

Speaker 1:

And if not, it's totally okay. And the fact that I'm not selling them to come work with me, that I'm actually doing the opposite and kind of saying, hey, you should go, think hard and come back and let me know, because if you're in this place where you're so skeptical and you don't see opportunity, then let's not waste time and money. Right, that usually drops the guard and people come back and they go. Well, there's maybe one or two things I think would be good, and I will tell you a lot of times. Those people are so much fun to work with because once they realize the value of having this confidential sounding board, it opens the door to them sharing the things that they haven't shared, and that becomes the walls of that ego, and that's what makes the work really fulfilling is you get to leave them in a better spot, and usually it's in a way that you know. The people around them who have hired you or suggested that they work with me are really seeing the value too.

Speaker 2:

Where do you see ambition backfiring most often when it comes to leaders you coach, because ambition is great, right, but there's times when it can have an unintended implication.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. You know, ambition as a strength can clearly become a weakness, and here's one of the things I see most is people are always gunning for the next job and there's two risks in that, which is I was in a hyper growth company. It wasn't unusual to get promoted every 18 to 24 months. I was young, hungry and I was always like six months in about my job Well, what's next? I wanna be this next and I wanna prepare for that job. And I got a blink from some of the leadership that I just wanted to be promoted. And that was tough because, you know, it wasn't about the title, it was more that I felt like the next job had more impact, that I would make Sure, like it would be great to make more money or to do something different, but it just my intention was misconstrued and it was honestly my fault. Right, because I was always so hungry and impatient and so obviously, one of the things is it can affect your brand.

Speaker 1:

But the other thing that I think people overlook so often is it takes a solid three to four years before you're a subject matter expert in whatever you're doing. Now do you need to be a subject matter expert in every job? No, you don't. But there are some that if you wanna keep climbing, you really need a deep level of knowledge, and so you almost shortchange your ability to develop and be more effective by moving too fast up the ladder. And so all of that to say is enjoy the journey, and it's one of the things.

Speaker 1:

It's not a regret for me, but when I look back at my career, I think to myself gosh, like I just didn't spend enough time being present in that job, like soaking in all the things, because we're all competitive and there's these external pressures where every day we get on LinkedIn and someone's like I got promoted, like I went to college with that person. How's that person doing that? Like we think that, and so it creates this all sense of urgency. When it's like just do your journey, just learn everything that you can learn, have the impact, and when you do all those things, you're gonna get the next job.

Speaker 2:

That's right for you. I, too, did the exact same thing, and then it became this thing, as you mentioned earlier. It's like the repetition. You then create a story in your mind like and then it becomes this thing that plays out over and over, and it was as soon as I landed that next job. It wasn't like let me lean in and fully learn and grow. It was like all right, what's next? And so that takes so much away from number one, what you're putting into, but the impact that you can have in it and I found personally that was it backfired on me as well. So I love that you shared that.

Speaker 2:

And to the presence is so important and where we can have if our biggest desire. I guess it's getting clear on what your biggest desire is right, because if it's just growth and it's climbing the ladder, like, that's one thing, I guess. Be clear on that. But if it's impact in a certain way, then get clear on that, because I think we can't. You're never going to drift to your destination and it'd be the right destination. And so being really intentional about what you hope to accomplish, what do you hope to achieve? What kind of impact do you want to have along the way will help you kind of be a little bit more grounded in each role, because it's not a bad thing to continue being promoted and grow, but it is if you're not having the intended impact that you're hoping, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And the other thing is, when you're so ambitious that you're only looking kind of one track, you might miss an opportunity that is going to get you to where you want to be 10 years down the road faster. And you know, I know it's a lot for especially younger professionals to say like, what do I want? Where do I want to be in five to 10 years? That can be really hard to define. That can be really hard to define. But you know, when I spoke about my career crisis and where I, instead of moving up, I kind of took a different role, that was what I did. I took a very different role and my thought process was I'm gonna build a whole nother set of skills that I think is gonna be really valuable, which was a corporate-based role on the operations side, the commercial operations side of the business. And I thought if I wanna be a high-level leader in an organization, I can't just understand the sales side, I have to understand the corporate side and how we make decisions and how the numbers work internally. And but that move was so hard for me because it was so different and because I went over instead of up, and but it turned out to be one of the greatest decisions I made in my entire career because it set me up to really align with the work that I wanted to do long-term. So you have to be looking not just up but across, and sometimes the best move we can make is a little different or unpopular even from what's expected. And the other thing I was gonna say a watch out around.

Speaker 1:

Ambition is sometimes if you're one of the younger people, kind of in your space, or you my first, not my first job, but my second one there was like two females out of 50 people my job, you know, not the next one, but the next one after that there were only three of us in a group of 60. And I was always, always the youngest in those jobs. And so you know you have to fight to really push and have your voice and to be considered for roles. And then you have to realize when that is not, is not productive for you anymore. So there's this self awareness piece of going gosh like I had to fight to get that opportunity. But now I'm at the place where I need to take a different approach to being seen and considered.

Speaker 2:

I need to take a different approach to being seen and considered and you work closely with mid-level managers. Why do you believe this tier is so critical and so often overlooked when it comes to leadership development?

Speaker 1:

Well, there is often an assumption for high-performing individual contributors that we'll just put them in the next role and they'll figure it out. They'll learn how to do it. And people will say well, they have a good leader first of all. So their leader is teaching them how to lead Not usually. Or they'll say I mean they've always. We put them in really difficult projects and situations and they figure it out.

Speaker 1:

And some of those people will they will but are they going to figure it out as quickly as if you train them how to do the job correctly? They're going to figure it out a lot faster if you give them some support along the way. And so when I started doing leadership development at Intuitive, it was really to solve that problem that we had grown so much and we had a lot of frontline leaders that had never been taught how to lead. And you know, companies have great intent. They're like we're putting our money into developing people, we have great leaders. It's all gonna take care of itself until you start seeing metrics in your business, like you know high levels of attrition, poor engagement scores, projects not, you know, being completed on time, collaboration issues and team dynamics that are detrimental to success and people. When you start seeing those things, you're like, hmm, what's happening? Well, all of a sudden, we realized we have all these people that are leading, people who have never been trained to do that job. And it's so critical because the people, if they are high performers and promotable, they wanna be great. I trust they are high performers and promotable. They want to be great. I trust they want to be great and we have to help them be great.

Speaker 1:

And when they're figuring out on their own. It is not a fun process. You know when you have to look at somebody and give them hard feedback because they dropped the ball and missed a deadline and didn't show up well in a meeting and you don't know how to do that, so it's not personal. And so it's not personal and so it's direct and so it's actionable. That is tough and they don't give it well, or whether it's a tone or it's ambiguous, or they soften it so they don't hurt someone's feelings. And guess what? The same mistake happens again, and it's only over time and experience they learn. You know a couple years later how to do their job well, and so part of going into companies and helping them train their people leaders is about solving that problem.

Speaker 2:

What I also find is it's the baptism by fire, you know, that has so much been coined through just throwing somebody in the mix. And oftentimes people get promoted to this mid-level management because there was maybe an unexpected opening and it's like, well, this is my highest performer, they did really good to this point, they'll be fine. And then we don't train them, we don't give them the tools and training and resources necessary to be successful, and then we're surprised when they handle situations like you just shared, because we didn't walk, we didn't actually lead them into that role.

Speaker 1:

And so I love that you shine a light on that, because I think that is a downfall, a pit that a lot of companies step into is promoting someone. There's an unexpected opening. We're going to stretch them and put them in the role. Nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't mean that the second that happens you have to hire me. I mean sure, you're welcome to hire me, but there are other ways. You know you have somebody that gets put in a role early. You can build a support system around them, someone that is a mentor with a structured plan for how they're going to mentor them, a short set of skill sets that you know they're going to need, and someone's responsible for doing some extra one-on-ones and teaching them how to do that.

Speaker 1:

There's other stuff you can do beyond just coaching and in large-scale development programs. The key is just to do something, to be able to assess, like, what does this person need, what's gonna make them successful and how do we give it to them in the best way that we can with the resources that we have. But development it doesn't have to be. I think people will look internally first and say, well, what does HR or talent development have? Some companies don't have big HR and talent development departments. They're smaller or even medium-sized companies. They don't have a whole talent development team that can build all this stuff and I think a lot of the well-known like the bigger brands out there you pay a lot of money for, and so one of the reasons why I do this is because I'm so passionate about it. I can give customers affordable options. I can be flexible on how to meet the needs that they have, whether it's two people or 200, within most of most of time, whatever budget they're working with.

Speaker 2:

And what's? What's one gut check that you like, a gut check question that you would encourage all leaders to ask themselves regularly to stay aligned and to stay impactful?

Speaker 1:

stay aligned and to stay impactful. Yeah, the question that I asked myself at the end of each day is what today left me feeling good, what went well that I feel really positive about and what has left me with that feeling? Because I feel like we can get so busy, we don't actually look at the success we have. You know, like an outcome of a meeting wasn't exactly what we wanted, but it was still a good outcome, and so it's easy to just hop into the next meeting and be like I didn't get done what I wanted to get done. That wasn't successful, but really there's a lot to learn in the outcome that you had.

Speaker 1:

So I think the positive is important, but I think you want to take five minutes to reflect on the things that are that are stuck like give you that gut, that gut feeling of of there's just something off about that, because that is where we get to kind of hit, rewind and replay what happened in that scenario, what we're thinking. You can check that in our narrative. You know sometimes we're beating ourselves up and we're like it actually was really good. This is just us, you know, kind of having some self-doubt and other times we realize, you know, I didn't. I didn't show up like I wanted to, and why was that? You know what did I do, and and how am I going to do it differently. And so five minutes of reflection those two questions can be really powerful in being on that continued climb of growth and development.

Speaker 2:

Well, as we wrap up, there's a question that I always love to ask at the end, and that is of all you've learned in your lifetime thus far, and it were your last day on Earth. You've taken everything you've learned and you could disseminate one piece of advice or guidance to the world. What would it be?

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's tough. The way you phrase that is tough, I will say. I go back to something that I encourage people to do, which is bet on yourself in big ways, and remember that the only person that needs to believe in you is you, and sometimes the greatest things that we do, we are the only people that think we can do it or have this pull to go do it and trust that, because that's how amazing things are accomplished and there's so much in that for the world and for you individually.

Speaker 2:

Beautiful piece of advice. Beautiful piece of advice. Well, whitney, thank you so much for joining today. I'm going to have all this in the show notes, but would love to share. Where can people find you if they want executive coaching? They want to know more about the frameworks that you shared. Where can they find you?

Speaker 1:

and follow you. Of course, easiest place is on my website. You can read more about all that I do at WhitneyFerriscom or on Instagram. It's at Whitney, underscore Ferris and see what's happening.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom and guidance and so much of what you do in your day-to-day work to be able to serve the leaders around the country. So appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Of course. Thanks so much, Sunny.

Speaker 2:

If today's episode challenged you, moved you or lit a fire in your soul, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with somebody who's ready to rise. Could I ask you to take 30 seconds to leave a review? It's the best way to say thank you and help this show reach more bold leaders like you, Because this isn't just a podcast, it's a movement. We're not here to play small. We're here to lead loud, one bold and unapologetic step at a time. Until next time, stay bold, stay grounded and make moves that make mediocre uncomfortable.

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