The Executive Presence Litmus Test

Senior executive time is limited, so when presenting a case or proposal there are often no second chances. It’s worth applying the “Litmus Test” that executives will use. They are looking for three indicators:

1. Credibility: Do I trust this person’s judgment and competence? Are they consistent?
2. Clarity of Communication: Do I understand clearly the essence of their narrative?
3. Calm under pressure: Does this person stay calm and considered even in stressful situations?

Credibility:

Many senior leaders are listening to hear how an argument is framed in strategic terms, rather than from a tactical operational perspective. By all means have granular data points in your Appendices or as back up slides but make sure you connect the dots to a strategically important issue from the outset.
Senior leaders will also be influenced by and listen to their inner circle to understand the reputation of the person in front of them. They will be evaluating the reputation of that person, consistency of track record and if they should take what you propose seriously.

My top tip for Credibility:

Pre-wire the room before you walk in.

The board meeting should never be the first time key members encounter your recommendation. Brief the chair, the CFO, and any director likely to push back — individually, in advance. Surface objections early so you can address them in the presentation so that you don’t have to deal with them under pressure in the room. Boards approve things they have already had time to think about. Surprise creates hesitation: familiarity creates alignment and momentum.

Investing time and effort in enlisting their trusted circle in advocating for your proposal before presentation day is well worth the effort. Very often, they will improve your arguments and make it even more relevant to the senior leader’s perspective.

Clarity of Communication:

Blaise Pascal once said: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

Too often, I see very seasoned professionals struggle to net out their key messages clearly and concisely. They want to demonstrate their expertise rather than getting to the core of their recommendation. They over explain and over complicate. In the process, they lose their impatient senior audience.

My top tips for Clarity of Communication:

a. Write your ask on slide one — not slide ten.

The Why: be very clear on how this presentation connects with the strategic intentions of those senior executives.

State the decision you need, the number attached to it, and the outcome if approved. One sentence. Everything after that is evidence. If the board reads nothing else, they should know exactly what you want from slide one. If you can’t write that sentence clearly in terms they can relate to, your thinking isn’t ready yet.

b. Run the “so what” test on every slide.

For each slide, ask: if I removed this, would the board be missing something they need to make the decision? If the answer is no, cut it. Move detail to an appendix. Most presentations fail not because they lack content but because they bury key points in it. A board paper with six sharp slides outperforms a 25-slide deck nearly every time.

c. When presenting, eradicate the in-fillers and the diluters

Cut out the in-fillers: “yeah but”…”kinda”…”you know”.
They add nothing to your presentation and distract from you and your presentation.
Identify what your particular in filler is (mine is: “right?”). Train yourself to cut it out by keeping a tally of that filler expression striking it out of your vocabulary in more formal settings. It might be fine in the pub but it devalues your credibility in the board room.

Diluters such as “I wonder if I might”….. or “sorry to ask but”….”this might sounds silly but”….
They project a lack of confidence in the importance of your message. It detracts from what you are trying to convey and diminishes your credibility.

Calm under pressure:

Having spent hours working on getting the content right, many professionals under invest in preparing themselves for the big day. A sceptical executive throws in a curve ball. The presenter gets annoyed or defensive and starts to justify their position in an agitated manner and the die is cast. They leave the meeting not getting what they set out to accomplish.

Preparation both mentally and emotionally is key. Watch any great sport person in the arena and see how they have to handle setbacks, when things are not quite going to plan. Rory McIlroy, Andy Murray and Lewis Hamilton are great examples of very talented players who have learned how to manage their emotional states when things get tough.  We too can learn some simple techniques to model elite performers. These strategies are open to all of us.

Most people spend 90% of their preparation time on the deck and almost none on state management.

My top tips for managing yourself in high stakes situations:

a. Regulate your physiology before you regulate your thinking.

Your mental state follows your physical state, not the other way around. In the 10 minutes before you present: slow your breathing deliberately — four counts in, six counts out. This directly dials down cortisol and activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Not metaphorically. Physiologically. Hamilton and Djokovic both use breath-based protocols before competition. The board room is no different. If your body is in threat response, your thinking will be narrow, defensive and reactive. Settle the body first.

b. Reframe the room from judgement to problem-solving.

Most presentation anxiety is rooted in a framing error — you’ve cast the board as evaluators of you rather than decision-makers who need your expertise to make a good call. That framing puts you in a subordinate, defensive posture before you utter a word. Shift it: you are the person in the room who knows this topic best. Your job is to make their decision easy. That’s a position of authority, not vulnerability. The reframe isn’t cosmetic — it changes your body language, your vocal tone, and how you handle challenge.

c. Prepare for the three hardest questions — then detach from the outcome.

Identify the three toughest questions the board could ask. Build crisp, honest answers for each. Then, critically, accept before you walk in that you may not get approval today, and that you will still survive. Attachment to a specific outcome in the room creates visible desperation, which erodes credibility. Boards sense when someone needs a yes more than they are confident in their recommendation. Do the preparation, make the best case, then release the result. Counterintuitively, that detachment makes approval more likely — because it projects the quiet authority of someone whose conviction doesn’t depend on the room’s validation.

The sequence matters: body first, frame second, preparation third. Most people do this in reverse — they over-prepare the content and walk in physiologically dysregulated with the wrong mental frame.

If you apply the “Litmus Test” to your own approach to a high-level presentation, which, if any, of the three indicators above needs your attention?