Sonya | Leadership Presence Coach: [00:00:00] If you walk into a room feeling like you don't look the part, you will read the room. Through that filter, you will interpret a glance as a judgment. You will hold back slightly. You'll wait to be invited into the conversation instead of just entering it.
So visual friction doesn't just affect how others see you. It affects how you see the room seeing you. And the longer that sits, the more it compounds. Every week you walk in with strategic intent. You are reinforcing how people already read you . The perception doesn't fade on its own.
Welcome to the Style and Strategy Podcast, where personal brand meets leadership and style. I'm Sonya, a personal brand and style coach who's been exactly where you are juggling career and business success. Personal growth and finding a style that truly fits. After decades in corporate leadership, I've learned that showing [00:01:00] up isn't just about what you do, it's about how you align who you are and how the world sees you.
This season, I'm bringing you practical strategies, bold insights, and honest conversations to help you amplify your presence, unlock your next level, and lead with clarity and confidence. Let's dive in.
Sonya | Leadership Presence Coach: So I was listening to a podcast recently and a charisma and leadership expert was being interviewed around confidence, self-doubt, and how people perceive you in professional settings. The conversation turn to how women dress at work and she told a story about a woman that she'd worked with, and how that woman was really delivering what she was doing, et cetera, but she was also dressing to stand out.
So really bold choices. So this is a very interesting [00:02:00] discussion because the advice that came from this was don't dress in a way that makes you stand out for the wrong reasons.
So when we heard this on this particular podcast, I really had to do a bit of a double take. I couldn't quite articulate in the moment when I heard it. But, you know, I love human design and I had a gut reaction, to this, and it took me a little bit to really put those feelings into words because the advice wasn't wrong, it just wasn't finished, and I felt like
I needed to really bring this conversation to you because if you are hearing things like this, I feel like we can do better. We can do better, and give you, more information about what that actually means and then what to do about it. Because the advice that was given whilst everything else in that [00:03:00] conversation was really great.
It tells you what to avoid. It doesn't tell you, well, okay, that's great, but it doesn't tell you what to do instead. Right? It's a real defensive play, right? So minimize the risk. Don't give anyone a reason to notice you for the wrong thing, and for a lot of women, maybe early in their careers, perhaps, potentially, that's useful fitting in and you know, feeling like you, you.
Part of something is really important when your establishing yourself and you know, yes, belonging exists later on as well. However, the expert even acknowledged that, you know, she spent her early years in, in particular industries wearing black, gray, brown, you know, dressing to really belong. But my question was, what happens when that same woman is now a director?
A VP, you know, she, [00:04:00] she's kind of moved up the ranks more. And she's still defaulting to the definition of safe, right? And I'm not talking colours, that type of thing. I'm talking about the definition that to her is I've gotta blend in, right? Even if that is not her. Because no one ever gave her a strategy for what really comes next.
And that's really what I wanna talk about today because the real problem for many women in leadership is not that they're standing out for the wrong reason. The problem is they've been fitting in so successfully that potentially they're not even being read at all. So let me, sort of describe this in a different way.
when what you wear creates this gap between your, so let's say capability and how people experience you, ? So again, you've gotta come back to how I define it. And this is not about a fake [00:05:00] persona. This is about. Bringing internal you outside, so it's an extra extension and layer of who you actually are, right?
So where those two disconnect, I call that visual friction. And so it's where the signal doesn't match that substance that you bring, and it isn't always obvious, ? It might be that there is no signal, ? There's no strategic intent, which, you know, some days that's what we want, but there's nothing that really brings that through line.
To the end. So there were a couple of Princeton researchers and I believe their names were Willis and, uh, Todorov that found people form competence judgements in the face of, within a hundred milliseconds, a 10th of a second. Before you've had this chance to really share your credentials or establish anything before they've read your cv, before they've gone and looked you up.
. And there's this, you know, quick visual impression that [00:06:00] has landed. And I am certainly not saying the visual presence is everything. And you know that, if you've been here for a while, I talk about it, that there's a lot of different. Layers around it. This is just one element to really look at from a leadership presence perspective.
So if the visual signal is neutral, if it's safe, if it's the same thing that every other person in the room is wearing, it's not that you are getting a negative read, it's potentially that you're not getting a read at all. so I see that as a problem because at that level. You've already established what you're good at, ?
And you want to now start to really push at your unique value that you bring to the organisation, and you want to be remembered for the contribution that you're bringing. And so a lot of the work that I do with women who are navigating this, you know, it plays out in both pure personal as well [00:07:00] as in
the organisational context as well. So one of my clients who's, a marketing exec, ? She has the boardroom handled, so she turns up to her exec meetings. You know, she feels really aligned in particular outfits and she's able to express that creative sort of side of her because that's relevant.
But then if you think about an environment, maybe where you are walking into a school event or an industry dinner, or an networking, function. Completely different room and you start potentially second guessing yourself, because of the fact that you haven't started to think about those rooms strategically.
So what do I mean by this? This happens when the only advice you've been given is don't stand out for the wrong reasons. So you avoid the risk and you never build the strategy. So if I go back to that [00:08:00] expert on the podcast, she made a point that I agree with, ? She talked about that how early in our careers self-doubt often centers around belonging.
Do I fit in? Am I accepted? And is dressing to blend in actually serving that need? And it reduces one variable. It lets you focus on really proving. Your competence, but she also acknowledged something important. Self-doubt doesn't necessarily disappear as you advance up that career ladder or in different environments, it actually morphs.
So at senior levels, the doubt starts to shift to visibility. Reputation, influence. Am I being seen as the leader that I know am? What happens if I get this wrong? With more people watching, and that's where that stay safe strategy sort of breaks down in my perspective. Because the thing that helped you [00:09:00] belong at 28 is a thing that potentially makes you invisible and lost as you get older.
So the outfit that you potentially wore back then that says, I'm one of you now, potentially says. I might have nothing distinctive to offer. It's not wrong, it's just that you've potentially moved past it. So you've heard me talk before about that concept of enclothed cognition, right? And it changes how you think, how you focus, how you perform.
Referring back to it, it's the meaning you really attach to what you're wearing and then therefore how you operate in it if I come down to it. So when you are defaulting to that blending in advice, you might be sending a signal that is neutral, ? And in some rooms. That might be the right [00:10:00] signal , to send.
But in others, you may wanna be sending something else. So the question becomes, are you assessing that room?
So are you managing the gap between who you are, what you are actually projecting out, even if you can't name it. And one of my clients really described this as there's a mismatch between my internal confidence and how I'm showing up externally. ? She could feel it before she had like a language for it.
if safe, ? As per the description that I've talked about earlier isn't working anymore, and, you know, being loud and and really bold was never the answer. What was the actual strategy? So this is where the podcast, I believe, left a gap. It told you what not to do. It didn't give you a framework for what works.
Instead. The missing middle here is this strategic, deliberate, not safe, not loud, but. Let's think a little and and put some strategy around this. And strategic can really mean [00:11:00] different things to different people depending on the room, ? From my lens, it means understanding what your leadership needs to signal in a specific context and making choices that support that signal.
I'm gonna give you three questions to run any outfit decision through, ? And I use various versions of these with clients that I work with, depending on, you know, what their style is and what they need at that point in time as a tool. But if you pair it right back to what is the room and what does it need for me?
A board meeting might need a different visual authority than a team offsite. An industry event where you're representing an organisation may need a different signal than one-on-one with a stakeholder. And you know, most women have more than one mode. If you've been listening for a while as well, that I can't stand it when people try to box you in as one thing.
So [00:12:00] strategic presence means having range. Okay. And sometimes I like to give the example of a ladder, ? And you are this ladder and your strategic range might dial up and it might dial down depending what that room is. So when the context changes. You need to decide what you are actually choosing, because if you don't choose, that's got its own separate consequences.
number two, does what I'm wearing reflect the level I'm operating at or the level that I came from? This is , one of the most common forms of this visual friction that I see someone gets promoted, her wardrobe still belongs to the role that she just left or the person that she was, because perception is slow to update.
She's reinforcing this old read every time she walks into a room, and she's [00:13:00] reinforcing it even more importantly, with herself. People are experiencing her as the person she was, let's say, the SME in the room, even though she stepped into a broader strategic role to help elevate and expand that wardrobe and that visual part needs to as well as the internals.
one of my clients, put it this way, my style doesn't reflect my ambition. It belongs to an earlier version of me. She wasn't dressing badly, she was just dressing for a chapter that just didn't feel like her anymore. And number three. It's the third question, am I making a choice or am I avoiding one?
there is really a clear difference between deliberately choosing a clear understated look because it serves the room and defaulting to something safe because you don't wanna get it wrong. Okay. [00:14:00] The first one is strategy. The second one is avoidance. They look similar from the outside. They feel completely different on the inside, and that internal difference is what will show up in how you carry yourself, how you speak, and how much space you take.
. I wanna really cover off here something that the research supports around this, because I think it matters to anyone listening and thinking. I'll sort this out when things calm down. That same podcast featured a fascinating study from, Darmouth. In 1980s, researchers Kleck and Strenta recruited participants and painted a visible scar on their faces using theatre makeup.
They showed each person the scar in the mirror, so they knew it was there. Then just before sending them into conversations with strangers, the researchers secretly remove the scar. The [00:15:00] participants went into those conversations believing that they had a visible disfigurement.
They reported feeling judged. They said the other person was tense, uncomfortable, and treating them differently. But the scar wasn't there. The strangers had no idea that anything was different. So the researchers called this expectation bias. When you expect to be perceived in a certain way, you experience the world through that lens, even when the reality doesn't match.
Let that land. So now apply that to style and presence. If you walk into a room feeling like you don't look the part, you will read the room. Through that filter, you will interpret a glance as a judgment. You will hold back slightly. You'll wait to be invited into the conversation instead of just entering it.
So visual friction doesn't just affect how others see you. It affects [00:16:00] how you see the room seeing you. And the longer that sits, the more I guess it compounds. Every week you walk in with strategic intent. You are reinforcing how people already read you . The perception doesn't fade on its own.
It gets stronger. So if you are listening to this and recognising yourself in it, and you know you've been defaulting to safe and it stopped working a while ago, I have something that might be able to give you a clear starting point. The Leadership Presence Impact Profile is a free assessment that takes about five minutes.
It identifies where the gap sits between your capability and how you're being experienced. Is it visual? Is it how your authority carries in a room? Is it something internal that's catching? Most women I work with have more than one form of friction operating at once, but that quiz really helps to name which one's creating the biggest sort of gap for you right now.
Links in the show notes. Take five [00:17:00] minutes this week while this episode is still resonating, and give it a go because if you can name what that friction is, that is one of the first steps to closing that gap. let me come back to the beginning. That advice don't dress to stand out for the wrong reasons, isn't wrong, in some rooms, at some stages it's going to be exactly right, but if you're a senior woman in leadership who's been following that advice for time. The question isn't whether you've avoided the wrong attention. It's whether you've given yourself permission to create the right kind, strategic, deliberate, aligned with who you are now, not who you were when you first learned to fit in.
That's not standing out for the wrong reasons. It's making sure that the room can actually see you. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I'll see you next week.
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