Research-backed article for a leadership training company
Project summary
This company provides resources for leaders in training. They have a segment specifically for women who are stepping into managerial roles and who may experience gender biases.
To spotlight the challenges female speakers often face, drawing on research to explore gendered perceptions and differences in presentation styles. Readers should learn how to navigate biases, harness their strengths, and deliver impactful presentations.
As research is critical to the training materials offered, I started by collating the latest studies and insights into gender and speaking.
I divided this research into topics: the challenges women often experience when presenting, feminine leadership traits that speakers of all genders may embody, the expectations/biases they may face, and strategies they may employ to overcome these.
With all my research mapped out, I wove the most interesting findings into a complete training article full of handy learnings and strategies to try right away.
A training article that aspiring and current female leaders can use to build speaking confidence and skills before their next presentation.
Before I wrote this piece, the company’s managing editor warned me he had the editing style of a ‘combine harvester.’ But when I delivered the article, he ‘passed it on untouched’ given it’s ‘great shape.’ Always nice!
The images below are placeholders and do not belong to the client.
Here’s what the managing editor had to say…
After an introductory call with Charlotte, I knew I’d found a great fit for collaboration thanks to her passion, experience, and expertise in workplace leadership. It’s rare that I look beyond my own content team for writing tasks, but I felt reassured by Charlotte’s enthusiasm and support for the project. The collaboration resulted in the publication of several great resources.
Developing Your Presentation Skills in an Executive Role
How female leaders can command the room
Here's the finished article!
Presentation skills are critical for those in C-suite and other executive roles. They extend beyond conveying information to telling impactful stories, kindling emotional responses, and nurturing trust. These are essential to motivating teams, influencing decisions, and building credibility.
However, systemic barriers and gender bias can leave female leaders tackling challenges when speaking, no matter how strong their presentation skills are.
For example:
- They may doubt their knowledge if they are presenting on a topic where men are often considered more competent, such as scientific or technological matters. [1]
- They may feel they need to “prove” themselves if facing assumptions that they aren’t committed to their role because they are a parent. [2]
This article will examine the gendered perceptions that may affect your public speaking experiences and provide practical strategies to help you excel in high-stakes presentations.
Presentation Challenges That Female Executives Face
The decade from 2014 to 2024 saw female leadership increase at every level of corporate management. [3] However, this progress was slow, and studies emphasize that gender bias persists. [4]
Gender biases affect everything about perceptions of women in leadership, from their likeability to their presentation skills. Many of these biases are associated with judgment.
During executive presentations, women may be judged more harshly than men, whether on their appearance (perhaps being labeled a “bimbo”) or their use of language (perhaps being labeled “abrasive” rather than “authoritative”). [5][6]
The Internalized Aversion to Public Speaking
As a result, it’s no surprise that women are often less likely than men to give presentations. According to the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, this aversion to public speaking has nothing to do with presentation skills, openness to risk, confidence, or self-esteem. Instead, it comes down to deeply embedded social norms. [7]
This is the case not only in executive presentations but also in seminars where experts may be encouraged to contribute. For example, a study published in “PLOS One” found that men were 2.5 times more likely to ask questions than women at seminars. [8]
Some women “couldn’t work up the nerve” to ask questions and/or felt the speaker was “intimidating.” Others worried they had misunderstood the content, that their question was inappropriate, or that they weren’t “clever enough” to participate.
The Lack of Women in High-Visibility Leadership Roles
This gender bias runs even deeper, with many women not receiving opportunities to present at all. Speaking opportunities tend to come with high-visibility career roles, which fewer women hold.
Research published in the Frontiers in Psychology journal shows that men may receive promotions for showing potential only. Meanwhile, women are more likely to have to prove their performance for such opportunities. [9]
S&P Global has published similar findings. Men hold three-quarters of junior management positions. And women hold only 29 percent of the management roles with revenue-generating functions – the roles that lead into the C suite. [10]
Feminine vs Masculine Presentation Styles
Of the women who give executive presentations, distinct differences may arise in their speaking styles. The Harvard Business Review (HBR) has found that men tend to use more abstract language than women – and that society often associates abstract language with power. [11]
HBR study participants associated abstract language with big-picture thinking and decisiveness. Male speakers using this language appeared distant from day-to-day operations and focused on top-level goals, creating a sense of substantial power.
Meanwhile, female speakers were more likely to use concrete language, describing specific actions and plans. As such, where women use concrete language in executive presentations, colleagues may be less likely to perceive them as leaders.
The Value of Clear Speaking and Other Feminine Presentation Skills
Despite this gendered perception, when we’re concrete, we’re clear. And clarity is essential to a strong presentation, especially when teamed with other feminine leadership traits.
While feminine leadership traits include creativity, intuition and inclusivity, masculine traits include assertiveness, competitiveness and decisiveness. Although leaders of all genders can embody both, many women feel judged for embracing the feminine.
However, studies are disproving gender biases in the workplace. Some even suggest that women are more effective leaders across the board – although they are still underrepresented. [12]
By extension, encapsulating feminine strengths is as vital in executive presentations as in day-to-day leadership. Embracing feminine presentation skills – like empathy, storytelling, and emotional intelligence – can all help your message land as authentic and impactful.
Sometimes, fostering trust and connection in an executive presentation is more important than demonstrating authority and influencing decisions with data. In these cases, feminine leadership characteristics are invaluable.
When leaders collectively embody the feminine, they can rewrite the narrative that presentations should be masculine and traditional, bursting with blue-sky thinking and data.
Overcome Biases With Four Practical Tips for Executive Presentations
One of the best ways to overcome corporate gender bias is for leaders to address these prejudices in their executive presentations.
This is possible with four strategies, which you can employ in board meetings, keynotes, investor pitches, panel discussions at industry events, and other presentations:
Many feminine leadership traits have historically been associated with weakness. When you preface these traits with confidence, you can dissolve the stigma.
Take vulnerability as an example of a feminine trait. When you confidently expose your vulnerabilities, these may shift to being perceived as strengths.
Stories grab attention. They immerse us. They move us. They make us care. Even when we think we’re making logical decisions, our subconscious mental processes are at play too.
This is why feminine qualities like storytelling inform the presentations that resonate deeply.
While many women have received advice to be more masculine so they will be taken more seriously, this strategy doesn’t empower them.
It achieves the opposite by enforcing masculinity as the ideal. It asks people of all genders to suppress a large part of the gender spectrum. Leaning into the feminine removes masculinity from its position on the pedestal and creates balance.
Many women in leadership attempt to fit the mold of a “good” female manager. However, this mold constantly shifts, requiring you to be nice but not soft, assertive but not aggressive, and authoritative but not dominating.
The line between these concepts is blurry, and women often move from being perceived as “not enough” to “too much.” Dropping the pressure to conform and instead embracing your own style can help you exit this damaging narrative when presenting.
Refining Your Feminine Presentation Skills and Style
As you prepare for your next executive presentation, know that feminine leadership qualities can inform an effective performance. Reflecting on your innate strengths and bringing these to the forefront of your presentations can help you refine your unique style.
This doesn’t have to fit a prescribed definition of what a presentation should look like. Whether your presentation is more of a conversation, an emotionally resonant story, or an uplifting talk without slides, it’s yours.
References
[1] Storage, D., Charlesworth, T.E.S., Banaji, M.R., and Cimpian, A. (2020). ‘Adults and Children Implicitly Associate Brilliance With Men More Than Women,’ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 90.
[2] Calegari Torres, A.J., Barbosa-Silva, L., Oliveira-Silva, L.C., Pillar Perez Miziara, O., Rodrigues Guahy, U.C., Fisher, A.N., and Ryan, M.K. (2024). ‘The Impact of Motherhood on Women’s Career Progression: A Scoping Review of Evidence-Based Interventions,’ Behavioral Sciences, 14(4).
[3] Krivkovich, A., Field, E., Yee, L., McConnell, M., and Smith, H. (2024). Women in the Workplace 2024: The 10th-Anniversary Report [online].
[4] Begeny, C.T., Ryan, M.K., Moss-Racusin, C.A., and Ravetz, G. (2020). ‘In Some Professions, Women Have Become Well Represented, Yet Gender Bias Persists – Perpetuated by Those Who Think It Is Not Happening,’ Science Advances, 6(26).
[5] Parves, K. (2023). Women Bosses Are Still Judged More on Their Looks Than Their Smarts [online].
[6] Antoniades, K. (2023). Open Thread: Women and “Weak Language” at Work [online].
[7] De Paola, M., Lombardo, R., Pupo, V, and Scoppa, V. (2020). Do Women Shy Away from Public Speaking? A Field Experiment [online].
[8] Carter, A.J., Croft, A., Lukas, D., and Sandstrom, G.M. (2018). ‘Women’s Visibility in Academic Seminars: Women Ask Fewer Questions Than Men,’ PLOS One, 14(2).
[9] Player, A., Randsley de Moura, G., Leite, A.C., Abrams, D., and Tresh, F. (2019). ‘Overlooked Leadership Potential: The Preference for Leadership Potential in Job Candidates Who Are Men vs. Women,’ Frontiers in Psychology, 10.
[10] Hall, L., Laidlaw, J., Almtoft, A., Dhanasarnsombat, S., and Ramirez, D. (2024). Women in Leadership: What’s the Holdup? [online].
[11] Wakslak, C. and Joshi, P. (2022). Research: Men Speak More Abstractly Than Women [online].
[12] Kruse, K. (2023). New Research: Women More Effective Than Men In All Leadership Measures [online].
