Why Does True Power Never Need a Performance? The Secrets of Authentic Presence
Last week, I led a workshop series called UNIGNORABLE.
A deliberately designed space, a *taste* of the Executive Presence Accelerator, to show what happens when brilliant women stop shrinking, stop overfunctioning, and start leading from their actual authority.
The kind of space where one sentence lands and you feel the air shift.
There was a moment in Session 1, a woman looked directly into the camera and softly said:
“When I lead meetings, I’m doing what I THINK a leader should do. But I don’t know if it’s me.”
Then, she sighed.
Her silence.
Not the awkward kind. The kind that vibrates.
The kind that shifts the entire room.
That was the moment the workshop began.
When she said out loud what most women whisper to themselves every damn day.
That’s why I created UNIGNORABLE.
Because I’m done watching brilliant women contort themselves into whatever version of “leader” the room will tolerate.
Because I’ve been that woman, polished, capable, respected, and still holding my breath.
Storming into a room, making my presence known like a bull in a china shop.
Or, walking on eggshells, trying to suss out my place in the room without selling my soul.
For years, those were my only two speeds.
I know you know what I’m talking about.
We don’t need another inspiring keynote; we need the tools to stop asking for permission.
Here’s how we cracked it open:
Each session hit a different nerve.
Not concepts. Not content.
Core muscles of presence that have been ignored, strained, or twisted out of shape by systems that were never built for us.
Command the Room
Speak Your Value
Protect Your Time
We didn’t just talk about them.
We worked them.
In real time.
With real stakes.
Until women could feel the shift in their bodies, not just their minds.
Session 1: Command the Room
Commanding the room doesn’t start when you walk in.
It starts the moment you stop shrinking yourself to fit inside it.
One woman said,
“I’m stuck in this spot where I feel like I need to keep proving I’m capable before I’m confident enough to lead.”
Yeah. That landed.
How many of us are over-preparing, over-functioning, over-performing—just to feel allowed to lead?
We burned that script.
No more polishing. No more pretending.
Just Power Openings that made your presence speak louder than your LinkedIn ever could.
The moment one woman said her name like it mattered, you could feel the whole room shift.
Session 2: Speak Your Value
This one was all about the invisible labor of staying likable.
Another woman sighed and said:
“I’ve been told I’m too confident. I’ve been told I’m not confident enough. I’ve been told to tone it down and to speak up, usually in the same week.”
And another:
“I frame everything as a team win because that’s how I was taught to lead. But sometimes I’m erasing my own contributions.”
We worked together until every single person in the workshop could own their brilliance AND the results they have produced. Facts. Not fiction.
We named it. Cleanly. Boldly. Without disclaimers.
You don’t owe anyone humility that erases your influence.
Session 3: Protect Your Time
This is the one that made people a little uncomfortable, but the transformation? Incredible!
Here’s where we started….
“I said yes to a ‘limited’ review. Now I’m leading the whole damn thing.”
“I keep getting looped into projects because I’m reliable. And every time, I say yes, even though I know it’s not a good use of my time.”
Let’s name it: women aren’t saying yes because they want to.
We’re saying yes because we’ve been trained to keep the peace, carry the load, and never be called difficult.
And it’s costing us.
Not just time, but credibility. Clarity. Career traction.
We talked about the guilt that creeps in when you say no.
The urgency you feel to be helpful, even when it burns you out.
The fear that saying “not this” means you won’t be asked again.
Then we stripped it down to one clean framework: Clarity. Context. Closure.™
Because protecting your time isn’t selfish.
It’s political. And personal. And necessary as hell.
Too many women are still leading like guests in their own careers, waiting to be invited, validated, and softened.
UNIGNORABLE ripped the rug off that performance.
One woman said:
“This was the first time I spoke without translating myself.”
That’s the power of being in a room that doesn’t need you to code-switch.
Let Me Be Clear
You don’t need to be fixed.
You don’t need a new tone.
You don’t need to perform executive presence like it’s a Broadway audition.
You need to stop filtering your power through what “you think” the room can handle.
That’s what this work is all about.
How to call back the parts of you you silenced to survive because someone told you to, or the world made you believe you had to.
Your ONLY job is to lead with your WHOLE self.
It’s simple, but it ain’t easy. It takes years of unlearning social conditioning and societal “norms” that we have absorbed.
That’s what we build, together, in the Executive Presence Accelerator, every damn week. In real time with your real life in mind.
If This Hits
If something in this blog cracked something open.
If you’re feeling like “that’s what I’ve been trying to name.”
Let’s chat. The next cohort of the Executive Presence Accelerator starts July 23rd.
Email me at jen@jencoken.com. Subject line: Executive Presence.
No pitch. No pressure.
Just a clean, clear look at what this work is and what it could unlock for you.
Because your leadership doesn’t need to wait.
It needs to walk in the room with you - unfiltered, unmuted, UNIGNORABLE
