The chief executive of a European tech start-up, the national managing director of a global luxury brand, and the IT general manager of a large Australasian corporate all had something in common. Despite their senior roles and impressive careers, each of them privately dreaded public speaking.
For all three, speaking was an unavoidable part of leadership. They needed to present to staff, front media events, speak at conferences, and contribute confidently in leadership meetings. Yet every time they had to stand up and speak, it triggered a level of anxiety that most of the people around them would never have guessed.
After one-on-one coaching with me, all three have made significant progress. None of them would claim to be “finished” because public speaking is still a developing skill for each of them. What has changed is that they are now showing up differently and saying yes to opportunities they once avoided.
These are their stories (names and a few small details have been changed).
I have written this article partly for senior leaders who may be wondering whether coaching could help them deal with public speaking anxiety.
But it is also for people earlier in their careers who feel particularly nervous when speaking in front of senior leaders. It may help to know that some of those leaders are feeling the same way! If you are a junior to mid-career professional, you may also want to check out our companion article – Seven Stories of People Who Once Had a Crippling Fear of Public Speaking and Did Something About It! This is the most popular article on the Fear-less Blog, I believe, because it gives hope to people who dread public speaking.
Hugo – the CEO who kept turning opportunities down
Hugo is in his early forties and the co-founder and CEO of a fast-growing European technology start-up serving the entertainment industry. He contacted me after reading one of my blog posts that resonated strongly with him, telling me it was the first time he felt someone had really understood what public speaking anxiety felt like from the inside.
He had worked with public speaking coaches before, but their focus had quickly moved to delivery skills, slide design, and speaking techniques. What they had not really addressed was the level of dread he felt before speaking.
Hugo is a perfectionist, a hard worker and a deep thinker. He has high self-esteem as a business leader but low confidence in his ability to communicate his ideas publicly. As the company grew, this gap was becoming more visible because he was regularly invited to appear on podcasts or give interviews about the business, yet he was turning down most of those opportunities.
Our work together focused primarily on mindset more than technique. A large part of my role was challenging some of the beliefs he held about what a good speaker should sound like and how quickly he should be able to master the skill.
One of the most important breakthroughs for Hugo came when he realised that it was acceptable for public speaking to be a developing skill. He excels in many areas of his professional life, but speaking is not yet one of his strongest capabilities, and removing the pressure to be exceptional immediately freed him to start doing the work needed to improve.
We also developed a structured approach to gradually expanding his comfort zone. His first step was a remote podcast interview conducted online, which felt manageable. The next invitation was far more daunting: a filmed interview moving around different locations in Paris with a professional film crew. That felt like too big a leap, so instead he agreed to do an in-studio podcast interview with the host.
Progress for Hugo is happening through these graduated challenges, each one stretching him a little further than the last. When we first started working together, he approached the whole issue with intense seriousness, but by the end of the programme, there was a noticeable lightness about him. Public speaking had stopped feeling like something that might expose him and had started to look more like a skill he could gradually build.
Tanya – the managing director facing a major conference
Tanya is the national managing director of a global luxury brand. She had been with the company for many years but had only recently stepped into the MD role, and with that promotion came a new expectation that she would represent the brand publicly.
Media events, conferences, and leadership presentations suddenly became a regular part of her job, and in an industry where image and confidence matter enormously, this created a huge amount of pressure for her.
She came to me because of an upcoming two-day staff conference where she had a central role. She would be introducing guest speakers and presenting the company’s new strategic direction, which meant being highly visible throughout the event.
The year before, she had managed to get through a similar conference by reading almost entirely from PowerPoint slides. This time, that strategy was not going to work because the slides were being professionally designed and would contain very few words. She had no idea how she would get through the event without a script.
Like many senior leaders, Tanya was already working under intense pressure, and having this speaking event looming over her created a huge amount of stress. At one point during our coaching she became quite tearful while describing how overwhelming it felt.
Our work together therefore, became practical quite quickly. Tanya brought material into our sessions and practised delivering it, experimenting with speaking from key ideas rather than reading from a script.
Before the conference, she also had a smaller media event where she needed to introduce a speaker, and we decided to treat this as a valuable rehearsal opportunity. It was the first time she attempted speaking publicly without reading her words, and when it went well, it provided a significant boost to her confidence before the larger conference.
The conference itself also went very well. Afterwards, several people complimented her on her performance, and some even told her she had been the best speaker at the event, which completely surprised her. Not long afterwards, she was selected for a European leadership programme for women leaders, and she is quite sure that presenting confidently at the conference played a role in that opportunity.
One of the shifts that helped Tanya most was normalising the nerves she felt. Just before the conference began, she was chatting with the professional MC hosting the event when the MC quietly started singing “la-la-la” to warm up her voice and mentioned she was feeling nervous.
Tanya was astonished that someone who speaks professionally could still feel nervous. It reinforced something we had discussed during coaching: nervous and confident are not opposites. It is entirely possible to feel nervous while still trusting that the nerves will not take over.
Another simple but powerful tool for her was a small cheat sheet I prepared for her to read just before speaking. It contained a few short reminders that grounded her in the moment: that she was well prepared, that her nerves were far more noticeable to her than to the audience, and that her job was simply to focus on the message rather than on herself.
Greg – the leader who stopped trying to sound inspiring
Greg is the IT general manager of a large Australasian corporate. He is naturally warm and personable and clearly cares about his team, but he dislikes being the centre of attention. When he compared himself with other members of the senior leadership team who appeared more charismatic and confident while presenting, he often concluded that he simply did not measure up.
At the time we started working together, he prepared by writing out his presentations almost word-for-word. This approach made speaking harder rather than easier, because it created constant pressure to remember the script exactly as it had been written.
One of the first things we changed was his preparation process, moving him gradually from a full script to speaking from a small set of talking points. We also introduced storytelling into his presentations because stories are engaging for the audience and much easier for the speaker to remember.
At one coaching session, Greg shared a moment with me that had really unsettled him. He had been running a team-building session with a newly formed team when he suddenly became aware that he did not sound particularly inspiring, and that thought immediately made him doubt himself mid-presentation.
We talked about shifting the focus away from trying to sound inspiring and toward being useful to the audience. That idea resonated strongly with him because it matched his natural leadership style far better.
Around the same time, Greg discovered something he genuinely enjoyed talking about. He had been teaching himself how to use AI tools at home to simplify everyday tasks such as planning meals for the family, generating shopping lists and ordering groceries online.
He began running informal workshops across the company encouraging other staff to experiment with these tools themselves, and the response was extremely positive. Because he was genuinely curious and enthusiastic about the topic, he spoke with far more ease and authority than before, which provided a real boost to his confidence.
What these three leaders have in common
Being a senior leader can be lonely, particularly when it comes to public speaking anxiety. Even people in relatively junior roles often find it difficult to admit that speaking makes them nervous, so it can feel even harder for leaders who believe they are expected to appear confident at all times.
Yet many of them are dealing with the same fears.
What I find encouraging about Hugo, Tanya and Greg is not that they have suddenly become polished speakers, because they would be the first to tell you that they are still learning. What has changed is their willingness to step forward rather than step back.
They are saying yes to opportunities they once avoided, experimenting with new approaches and gradually expanding their comfort zones.
Confidence rarely arrives all at once. More often, it grows quietly through a series of small moments where you choose to show up despite the nerves. And over time, those small moments start to accumulate.
If you are a senior leader who feels a sense of dread before speaking, you are far from alone. And if you are earlier in your career and feel intimidated speaking in front of senior leaders, it is worth remembering that some of the people around that boardroom table may be feeling just as nervous as you are.
