Why Does Public Speaking at Work Make Me So Anxious?
You've been working so hard to fix your public speaking. Reading articles about executive presence. Practicing your delivery. Trying to sound more confident, more polished, more like those people who seem to command every room.
But here's what I know to be true: you communicate perfectly when you're comfortable.
The problem isn't your voice. It's the rooms you're in.
I see evidence of this daily in working with my clients—empathetic leaders who are building the future of work and leadership, not by performing confidence, but by trusting their own authority.
What Happens When You Try to Fix Something That Isn't Broken
One of my clients gave a big presentation this week. He's brilliant at what he does—helping technologists build with more empathy and human connection. Before we started working together, he'd been working hard on his communication. Trying to sound more authoritative. Scripting every word for big presentations. Convinced something was wrong with how he communicated.
He told me he experienced heart racing, trouble breathing, that air hunger feeling where you can't catch your breath, but only when speaking to a group.
The shortness of breath when you're speaking. Out of breath when presenting. The panic attack public speaking brings. He thought these were signs he needed to work harder on his communication skills.
But that's why this work is so counterintuitive: The harder we work to be "better" communicators, the more we wonder, “How to overcome the fear of public speaking?”, the more we splinter our attention and make it nearly impossible to speak with presence and authority.
As the only person of his identity at his level of seniority, his sensations of anxiety were signs the rooms he was in weren't designed for his voice.
Here's what I've noticed in my public speaking coaching practice: the fear of public speaking often makes perfect sense. You've been in rooms where loud voices get heard and quiet depth gets ignored. Where dominance reads as competence. Where your empathy feels like a liability instead of the leadership skill it actually is.
Stop Fixing. Start Trusting.
From day one, I told this client he's more confident than he thinks. That his presence is stronger than he believes. But he couldn't see it. He was too busy trying to fix himself. Convinced the physical stuff—the racing heart, the trouble breathing, losing his train of thought—meant he wasn't good enough yet.
People told him he presented well. He didn't believe them. He thought they were being nice.
So we changed where he put his attention. We stopped trying to make him a "better communicator" and started building confidence in his unique communication style.
After the talk, he texted me to let me know that “It was phenomenal. I was phenomenal.” I wasn’t surprised but I was thrilled he received such immediate positive feedback.
This work isn't about public speaking perfection or how you present yourself. It's not about sounding like someone else or performing authority you don't feel.
This work is about stepping into your authentic authority. The authority you already have. When you're confident doing your work but shrink around executives or in certain rooms, that's not about your communication skills. It's about the uncomfortable space you're in, where you're trying to prove something instead of just being yourself.
Building Confidence in Your Unique Public Speaking Style
When I work with leaders in private coaching, we work with three different focusing tools to help you step into your authentic authority:
Embodied Presence. Getting out of your head and into your body. Using breath and physical presence to anchor yourself. For this client, we practiced specific breathing techniques that help with breath-based speaking anxiety. Not to fix his breathing, but to work with his body instead of against it. So he was fully aligned, brain, breath and body.
Empathetic Presence. We shifted him away from "how do I sound like an expert?" and toward what actually matters: that all technology should be built with humans at the center. That made him feel powerful. When you stop worrying about how you sound and start focusing on what matters, everything shifts. This is empathetic leadership. This is using your natural strengths.
Expert Presence. Your unique way of seeing things. The authority you already have. The more you can name it, honor it, and speak it clearly, the more magnetic you become as a leader. When we develop this together in private coaching, it informs what you say when you're put on the spot (so you don't have to think deeply in the moment). This isn't about becoming someone else. It's about being more fully yourself.
Practice Makes Presence
We prepared together, but we didn't over-prepare. We outlined ideas, not scripts. And then we practiced—in our sessions and in the monthly group space where my private clients come together.
I think of these practice sessions like exposure therapy for public speaking. Building comfort with pressure in a controlled way. Getting practice in a supported space where you can feel the anxiety and learn to work with it instead of fighting it.
After his first group session, other people commented on how confident and clear he seemed. By our third session, he told me he could feel the power of just being present. His supervisor and peers could feel it too.
This is a Pattern I Keep Seeing
He was completely confident leading his teams. But whenever he had to prove himself with executives or in interviews, he lost his ability to be himself.
I'm writing this with him in mind, but this pattern isn't just his. I've been noticing it for years in my executive coaching practice, and it's getting more intense. Really smart people working harder and harder to be "better communicators" when what they really need is to build confidence in how they already communicate.
This is when it shifts. They start to see it's not about their communication. It's about stepping into their authentic authority in toxic spaces. And they stop working so hard to fix themselves and instead start trusting themselves.
Just this week, two other clients noticed similar things. One texted: "I realized I'm the leader, and the clarity needs to come from me." Another understood she already has the authority she's been trying to perform.
This Gives Me Hope
While our society struggles, I spend my days with leaders who seem to know how to lead differently. With inclusion, heart and humanity at the center, they're discovering that empathetic leadership must be part of the solution.
This is the real work of leadership development—not learning how to build confidence through performance, but learning to access the confidence you already have.
These systems affect everyone. Many of us know how to approach things differently. But our voices are often silenced by those holding power.
What if we could take some of that power back?
Your Voice in Broken Systems
If you feel misaligned with where you're working, I'm curious: how might you use your voice to help people around you feel seen and safe? If you're waiting for permission to lead differently, you might not need it. You might already have the authority.
This work isn't about being perfect. It's about stepping into your authentic authority. Tools that help you stay present even when fear shows up. Tools that help you trust yourself instead of over-preparing. Tools that help with the physical stuff—the breath, the racing heart—so you can be yourself in any room.
The world needs people who can say what matters. Not next year. Right now.
Want to Know Your Patterns?
If you're wondering why speaking with confidence feels so elusive in certain moments—why you're brilliant with your team but tongue-tied with executives, why you can write clearly but speak in circles—it's not random.
There are specific patterns at play. And once you see them, you can shift them.
I created a free assessment to help you identify exactly how status anxiety shows up for you and what to do about it.
In 2 minutes, you'll discover:
Your specific communication pattern under pressure
Why certain rooms trigger your anxiety while others don't
Practical tools designed for your natural style (not generic "power poses")
How to access your expertise even when your nervous system is activated
The assessment gives you a personalized playbook based on how you actually communicate—not how someone else thinks you should.
Because the work isn't about becoming someone else. It's about being more fully yourself.
