Understanding Unpredictable Speaking Anxiety
You know your stuff deeply. You're confident with your team. Brilliant at the actual work.
But in front of senior leaders, during high-stakes presentations, when the pressure is on—everything you prepared disappears.
Your mind goes blank. You get out of breath when presenting. Your voice gets shaky. Your heart races.
And the unpredictability is the worst part. You never know which version of yourself will show up.
If this resonates, you're experiencing unpredictable speaking anxiety with senior leaders—and you're caught in three interconnected cycles that are keeping you stuck.
Let me show you what's actually happening (and how to break free).
The Systemic Cycle: Why Your Speaking Anxiety Makes Perfect Sense
Most people think speaking anxiety around senior leaders is a personal failing. Something wrong with them that needs to be fixed.
But here's the truth: Unpredictable speaking anxiety is systemic.
It's not you. It's the rooms you're walking into.
UNPREDICTABLE SPEAKING ANXIETY ↓
SYSTEMIC → You're responding to oppressive hierarchies and alpha-dominant cultures that reward dominance over depth. When you freeze up around executives, you're having a rational response to power dynamics that weren't built for empathetic leaders.
SITUATIONAL → Specific triggers activate it: senior leaders, authority figures, high-stakes presentations, groups vs. one-on-one. You're confident with your team but lose your voice with executives. You're fine one-on-one but freeze in meetings. The inconsistency is exhausting.
STACKS & REINFORCES → Each experience compounds. Every time you freeze up during presentations or panic attack public speaking moments, it strengthens the neural pathway. Your brain learns: "This situation = danger."
SHAME-INDUCING → The system makes you feel like something is wrong with YOU (when actually the rooms are broken). You think "everyone else seems fine" when actually most empathetic mid-career leaders are struggling with some version of this.
↓ Back to ANXIETY → The cycle perpetuates
This cycle is self-reinforcing. And it's designed to make you think you're the problem.
You're not.
You're having a rational response to irrational power dynamics.
The Experience Cycle: What You Go Through Every Time
Understanding the systemic forces doesn't stop the lived experience. You're still going through a painful cycle every time you face speaking anxiety with senior leaders or high-stakes presentations.
THE CYCLE: DREAD before → FREEZE during → BLAME yourself → feel SHAME
Let me break down what's happening at each stage:
BEFORE: DREAD
Days before the meeting or presentation, it starts:
You become obsessed with preparation
You fall into perfectionism / over-prepare for hours
You script everything, trying to anticipate every question
You ask yourself constantly: "How will I be perceived?"
You rehearse obsessively in your head
You're exhausted before you even speak
You think you're being thorough. But actually, you're reinforcing that you're not good at this. You're treating your voice like a problem to be fixed.
This over-preparation is self-abandonment.
DURING: FREEZE
The moment arrives. And despite all that preparation, you freeze up in presentations:
You get out of breath when presenting / shortness of breath public speaking
Your voice gets shaky
Panic attack public speaking symptoms: heart racing, sweating, vision fading
Worry thoughts flood in: "Am I making sense? Do I sound stupid? Can they tell I'm nervous?"
Your mind goes blank
Your voice gets high/fast/quiet
Everything gets blurry
You go silent in meetings even when you have something to say
Physically, you might experience:
Why do I lose my breath when public speaking? (Air hunger/breathlessness)
Tension in chest, can't breathe, mouth dry
Brain fog—you can't access what you know
Vision fading (worry you might pass out)
All of your expertise becomes inaccessible.
Not because you don't know it. But because your nervous system is activated and your attention is splintered between what you want to say, how you're being perceived, and whether you sound professional/confident/clear.
AFTER: BLAME
The moment ends. But the cycle doesn't:
You think about how unpredictable your performance was
"I should've..." loops in your head for days
Self-critique: "What's wrong with me? Why can't I figure this out? Everyone else seems fine."
You question your entire career: "Maybe I'm not cut out for this"
The experience was so unpredictable you dread the next time
You blame yourself. You think you need to work harder, prepare more, fix something about yourself.
But working harder is what's perpetuating the problem.
THE DEEPEST LAYER: SHAME
And beneath all of this is shame:
Secrecy / hiding how much you're struggling
Shame: "Why is this so hard for me? It's not even that big of a deal."
Silent in meetings when you have expertise to contribute
You avoid opportunities
You’ve even worried you’re not cut out for your career because of this speaking anxiety.
And the hiding is the worst part.
You feel alone. Isolated. Like you're the only one experiencing panic attack public speaking or getting out of breath when presenting.
But here's what I need you to understand: You're not alone. Most empathetic mid-career leaders are struggling with some version of this.
Especially people who care deeply about their work and their impact. The system isn't built for you. It's built for dominance, not depth. For performance, not presence.
The Solution Cycle: Empathetic Presence = Sustainable Speaking Confidence
So how do you break these cycles?
Not by working harder. Not by trying to "fix" yourself. Not by performing confidence you don't feel.
But by building what I call Empathetic Presence—a completely different cycle that addresses speaking anxiety with senior leaders at its root:
EMBODY: Grounded Presence + Managing Nerves
Instead of fighting your nervous system when you freeze up in presentations, you learn to work WITH it.
The problem: When you get out of breath when presenting, your instinct is to think your way through it. But your body is already hijacked. The harder you try to think, the worse the panic attack public speaking symptoms become.
The solution: Get out of your head and into your body. You consolidate your splintered attention by anchoring in physical sensation—your feet on the ground, your back against the chair, your breath.
You regulate your nervous system instead of trying to think your way through activation.
This is why you lose your breath when public speaking—you're holding your breath, creating a feedback loop. I teach you to oxygenate your voice with intentional breathing.
The key: Stop trying to be polished/professional/precise/perfect. Start trying to be present.
CHANNEL: Empathy Without Collapse
Your empathy is what makes you great at your work. You read dynamics, anticipate needs, sense what's unspoken.
But when facing speaking anxiety with senior leaders, it becomes a liability—you absorb everyone's anxiety, scan for approval, lose yourself trying to manage the emotional field.
The solution: Use empathy as a focusing tool, not a distraction.
Instead of asking "How am I being perceived?" ask "What does my audience need to understand right now?"
This one shift consolidates your focus—from monitoring yourself to serving them. And when your focus consolidates, your voice stabilizes.
Your empathy becomes a strategic advantage instead of a source of anxiety.
OWN: Expertise Without Over-Preparing
You spend days over-preparing—scripting everything, trying to anticipate every question, memorizing your talking points.
Then when you freeze up in presentations, your entire knowledge base feels inaccessible. The over-preparation was actually self-abandonment.
The solution: Stop preparing what to SAY. Start preparing how to ORGANIZE your thinking on the fly.
I teach you the Golden Nugget framework—how to start with your conclusion instead of rambling through details. How to find your "10th floor" (your main point) and back it up concisely.
This is structure you adapt for your voice, your situations, your expertise. Not scripts to memorize, but frameworks you can access under any pressure.
The key: You're not memorizing WHAT to say—you're using a HOW to organize whatever you need to say in the moment.
EMPATHETIC PRESENCE = SUSTAINABLE SPEAKING CONFIDENCE
When you combine these three:
EMBODY confidence (regulate your nervous system) +
channel EMPATHY (use empathy strategically) +
own EXPERTISE (organize thinking on the fly)
= EMPATHETIC PRESENCE
You stop experiencing speaking anxiety with senior leaders as an unpredictable threat. You have tools to access who you already are—even under pressure.
You don't freeze up in presentations because your attention is consolidated, not splintered.
You don't get out of breath when presenting because you're working with your body, not fighting it.
You don't experience panic attack public speaking symptoms because you have regulation tools before the moment arrives.
This is sustainable speaking confidence.
Not performed. Not faked. Not exhausting.
Built through practice in supported environments before you take it to your highest-stakes moments.
Your Next Step
If you're tired of the DREAD → FREEZE → BLAME → SHAME cycle, if you're done with speaking anxiety with senior leaders controlling your career—it's time to build a new cycle.
Start with the free Confidence Assessment to identify your specific pattern and get personalized tools:
Because here's the truth: You already have everything you need. You just need structure to access it under pressure.
This is a pattern. And patterns can change.
About Lee Bonvissuto
I help empathetic mid-career leaders express themselves everywhere—even in rooms where their voice usually disappears. I've spent 10+ years developing tools to address speaking anxiety with senior leaders, working with professionals at top companies who are brilliant at their work but lose their voice in high-stakes moments.
The work isn't about fixing you. It's about accessing who you already are—consistently, even under pressure.
