Sonya | The Leadership Presence Edit

The Identity Tax Women in Leadership Are Paying Without Naming It

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Mon, 11 May 2026 03:01:02 GMT

It was still dark on Wednesday morning. Humid, with rain steady against the window. I was in the back of an Uber heading to the airport for a client trip, bag at my feet, and as we pulled out of the driveway I looked back at the house. There was a small square of light in an upstairs window, and my daughter’s face was pressed against it, raindrops blurring the outline of her hand waving goodbye.

In that moment I was three things at once: a business owner heading to a client, a leader with a full day ahead of her, and a mother watching her daughter wave goodbye in the dark. None of those things cancelled the others out, and all three were completely true at the same time.

I have been thinking about that morning for weeks now, and what it told me about the executive presence model most women in leadership have been trained on, and why that model has been failing them in a way that doesn't show up until late.

The model assumes a singular self

What most leadership programs are still teaching as executive presence was built on a particular premise: that there is one consistent professional self, that presence is built around that self, and that being experienced consistently across rooms is the marker of credibility.

That model was never fully accurate, though it was sustainable for a long time. It worked best when work and life had clearer structural boundaries, when the singular professional version of yourself could be packed up at 5pm and the rest of you collected at home.

The women I work with are not running that life. They are operating at GM, executive, founder, and board level. They are also running households, managing parents, navigating relationships, raising children, caring for friends, and building things outside the role. They are doing all of that simultaneously, in the same week, often inside the same day.

For that life, the singular model is not generating presence, it is generating fatigue at a level most of these women haven’t yet had named for them.

What the model actually costs

The cost is not obvious, which is part of why the model persists.

Inside it, it does not feel like performance, it feels like professionalism, like the right way to walk into a room. You hold the work version of yourself in place during work hours, and the rest of you waits.

Over the course of a career and a life, that waiting accumulates. It compounds into a gap between who you actually are and the narrowed version the model is asking you to present. While you're inside it, the energy doesn't feel like effort. Over time it shows up as something harder to name, a heaviness or disconnection or kind of tiredness that rest does not fix.

One of my clients described it this way: “There’s a mismatch between my internal confidence and how I’m showing up externally.”

Her internal confidence was solid, her capability was solid, and the mismatch sat between the full version of herself and the narrowed version the singular model was asking her to present. The energy she was spending to bridge that gap was no longer available for the work itself.

This is what I call the identity tax. It is the cost of running a presence model that requires constant internal management of the gap between the self you are and the self the model recognises. It compounds without warning, and most women do not notice they are paying it until they are already paying too much.

Why this fails harder at senior levels

Early in a career, the singular model can be sustained for a while. The roles are narrower, the contexts are more uniform, the gap between the full self and the work self is smaller, and the demands on the rest of you are different.

By the time a woman is operating at senior levels, that has changed. She is leading complex teams, managing difficult stakeholders, making high-consequence decisions, and doing it across a life that includes a hundred other things she is also responsible for. She has been holding the work version of herself in place during work hours for two decades or more. The rest of her has been waiting that whole time.

That waiting accumulates into something specific. This is not burnout in the usual sense, and it is not exhaustion that rest fixes. It is the cost of flattening a multi-dimensional life into a singular professional identity, sustained across years.

What gets depleted is the energy of holding the gap in place, and rest doesn't fix that, because rest isn't what's been spent.

The mismatch that gets misdiagnosed

I see this misread constantly inside organisations.

A woman operating at a senior level is being experienced as less senior than she actually is. Her capability is intact, her track record is solid. She is being interrupted in meetings she should be leading, routed around in decisions she should be inside, described as quieter than she used to be, harder to read, less present in the room than she was a year ago.

The temptation, both for her and for the people around her, is to assume the issue is confidence, capability, or some kind of personal brand problem. It usually is not.

The issue is that the energy she has been spending to manage the gap between her full self and the narrowed version the model demands is energy that is no longer available for the work itself. The narrowed version reads as flat, less present, less commanding, even though the full self is none of those things.

This is the fingerprint of the singular model failing. The woman has not lost her capability, she is running out of the energy required to keep flattening herself into something the model can recognise.

The multiplicity is not the problem

You are more than one thing, and you have always been more than one thing. That is not a sign that you have not done enough inner work, it is not fragmentation, and it is not a presence problem.

The singular model did not make you one thing, it just asked you to perform as though you were.

The women I have watched move across multiple rooms and multiple roles without losing themselves are not the ones who collapsed everything into one consistent identity, they are the ones who stopped treating multiplicity as a failure of presence.

That distinction matters because flattening takes energy, and over a long career that energy cost compounds into the very thing the model was supposed to prevent. Fatigue, disengagement, a leader who used to be visible stepping back from the rooms she should be in without anyone naming why.

What replaces the model

The answer is not to bring everything into every room, and it is not to narrate your life to your stakeholders or make every meeting personal. The professional context still asks for a particular kind of presence, and what changes is the model underneath it.

The shift is from a presence built around a single self to a presence with enough range to hold all of who you are, without requiring you to manage the gap.

In practice, that looks like this. You stop apologising internally for being more than one thing. You build a presence that is honest enough to walk into a client meeting with the daughter waving in the rain still in your awareness, without leaking it, without performing it, without leaving it outside the door. You stop running the gap as a daily cost.

A client said to me at the end of our work together: “For the first time, I feel like I’m not broken. I just didn’t understand and I didn’t trust who I was.”

She was not broken before our work, she was running one version of herself through a life that was always multiple. What changed was not who she was, it was what she stopped asking of herself.

What this means for the rooms you are walking into

If you are operating at senior level and you find yourself tired in a way that rest is not fixing, the issue is rarely workload alone. It is often the energy cost of running a presence model that was never designed for the life you are actually living.

The work is not finding the one right version of yourself, because the one right version was always the wrong question.

The work is building a presence capacious enough to hold the full version of you, the leader and the mother and the partner and the strategic thinker, the one who watched her daughter wave from a rain-blurred window at 5am and walked into a client meeting four hours later as exactly the same person, with all of it still true.

What makes presence sustainable at senior levels is not consistency across rooms, but the capacity to hold all of who you are inside them.

A question to sit with

What are you leaving outside the room before you walk in, and what would change if you did not have to?

I would love to hear your answer in the comments.

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The Moment Your Body Knows What Your Mind Hasn't Admitted Yet

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Fri, 08 May 2026 02:00:40 GMT

I was in a first conversation with someone who seemed genuinely aligned. Our audiences overlapped, the opportunity felt real, the logic was sound, and somewhere underneath all of it my body was bracing. It wasn’t dramatic, just a steady tension that registered before my brain had translated it into anything I could name.

I overrode it.

The next eighteen months gave me the same signal in almost every interaction with that person. A persistent no that I kept managing with empathy, logic, and the genuinely good intention to help. By the time I let myself acknowledge it, I’d already spent time, energy, and a fair amount of trust in my own reading of the room. The lesson wasn’t the collaboration itself, it was what it cost me to keep saying yes when my whole system was saying no.

I see a version of this in almost every woman I work with at a leadership level, not in the same situation but in the same dynamic. She has the body of evidence a long career builds. She picks up on tone shifts in a meeting before anyone has finished speaking. She knows, before she can articulate it, that the dynamic in the room has changed, that the brief she’s been handed isn’t quite right, that the person across the table isn’t actually with her. Then she watches herself reason her way past it with the same overrides I used: empathy, logic, the assumption that being thoughtful means doubting the part of her that already knows.

Most leadership conversations about decision-making work at the wrong altitude. We talk about frameworks, pros and cons, sleeping on it, asking trusted advisors, all of which has a place. It also sits on top of a more foundational layer that most women in leadership have been trained, often without realising it, to override.

I’m a generator or builder in human design, and my decision-making authority is sacral, a yes or no that arrives fully formed in the moment. The architecture itself isn’t the point so much as the underlying observation: you have some form of internal knowing that exists outside of logic, and you’ve probably been overriding it at work for years. For some it lives in the gut, for others in the chest or throat, sometimes as sudden clarity, sometimes as a fog that won’t lift. The medium matters less than the fact that the signal is there.

What happens when you override it is the part most leaders don’t name out loud. When you say yes from your head and override the no from your body, something starts to collapse, slowly. Your presence fractures, the clarity that comes from real alignment gets diluted, and you start carrying weight that was never meant for you. The energy it takes to hold that weight, to manage the misalignment, and to keep committing yourself to something your system doesn’t believe in, isn’t really about confidence or capability, it’s a disconnect between what you’ve committed to and what you actually know.

Someone says yes to a high-profile role with the prestigious title, the capable team, the meaningful work, because every external signal says she should. Six months in, she’s drained in every meeting, none of the standard explanations apply: she’s capable, the role is legitimate, the team is good, and something in her still knows it isn’t her yes. Another commits to a collaboration that ticks every strategic box on paper, then finds that every call with the partner feels like managing her energy rather than generating it. A third says yes to a promotion that looked like the obvious next step, and realises halfway through the year that her body never agreed to the climb.

The label we typically attach to this disconnect is confidence. The advice is always to develop more of it, to assume the issue is internal doubt. After watching a lot of leaders move through these moments, I’d say the ones who look genuinely solid aren’t the ones without self-doubt, they’re the ones who’ve learned to listen to something underneath it. They’ve learnt to read their body’s signal as information rather than as something to manage around.

There’s a book that landed on my desk early in my leadership career called Thinking, Fast and Slow. The thesis is compelling: our quick decisions are often biased, so the answer is to slow down, sit with the logic, consult the rational mind before committing. I absorbed it thoroughly, started sleeping on every decision, reworking it, building the case for and against. It made me a sharper decision-maker, while also, without my realising it, teaching me to override what my body was already trying to tell me.

What I didn’t know then, and what I know now, is that the two systems are meant to work together, not compete. You can trust an immediate knowing and still walk it through the logic, and honour what your body is telling you while you lay out the pros and cons, let your gut give the direction and your brain work through the consequences. The speed of your body and the rigour of your brain support each other, as long as you’re not burning energy convincing yourself that your head is right when your body knows it isn’t.

The eighteen months in that so called collaboration taught me what it actually costs to override your own authority, and the experience itself isn’t something I regret. It wasn’t a failure, it was a lesson I was willing to pay. What shifted on the other side of it was that I started to honour the signal sooner, things became slowly clearer. Decisions that should have been complicated became simple, doors that looked like opportunities revealed themselves as distractions, and the work I chose to invest in got lighter, because the fog had started to lift.

This is why leadership presence sits underneath everything else, including style. Presence is what’s left when there’s no disconnect between what you’re doing and what you actually know. When the alignment is real, people feel it, when it isn’t, no amount of preparation covers the gap.

If you need permission, take it: permission to stop overriding the signal, to let the no be a no even when it looks like an opportunity, to recognise that every time you say yes to something your body is uncertain about, you’re not being flexible or open-minded, you’re fracturing your own presence in the rooms that matter most.

The next decision in front of you, the one that looks logical but doesn’t feel right yet, is worth pausing on before you reason your way past the signal. Leadership isn’t only about how you look in the room or what you’ve achieved, it’s about how solid you are in your own knowing.

This is the work that sits at the centre of how I coach. HD insight, applied through Leadership Design, is one of the tools I use to help women in leadership understand how they’re actually wired to make decisions, so they stop forcing themselves into a decision-making style that fundamentally misaligns with how they’re built. Working with your own authority instead of against it isn’t softness, it’s structural. Decisions get less complicated, the energy it takes to lead becomes sustainable, the presence people respond to emerges from alignment rather than effort.

So I’ll leave you with a question. What’s the signal you’ve been overriding lately, the one you keep reasoning your way past? I’d genuinely like to know. Drop it in the comments below.

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The Visibility Equation: Why Bold Doesn't Always Mean Seen

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 01:01:18 GMT

Talking to a client recently, I remember her telling me that she was in a meeting where one of the leaders in the room was offering her opinion. She wasn’t the most senior in the room. It was what my client then noticed; this particular leader didn’t gesture wildly or speak in complex professional words or a really powerful voice. My client said, “You could feel the room lean in slightly, because I was watching; I was really aware of it. People actually listened intently, stopped typing…” My client asked me in our session why and how that happened, and in that moment, I realised they were asking the wrong question. They were asking “How did she do that?” when they should have been asking “What did she actually do?”

This happens more often than you’d think.

There’s a narrative that’s become almost the norm in spaces where you hear the rehtoric about visibility: if you want to be seen, you need to be bold. Bright colours, high energy, more space, more volume. More powerful, always more forthright and in control to hold spaces and have impact. When and if that doesn’t match who you are, the implication and direction is clear. Sorry, everyone, you need to leave your real personality at the door, and you need to become that person anyway…

I’ve watched women contort themselves while trying to fit that mould. Some succeed at the performance. Many burn out, and I can put my hand up to say that I have been there and done that too. The ones who earn respect and get sought after for work rarely achieve that by being the loudest voice in the room, or solely focusing on the performance.

The bold equals visible narrative is outdated, and it’s also just factually incomplete.

I’ve spent years in rooms full of leaders, and I’ve noticed something that most visibility advice of the past completely misses. The noise doesn’t correlate with influence. The people demanding respect and resources aren’t necessarily the ones dominating conversations. It’s sometimes the ones that you least expect, the ones with a clear, consistent presence, and research backs this up. Studies on executive presence consistently show that influence and respect come from something deeper than volume or aesthetics.

Think about the women in leadership or entrepreneurship you know or follow who actually move the needle in their spaces. Did they get there by being the brightest, loudest person? Or did they get there by knowing exactly who they were and showing up that way, consistently? Probably the latter. Yet we’re still being sold the loudness narrative like it’s some kind of universal truth.

I’m talking about the woman who speaks rarely, but people wait to hear what she says. The one whose energy in a room feels grounded, not scattered. The leader who doesn’t need to tell you she’s credible because it’s obvious. They’re not usually the ones who fit the “bright and bold” template.

The problem with the “bold equals visible” narrative is that it collapses visibility into something one-dimensional. Aesthetics. Volume. Performance. however, visibility isn’t actually about any of those things. It’s about clarity, who you are, how you work to bring out the best, and what you bring to the table. You either are clear or feel like it’s actually a little blurry. You can’t fake it, and you can only perform it for so long... The moment you step off the stage, the performance ends, and people are left wondering who you actually are.

When you think about that group that came to mind, many of those respected, sought-after leaders have in common: it isn’t boldness. It’s a throughline. Everything about them tells the same story. Their presence matches their positioning. Their positioning matches what they’re actually good at. Their style doesn’t contradict their message. When all of that aligns, people feel it.

There are times when you may need assertion and a touch of loudness, but having it with your touch to it can make all the difference. So think about it like an equation, presence + positioning, + perception = visibility your way.

Presence is how you carry yourself. It’s your energy before you say a word. It’s the way a room experiences you when you walk in. But here’s the thing that gets lost in the bright colours conversation: presence isn’t about volume. It’s about resonance with who you are. Some people are naturally commanding; others are quieter but grounded. Both can create presence. Both can make people pay attention. The question isn’t “How do I become louder?” It’s “Do I know who I am, and does that clarity come through?”

Positioning is where you place yourself. Are you in the rooms where the decisions actually happen? Are you in conversations with people who matter for where you want to go? I know talented women who’ve spent years perfecting their presence, but they’re still showing up in the wrong rooms. No one can be influenced by you if they don’t see you. Real visibility work includes being strategic about where you show up, not just how.

Perception is how people interpret what they see. This is where most women get tripped up. They work hard on presence, and they hope positioning works itself out, but perception gets left to chance. Here’s what I mean: if your visual identity, your communication style, your energy, and your brand don’t have a throughline, people subconsciously get confused. There’s friction, a disconnect. They don’t quite know who you are or what you stand for, so they default to whoever and whatever was most familiar. Then, suddenly, staying quiet feels safer than risking being misunderstood.

When I work with clients on their presence, we’re actually working on all three of these at the same time. But we’re doing it in a way that feels like you. Not in a way that requires you to become someone else. That’s the critical difference. Most executive presence, personal style, and communication coaching ask you to adopt someone else’s model. Mine asks you to get clearer about yours.

A client of mine described it well. She said, “I don’t feel like I’m learning a new skill. I feel like I’m learning to be seen for who I actually am.” That’s the work. You’re not adding a performance layer; instead, you’re removing the things that create the disconnect between who you are and how you show up.

The woman I mentioned in that boardroom? She knew her presence. She was quiet but absolutely certain. She positioned herself by being in that meeting in the first place, which meant someone trusted her to be there. Her perception was rock solid because there was zero friction between who she was and how she showed up. Everything with a throughline.

That’s where the real visibility comes from.

I think about this a lot, especially because I work in an industry that talks a lot about style. The entrepreneurial spaces, especially, are full of advice about wearing colour and owning your space. Instagram is full of women in bold patterns and bright hues, with the implication that this is the only way you get noticed. Some of that advice can be useful, only if it starts from a place of clarity about who you are.

If you’re wearing a bright colour because you think you have to, you’re not actually being seen. You’re just hiding behind something else. The audience changes, but the hiding continues. That’s the trap. You trade one form of invisibility for another, just with better production value.

So, here is your permission to stop asking “How can I be more bold?” and start asking “What’s really true about who I am and where I want to go?” The boldness question is reactive. You’re measuring yourself against someone else’s standard. It’s time to build something that actually works for you.

From there, everything else flows naturally. Your style supports your presence because they match. Your positioning makes sense because you know what matters and where to show up. Your perception becomes clear because there’s no gap between who you are and who you’re showing up as. People see you consistently across all three elements, and trust becomes easier. They know what they’re getting.

This doesn’t mean you can’t be bold. Plenty of people are naturally bold and that’s genuinely them. But if boldness isn’t naturally you, you don’t need it to be visible. You need clarity. You need to know your presence, place yourself strategically, and make sure people see what’s actually true about you.

That’s what creates visibility that lasts. Not the pressure to be something you’re not.

I’ve watched women spend years trying to force boldness. They wear the colours, trying to take up the space, show up with high energy… and they burn out. Because they’re performing. The exhaustion is real because the effort is real. You can only hold the mask for so long before it catches up with you.

Watching and helping women get clear on who they actually are and what they want. They get clear on their presence; they position themselves in the right rooms. they align their brand with their energy. Suddenly, visibility stops feeling like an effort. It becomes effortless, not because it requires no work, but because the work is aligned with who they actually are.

If you’ve felt the pressure to be bolder, brighter, and louder. If you’ve wondered whether visibility is even possible when that’s just not how you were wired, I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Leadership Presence Across Every Room: Why Reading the Room Isn't Code-Switching

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 07:28:07 GMT

A client of mine, a senior pharma executive, could walk into a boardroom and hold her own with anyone. Her stakeholder management was sharp, her presence at that level was dialled, and there was no friction there.

I asked her about the school fundraiser she’d attended the weekend before. She laughed, but it wasn’t comfortable. She’d spent twenty minutes in her wardrobe trying to figure out what to wear. Nothing from her corporate wardrobe felt right for that room, and nothing from her weekend wardrobe felt like her. She went in jeans and a top she didn’t feel great in, and spent the whole event somewhere between two versions of herself.

That’s a presence problem, not a wardrobe problem. And it’s one I see constantly in the women I work with. They’ve got one room figured out, usually the boardroom. But when the context changes, when it’s an industry dinner or a networking event or a conference or a school fundraiser where they run into a board member, there’s no strategy for how to carry themselves across those moments. They default to corporate mode in every room, or they feel like they’re starting from scratch each time. The first creates friction, the second creates exhaustion.

The Question That Changed How I Explain This

During my recent Beyond Executive Presence masterclass, someone asked a question I’ve been turning over since. The question was: “How do you address the potential conflict between authenticity and projecting a specific style?”

It’s a fair question. And it points to something a lot of women in senior roles are carrying around: the idea that adapting how you present yourself across different contexts means being inauthentic. That if you wear one thing to the boardroom and something different to an industry dinner, you’re performing. That reading the room and choosing how to carry yourself based on what the moment requires is somehow a compromise of who you are.

That frame leads to two predictable outcomes, and neither of them serves the leader.

The first is rigidity. You develop a presence strategy for the boardroom and then bring that same energy to everything. The networking event, the team offsite, the hallway conversation after the meeting. You’re the same volume in every room because you’ve absorbed the message that consistency equals authenticity. What it actually creates is friction, because a board presentation and a school fundraiser require different things from you, and treating them identically is not consistency. It’s inflexibility.

The second is guilt. You do adapt, and then you question yourself throughout. You soften your tone for one room, sharpen it for another, and there’s a voice in the back of your head asking whether this is still really you. That’s the code-switching concern: the worry that adaptation means you’ve lost something.

Neither of those is what leadership presence actually looks like.

What Frequency Tuning Means in Practice

Think about your leadership as having multiple facets: strategic thinking, warmth, analytical precision, collaboration, directness, creativity. These are all genuinely you, and they’re all part of how you lead. But not every context requires all of them at the same volume.

In a board presentation, you might bring your strategic thinking and directness to the front. At a team offsite, warmth and collaboration. At an industry dinner with people you’re meeting for the first time, curiosity earns more ground than leading with your expertise. At a school event, warmth runs and the professional dimension stays in the background unless the moment calls for it.

None of those adjustments change who you are, since you’re choosing which facets of the same identity to bring forward depending on what the moment requires. Think of it this way: the instrument is the same, the player is the same, the expression changes because the venue demands it. This is what frequency tuning means, not switching between different people, but tuning the expression of the same person to fit what the room needs.

The distinction matters because code-switching implies becoming someone else. Frequency tuning starts from the assumption that your identity is already complete, and the question is which aspects of it are most useful right now.

When the foundation is clear, the choices become obvious. You’re not performing a version.

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98: Reading the Room Isn't Code-Switching. It's Amplifying the Right Frequency.

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:02:48 GMT

You’ve got the boardroom dialled. But what about the networking event? The industry dinner? The school fundraiser where you run into a board member at the cake stall? Most women in senior leadership have a presence strategy for one room and wing every other context they find themselves in.

In this episode, I break down why adjusting how you present yourself for different rooms isn’t code-switching, and what frequency tuning actually looks like in practice. Using real client stories and observations from 25 years in corporate, I walk you through how to carry the same identity across every room by choosing which facets of your leadership to amplify depending on what the moment requires.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Most women have a presence strategy for one room, usually the boardroom, and wing every other context. The hallway conversation, the Zoom call, the networking event, and the school pickup are all presence moments that require different things from you.
Code-switching implies becoming someone else. Frequency tuning means choosing which facets of your existing identity to bring forward depending on what the context requires. Your identity stays constant. Your expression adapts.
Locking into one mode across every room isn’t consistency, it’s rigidity. A boardroom and a school fundraiser require different things from you, and treating them the same creates friction in both.
Your leadership has multiple facets: strategic thinking, warmth, precision, creativity, directness, collaboration. Not every context requires all of them at the same volume. The skill is knowing which to amplify and when.
When your identity is clear, the tuning feels natural. You’re not managing the question “how do I need to present myself?” because the answer becomes obvious. Your wardrobe, your tone, and your energy all serve the same foundation.
Building a presence strategy across your rooms starts with three steps: get clear on your leadership facets, map your regular contexts and what each one requires, and audit your wardrobe against all of your rooms, not just the one you’ve optimised for.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Opening: The Gap Between Projection and Reality
0:31 - Welcome to the Style and Strategy Podcast
0:51 - Leadership Presence Beyond the Workplace
2:08 - It’s a Presence Problem, Not a Wardrobe Problem
3:01 - Why Reading the Room Is Not Code Switching
3:31 - Balancing Authenticity and Projecting Style
5:34 - Fine Tuning Your Frequency
6:40 - The Musician Analogy
7:38 - From Jeans to the Executive Table
8:31 - Strategy for Only One Room
10:16 - When Your Identity’s Clear, Tuning Feels Natural
10:56 - Map Your Rooms
12:23 - Wardrobe as a System
12:44 - The Masterclass Follow-Up
13:04 - The Real Cost of Not Having a Strategy
13:26 - You’re the Same Woman in Every Room

RESEARCH REFERENCED

No external research cited in this episode. Concepts drawn from Sonya’s proprietary frameworks and 25 years of corporate leadership experience.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

➡ Find out what is creating the gap between your capability and how your experience is in under 5 mins. Complete the Leadership Presence Gap Assessment here: Assessment

➡ Download the Wardrobe Guide for women in leadership – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact: Guide

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

CONNECT WITH SONYA

➡ Connect with me on social media

97: Executive Presence Teaches You to Perform. Leadership Presence Lets You Stop.

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 18:01:37 GMT

What happens when you’ve been told to “work on your executive presence” and you take that advice seriously? You learn to project confidence, manage your body language, speak with brevity, dress the part. And it works on the surface. But inside, it costs you something, and the gap between what you’re projecting and how you actually feel keeps getting wider.

In this episode, I unpack the difference between performing presence and leading from identity, using a fascinating psychology experiment from Dartmouth and real client examples to show why the old model breaks down. If you listened to episodes 93 and 94, this is where the conversation gets practical: what does it actually look like when you stop performing and start leading from who you are?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Dartmouth scar study showed that when people believed they had a visible facial scar (which had been secretly removed), they reported being treated differently. Their expectation shaped their experience, not reality. The same dynamic plays out in corporate leadership when women internalise feedback about their presence.
The performance trap happens when you build presence on tactics without a foundation of identity. You learn to project confidence, but managing the gap between projection and reality drains cognitive energy in every room.
Confidence is built through mastery experience, not projection. Bandura’s self-efficacy research confirms that the most powerful source of confidence is successful action, but you need self-trust to take the action in the first place.
You cannot fix the external components of presence without addressing internal clarity first. A stylist can dress you. A communication coach can sharpen your delivery. Neither will hold without understanding how you’re naturally designed to lead.
Identity-first presence changes three things: your morning gets simpler (wardrobe becomes a tool, not a daily decision), your conversations change (preparation is about content, not performance), and the gap between rooms closes (you’re the same person in every context).
When presence comes from identity rather than performance, it sustains without the energy cost of constant recalibration.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Opening: The Gap Between Projection and Reality
0:25 - Welcome to Style and Strategy Podcast
1:10 - The Dartmouth Scar Study
2:41 - Corporate Version: Executive Presence Feedback
3:27 - Putting On vs. Leading From Identity
4:52 - The Founder Who Rated Herself a 3/10
6:18 - The Three Components of Leadership Presence
7:23 - Style Serves Identity
9:19 - What Changes When You Lead From Identity
10:49 - The Scar Study Revisited
12:11 - Where the Real Work Begins

RESEARCH REFERENCED

Kleck, R.E. & Strenta, A. (1980). Perceptions of the impact of negatively valued physical characteristics on social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(5), 861-873.

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

➡ Find out what is creating the gap between your capability and how your experience is in under 5 mins. Complete the Leadership Presence Gap Assessment here: Assessment

➡ Download the Wardrobe Guide for women in leadership – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact: Guide

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

CONNECT WITH SONYA

➡ Connect with me on social media

96: She Stopped Being the Busiest Person in the Room. Here's What Happened

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:01:56 GMT

Every senior woman I work with says some version of the same thing: “I know I need to work on this, but I’m so busy.” The busyness is real. The workload is real. But what most women don’t realise is that busyness isn’t a neutral holding pattern. Every week you show up without strategic intent, the perception people have of you is hardening. The “safe pair of hands” label, the “reliable executor” reputation, those calcify into how people read you.

In this episode, I name the busyness pattern for what it is, share the research on why perception doesn’t wait, and give you a five-minute starting point that breaks the cycle. This episode is for the senior woman who rates her capability at eight or nine and her presence at three or four, and keeps telling herself she’ll get to it when things calm down.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The gap between capability and presence widens while you wait. Perception isn’t static. First impressions and early labels shape how people interpret everything that follows (Asch, 1946; Sullivan, 2019).
Delivering is safe. Positioning is vulnerable. For women who’ve built careers on output, claiming space through presence instead of performance feels like a risk. Busyness becomes the acceptable reason to avoid it.
Unintentional signals are still signals. Research on the Red Sneakers Effect (Bellezza, Gino & Keinan, 2014) shows that deliberate nonconformity signals status and competence, but only when it’s perceived as intentional. Showing up without strategic thought sends the opposite signal.
The “safe pair of hands” perception calcifies over time. The primacy effect means early impressions carry disproportionate weight. The longer the “reliable executor” label sits, the harder it is to shift.
Working on your presence doesn’t require a sabbatical. The first step is diagnostic: naming where the gap between capability and how you’re experienced is actually showing up. That takes five minutes.
Clarity comes before the wardrobe. The first thing that changes isn’t what you wear or how you speak. It’s your ability to articulate who you are as a leader and how you want to be experienced.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Opening: Strategic Presence
0:28 - Welcome & Introduction
1:24 - The Capability vs. Presence Gap
2:20 - When Busyness Becomes the Problem
4:04 - Three Women, One Pattern
5:53 - The Primacy Effect
7:56 - Deliberate vs. Unintentional Presence
9:04 - Breaking the Cycle
10:21 - Identifying Your Gap
12:11 - Take the Leadership Presence Profile
12:19 - Final Thoughts

RESEARCH REFERENCED

Asch, S.E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), 258-290.
Sullivan, J. (2019). The primacy effect in impression formation: Some replications and extensions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(4), 432-439.
Bellezza, S., Gino, F. & Keinan, A. (2014). The red sneakers effect: Inferring status and competence from signals of nonconformity. Journal of Consumer Research, 41(1), 35-54.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

➡ Find out what is creating the gap between your capability and how your experience is in under 5 mins. Complete the Leadership Presence Gap Assessment here: Assessment

➡ Download the Wardrobe Guide for women in leadership – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact: Guide

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

CONNECT WITH SONYA

➡ Connect with me on social media

95: The Advice to Not Stand Out Is Keeping You Invisible

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:28:24 GMT

A charisma expert recently advised women not to dress in ways that make them stand out for the wrong reasons. The advice isn’t wrong. It’s just not finished. It tells you what to avoid but gives you nothing to do instead.

In this episode, I unpack why the “stay safe” strategy that helped you belong early in your career is the same strategy that’s making you invisible at senior levels. I walk through the research on how visual signals shape perception in under 100 milliseconds, why what you wear changes how you think and perform (not just how others see you), and the three questions I use with every client to move from default dressing to strategic presence.

If you’ve been fitting in so successfully that you’re not being read at all, this episode is for you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The advice to “not stand out for the wrong reasons” is protective, but it leaves a gap. It tells you what to avoid without giving you a framework for what works instead. For senior women, the real risk isn’t standing out wrong. It’s not being read at all.
Willis and Todorov’s research at Princeton found that competence judgments form within 100 milliseconds. If your visual signal is neutral, you’re not getting a negative read. You’re not getting a read at all. At Director level and above, that’s a problem.
Enclothed cognition research by Adam and Galinsky showed that what you wear changes how you think and perform, not just how others see you. Defaulting to safe reinforces a neutral signal internally, costing you cognitive energy even when you can’t name it.
The Dartmouth scar study (Kleck and Strenta, 1980) demonstrated expectation bias: participants who believed they had a visible scar reported being judged by strangers, even after the scar had been secretly removed. When you feel like you don’t look the part, you read the room through that filter.
Three questions to move from default to strategic: What does this room need from me? Does what I’m wearing reflect the level I’m operating at or the level I came from? Am I making a choice, or am I avoiding one?
Visual friction doesn’t just affect how others see you. It affects how you see the room seeing you. The longer it sits, the more it reinforces how people already read you.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Opening: Visual Friction & First Impressions
0:37 - Welcome & Podcast Introduction
1:24 - The “Don’t Stand Out” Advice Problem
2:39 - When Safe Strategies Stop Working
4:45 - What is Visual Friction?
5:56 - The 100 Millisecond Judgment Research
7:04 - Client Example: Marketing Executive
8:09 - How Self-Doubt Shifts with Seniority
9:17 - Strategic Presence Framework
11:14 - Three Key Questions for Any Outfit
14:36 - The Dartmouth Scar Study
15:35 - How Visual Friction Compounds
16:37 - Leadership Presence Impact Profile
17:42 - Closing: Creating the Right Attention

RESEARCH REFERENCED

Willis, J. & Todorov, A. (2006). First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-Ms Exposure to a Face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592-598.
Adam, H. & Galinsky, A.D. (2012). Enclothed Cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 918-925.
Kleck, R.E. & Strenta, A. (1980). Perceptions of the impact of negatively valued physical characteristics on social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(5), 861-873.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

➡ Find out what is creating the gap between your capability and how your experience is in under 5 mins. Complete the Leadership Presence Gap Assessment here: Assessment

➡ Download the Wardrobe Guide for women in leadership – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact: Guide

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

CONNECT WITH SONYA

➡ Connect with me on social media

94: Beyond Executive Presence: What Women in Leadership Actually Need (Part 2)

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:02:22 GMT

Last week I broke down what’s broken about the traditional executive presence model. This week, I’m walking you through what replaces it.

Leadership presence is a dynamic interplay of three components: Presence, Positioning, and Perception. I call it the Visibility Equation. When the three are working together, people experience you at the level you lead. When one is off, something feels wrong, even if you can’t name it.

In this episode, I unpack each component, the research behind it, and what it actually looks like in practice. If you listened to Part 1, this is where it gets practical.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Presence is internal clarity: understanding who you actually are, not who you think you should be. Princeton research shows we form first impressions in one tenth of a second. If there’s a disconnect between who you are internally and how you’re projecting, people sense it.
What you wear changes how you think, not just how others see you. The enclothed cognition study (Adam & Galinsky, 2012) found that participants wearing a lab coat they believed was a doctor’s made fewer errors on attention tasks than those told it was a painter’s coat. Your external expression shapes your own cognitive performance.
Positioning is what you’re known for, the rooms you’re in, and the conversations you’re part of. Strategic visibility means being remembered for what matters, not being visible everywhere. It requires reading the room and choosing which aspects of your leadership to amplify depending on the context.
You have multiple facets to your leadership: strategic thinking, warmth, analytical precision, collaboration. Not every context requires all of them at full volume. Choosing which to amplify based on what the moment requires is sophisticated leadership presence.
Perception is how others experience you. Appearance is only 5% of Hewlett’s executive presence framework, but it’s the first 5%. If your visual expression doesn’t match who you actually are, people may never experience your gravitas or your communication.
Visual friction happens when your internal identity and external expression are off. You’re wearing something that looks right but feels wrong, and that drains cognitive energy when you need it most. Embodied cognition research shows that physical discomfort from misaligned clothing directly impacts cognitive function.
Leadership presence requires all three components working together: internal clarity (Presence), strategic visibility (Positioning), and external alignment (Perception). When one is off, something feels wrong. That gap is the work.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Welcome & Introduction
0:25 - Leadership Presence Formula
0:40 - Internal Clarity
1:42 - Leadership Philosophy
2:10 - First Impressions
4:00 - Research Study
5:28 - Positioning
8:54 - Perception
11:04 - Visual Friction
13:50 - Free Assessment
14:40 - Communication by Design
16:23 - Closing

RESEARCH REFERENCED

Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-ms Exposure to a Face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598. Princeton University.

Adam, H., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). Enclothed Cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 918–925.

Hewlett, S. A. (2014). Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success. HarperBusiness.

Embodied Cognition:
Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded Cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 617–645.

CONNECT WITH SONYA:

➡ Find out what is creating the gap between your capability and how your experience is in under 5 mins. Complete the Leadership Presence Gap Assessment here: Assessment

➡ Download the Wardrobe Guide for women in leadership – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact: Guide

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media

RELATED EPISODES

If you enjoyed this episode, start with Part 1 (Episode 93), where I break down what’s broken about the traditional executive presence model and why the shift to leadership presence is happening now.

93: Beyond Executive Presence: What Women in Leadership Actually Need (Part 1)

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:01:05 GMT

Executive presence has been the gold standard for decades. Project authority. Dominate the room. Wear the power suit. That model was built for command-and-control hierarchies, and it’s costing leaders innovation, talent, and trust.

In this episode, I break down what’s broken about the traditional executive presence model, why the shift to leadership presence is happening now, and what research says about leading through performance versus leading from identity. Part 1 of a two-part series. Next week, I walk you through the three components of leadership presence and what it looks like in practice.

If you’ve been told to “work on your executive presence” and the advice felt generic or exhausting, this one is for you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The traditional executive presence model was built for a different era. It centres on projecting authority, dominating rooms, hiding emotion, and looking the part. That worked for command-and-control hierarchies but it is no longer serving the leaders expected to operate through them.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s framework identified three pillars: gravitas (67%), communication (28%), and appearance (5%). These elements still matter, but the model focuses on projection and performance rather than identity and alignment.
Women face a double bind the old model doesn’t account for. Expected to exhibit both warmth and assertiveness, women who lean into assertiveness are perceived as abrasive. Those who prioritise warmth are dismissed. The executive presence playbook was never designed for this reality.
Current executive presence programs teach tactics without foundation. Persuasion, communication, networking, and visual articulation are important skills, but learning them without understanding how you naturally influence turns presence into performance.
Three forces are driving the shift to leadership presence. AI is making human skills (critical thinking, empathy, emotional regulation) more valuable. Hybrid work requires trust over control. Constant change demands resilience built on internal steadiness, not external projection.
Leaders with high emotional intelligence outperform earning goals by 20% (McClelland, cited in Goleman 1998). This is profitability, not soft skills.
Leadership presence is a dynamic interplay of three components: Presence + Positioning + Perception. If one of these three is off, something feels wrong even if you can’t name it. Part 2 goes deeper into each.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Introduction: Executive presence is dead
1:00 - Podcast intro
1:30 - Why this conversation matters now
2:30 - The old executive presence model (projection, performance, polish)
3:45 - The three pillars: Gravitas, Communication, Appearance
4:30 - The problem: You can’t sustain performance
5:00 - The cost of command-and-control (40% creativity suppression, 25% higher turnover)
6:15 - The double bind for women leaders
7:00 - What traditional programs are still teaching (and what’s missing)
8:30 - Why 2026 requires something different
9:00 - The 2026 landscape (AI, hybrid work, constant change)
10:30 - The empathy dividend (research-backed data)
11:45 - Introducing The Visibility Equation™
12:30 - Leadership Presence = Presence + Positioning + Perception
13:00 - Teaser for Part 2 + closing

RESEARCH REFERENCED

Hewlett, S. A. (2014). Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success.
HarperBusiness. McClelland, D. (1996). Competency assessment methods, cited in Goleman, D. (1998). What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review. Double bind research: Catalyst and HBR studies on gender expectations in leadership.

CONNECT WITH SONYA:

➡ Find out what is creating the gap between your capability and how your experience is in under 5 mins. Complete the Leadership Presence Gap Assessment here: Assessment

➡ Download the Wardrobe Guide for women in leadership – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact: Guide

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media

92: Strategic Wardrobe Planning for Leaders: How to Map Your Calendar to Your Closet

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 04:00:32 GMT

The autumn/winter collections are dropping. And my inbox this week? Full of the same question: “Sonya, what should I be buying for next season?”

Here’s what I tell my clients: Don’t start with what’s trending or what’s on the rack. Start with what’s on your calendar.

Smart leaders don’t buy reactively. They plan based on what’s ahead.

In this episode, I’m walking you through strategic wardrobe planning, the process I use with my clients to map their calendar to their closet so their wardrobe works FOR them instead of against them.

You’ll learn:

→ Why decision fatigue reduces cognitive function by 24% (and what that means for your leadership)

→ How visual friction impacts your performance in high-stakes moments

→ The 3-step framework: Map your calendar, Identify gaps, Refresh strategically

→ How to distinguish “everyday meetings” from “high-stakes moments”

→ What strategic refresh actually means (it’s not buying everything new)

The research-backed truth:

Every morning you spend deciding what to wear is mental energy you’re NOT spending on strategic decisions
What you wear changes YOUR cognitive performance by up to 50%
We form first impressions in 1/10th of a second based on visual cues

This is for you if you’re tired of scrambling the night before important presentations, spending 20 minutes in your closet every morning, or feeling like your wardrobe creates visual friction instead of supporting your leadership.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

THE PROBLEM: REACTIVE BUYING + DECISION FATIGUE

Most leaders buy reactively (wait until they need something, scramble the night before)
Or they buy based on trends (what’s new, what everyone else is wearing)
Neither approach is strategic
Decision fatigue research: 24% reduction in cognitive function after making consumer choices
Judge study: Parole decisions drop from 65% (start of day) to nearly 0% (end of day) due to decision fatigue
Every morning spent deciding what to wear = depleted mental energy for strategic decisions

THE INTERNAL COST: VISUAL FRICTION

Visual friction = wearing something that doesn’t feel right (even if it looks professional)
You spend mental energy managing what you’re wearing instead of focusing on the room
Enclothed cognition research: What you wear changes YOUR cognitive performance by 50%
When external expression aligns with internal identity = you perform better, make sharper decisions
When misaligned = cognitive load reduces performance

THE FRAMEWORK: MAP → IDENTIFY → REFRESH

Step 1: MAP YOUR CALENDAR (3-6 months ahead)

Look for high-stakes moments (not everyday meetings)
What qualifies: work travel, conferences, board meetings, client presentations, speaking opportunities
Ask: “Do I need to be remembered or just present?”
Note: context, formality level, what you want to communicate
We form first impressions in 1/10th of a second—your wardrobe speaks before you do

Step 2: IDENTIFY GAPS

What’s working? (pieces that make you feel grounded and confident)
What’s creating visual friction? (looks fine but feels wrong, physically uncomfortable)
Where are your gaps? (missing pieces for high-stakes moments)
By the end: clear list of what’s working, what’s not, what’s missing

Step 3: REFRESH STRATEGICALLY

Fill the gaps (buy for your calendar, not trends)
Quality over volume (one great blazer for 5 board meetings > 5 okay blazers)
Inject color (one new accent color refreshes entire wardrobe)
Edit ruthlessly (if it didn’t make the “keep” list, let it go)
Result: fewer pieces that work harder for you

THE OUTCOME: When you plan strategically, your wardrobe stops being a source of decision fatigue and becomes a strategic asset. You free up mental energy to focus on what actually matters.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Introduction: AW collections dropping
0:30 - Podcast intro
1:00 - Don’t start with trends, start with your calendar
1:30 - The problem: reactive buying
2:30 - Decision fatigue research (24% reduction in cognitive function)
3:30 - Judge study (parole decisions drop throughout day)
4:00 - Visual friction: internal cost
5:00 - Enclothed cognition research (50% performance change)
6:00 - The framework introduction: Map, Identify, Refresh
6:30 - STEP 1: Map your calendar (high-stakes moments)
8:00 - What qualifies as high-stakes? Examples
8:45 - “Be remembered or just present?”
9:30 - First impressions formed in 1/10th of a second
10:00 - STEP 2: Identify gaps (what’s working, what’s friction, what’s missing)
11:30 - Client example: 15 blazers but none worked for new role
12:15 - STEP 3: Refresh strategically
13:00 - Fill gaps (quality over volume)
13:45 - Inject color (refresh without starting over)
14:15 - Edit ruthlessly (strategic wardrobe = less that works better)
15:00 - The Leadership Capsule Intensive (Feb 22)
16:00 - How to join + closing

RESEARCH REFERENCED

Decision Fatigue:

Kathleen Vohs et al., “Making Choices Impairs Subsequent Self-Control” (2008)
Finding: 24% reduction in cognitive function after making consumer choices
Application: Every morning spent deciding what to wear depletes mental energy for strategic decisions

Judge Decision Quality:

Shai Danziger, “Extraneous factors in judicial decisions” (2011)
Finding: Parole granted 65% at start of day, drops to nearly 0% by end of day
Application: If judges make life-changing decisions differently based on decision fatigue, what decisions are YOU making differently after 20 minutes in your closet?

Enclothed Cognition:

Hajo Adam & Adam Galinsky, “Enclothed Cognition” (2012)
Finding: Wearing “doctor’s coat” vs “painter’s coat” (same coat, different label) = 50% fewer errors on attention-demanding tasks
Application: What you wear doesn’t just signal to others—it changes how YOU show up cognitively and behaviorally

Visual Processing Speed:

Princeton University researchers (2006)
Finding: We form first impressions in 1/10th of a second based on visual cues
Application: Your wardrobe speaks before you do

Full Research Citations:

Vohs, K. D., et al. (2008). “Making Choices Impairs Subsequent Self-Control: A Limited-Resource Account of Decision Making, Self-Regulation, and Active Initiative.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(5), 883-898.
Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011). “Extraneous factors in judicial decisions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(17), 6889-6892.
Adam, H., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). “Enclothed cognition.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 918-925.
Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). “First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-Ms Exposure to a Face.” Psychological Science, 17(7), 592-598.

LINKS & RESOURCES

THE LEADERSHIP CAPSULE INTENSIVE

Date: February 22, 2026
Format: Virtual group intensive
Investment: $397
What you get:
- Map YOUR calendar (actual high-stakes moments for next 3-6 months)
- Identify YOUR gaps (using your real closet, real calendar)
- Build your 10-piece strategic wardrobe (foundation pieces for YOUR leadership identity)
- Clear plan (not just ideas—actionable plan)
- Know what to keep, what to let go, what to add
- How to combine 10 pieces into multiple outfits
- How to refresh seasonally without starting over

Who it’s for:

You have high-stakes moments coming up and your wardrobe isn’t ready
You’re tired of scrambling the night before important presentations
You want to reduce decision fatigue and show up more grounded
You’re ready to think strategically about your wardrobe instead of reactively

How to join:

Reply to newsletter with “CAPSULE”
DM on Instagram or LinkedIn with “CAPSULE”
Limited spots (small group for personalised attention)

CONNECT WITH SONYA:

➡ Find out what is creating the gap between your capability and how your experience is in under 5 mins. Complete the Leadership Presence Gap Assessment here: Assessment

➡ Download the Wardrobe Guide for women in leadership – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact: Guide

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media

91: Strategic Wardrobe Planning for Women in Leadership

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 23:45:50 GMT

Welcome back! In this first episode of 2026, I’m sharing my annual wardrobe audit process and how I successfully sold 70% of my pre-loved clothing pieces.

But this isn’t just about decluttering, it’s about maintaining alignment between who you’re becoming as a leader and how you’re showing up. I walk through my strategic approach to keeping a curated wardrobe that reduces decision fatigue and reflects your leadership identity.

You’ll hear about my experience testing two resale methods (Airrobe online consignment and Venla physical rack rental), plus practical tips on pricing strategy and maximising your return on investment when editing your wardrobe.

Key Takeaways

Regular wardrobe audits are essential for leadership alignment. Conduct wardrobe reviews multiple times per year to ensure your closet reflects your current leadership identity, lifestyle, and brand direction, not who you were three years ago.
Maintenance over replacement. The goal isn’t to buy new things constantly. It’s to maintain what you have and strategically remove what no longer serves you or aligns with where you’re going.
Create a boutique experience to reduce decision fatigue. Organize your wardrobe like a clean, curated store. When your closet feels like a boutique, getting dressed becomes effortless instead of exhausting.
Use a strategic dual reselling approach. Combine online platforms (like Airrobe) for convenience with physical rack rentals (like Venla) for higher-value pieces to maximise your success rate.
Know your selling environment. Research the store demographic and popular items before selecting pieces for rack rental. Understanding your buyer helps you choose what will actually sell.
Price strategically for ROI. When rack rentals cost ~$280 AUD, focus on quality pieces that will help you break even quickly rather than filling the rack with volume-based items.
Leverage rotation opportunities. When items sell from your rented rack, bring in backup pieces to maximise the rental period and keep fresh inventory available.
Approach it as an experiment. Test different methods to discover what works best for your situation. Wardrobe decluttering isn’t one-size-fits-all.

Timestamps

0:00 - Introduction: Annual wardrobe audit process
0:30 - Podcast intro
1:15 - Welcome back for 2026
2:00 - Why audit your wardrobe regularly (alignment with leadership identity)
3:10 - Maintenance vs. buying new: strategic approach
4:00 - Creating a boutique wardrobe feel to reduce decision fatigue
6:00 - Organizing by color and type for visual clarity
7:00 - Deciding what to keep vs. what to sell
7:40 - Two resale options: Airrobe online consignment & Venla rack rental
8:20 - Top selling tips for maximizing success
10:00 - Understanding store demographics before selecting pieces
10:20 - ROI strategy for $280 rack rental investment
11:30 - Results: Successfully sold 70% of selected pieces
12:00 - Rotating pieces as items sell to maximize rental period
14:00 - Break-even achieved in two days
14:20 - Q&A and audience engagement
15:20 - Closing thoughts

Links and Resources:

➡ Airrobe - Online consignment platform for pre-loved clothing

➡ Venla - Physical rack rental for reselling clothing

➡ Find out what is creating the gap between your capability and how your experience is in under 5 mins. Complete the Leadership Presence Gap Assessment here: Assessment

➡ Download the Wardrobe Guide for women in leadership – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact: Guide

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media

How can one change make such a difference?

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 11:31:42 GMT

I bought myself Shokz Open wireless headphones for Christmas. The gift you buy yourself because no one ever knows what to get you.

I’d been using wired earphones for years. After losing too many AirPods I just gave up on wireless and went back to the cord. And they were fine, for a while.

But over the last couple of years the frustration started creeping up. Five minutes every morning untangling them. Falling out mid-run. Getting caught in my jacket on the way into a meeting. The kind of small, daily annoyances you stop noticing because you’ve been tolerating them for so long.

Then I switched. And the difference was ridiculous not because wireless buds are revolutionary, but because I’d completely forgotten what it felt like without the friction.

I think about this with my clients.

The woman who tells me her boss gave her a look in a meeting and she physically shrunk in her chair. She can’t explain why. She’s senior. She knows her stuff. But something about how she’s being experienced in that room isn’t matching what she’s capable of.

Or the one who’s sat through another 20 minutes of a meeting where no one will say what actually needs to be said and she’s about to lose it, but she doesn’t, because she’s not sure it’s her place. Even though it absolutely is.

None of this is a crisis in the moment. It’s a friction. Small, persistent, easy to normalise. You adjust around it. You compensate. You tell yourself it’s fine.

Until one day it’s not fine anymore. You either stop caring, lose your cool, or finally pick up the phone for help, And while you’re adjusting, the opportunities keep moving.

Most of the women I work with don’t need someone to tell them what to do. They need someone who’s been in those rooms and knows what friction looks like from the inside.

Sometimes the fix is smaller than you’d expect. And the difference, like going from tangled wires to wireless feels crazy in hindsight.

The hardest part isn’t the fix. It’s deciding you’re done tolerating it.

What’s your version of the tangled earphones, the small thing you tolerated for way too long before deciding it’s time for change?

The Visibility Equation™: What's Actually Driving How You're Experienced

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 07:01:44 GMT

Last week I mentioned that your visibility isn’t just about what you wear. It’s the combination of three key components working together. Today, I’m breaking down the Visibility Equation™.

How you’re experienced is not random. It’s not luck. It’s not about being the loudest voice in the room.

There’s actually an equation to it.

Once you understand it, you can start making intentional shifts rather than wondering why things aren’t connecting the way they should.

Presence + Positioning + Perception = Visibility

When all three components are working together, you’re not just seen. You’re experienced as the leader you actually are. When one is off, there’s a gap between your capability and how others receive you.

Let me break each one down.

Presence: How You Visually and Energetically Show Up

Presence is how you carry yourself. Your energy. Your leadership style. It’s what people experience before you’ve said a word.

This isn’t about following rules or looking a certain way. It’s about whether how you’re showing up actually reflects the leader you are and the one you’re becoming.

When presence is working for you, people experience your authority before you speak. When it’s not, there’s a disconnect between what you know you’re capable of and what others are picking up.

Positioning: Where You Are Seen and How You Establish Authority

Positioning is about the spaces you show up in and how you communicate your authority when you’re there.

It’s owning your authority and strategically placing yourself where the right people see you. Are you contributing in ways that demonstrate strategic thinking? Or are you primarily known for delivery and execution?

Positioning isn’t self-promotion. It’s intentional visibility. It’s making sure the right people see you doing the work that reflects where you’re headed, not just where you’ve been.

Perception: How Others See and Introduce You

Perception is how others experience you and interpret your leadership brand. It’s how they’re talking about you in the rooms where you’re not there. It’s how they introduce you to others.

The question is: does it actually match how you want to be perceived?

This is what people say about you when decisions are being made. It’s whether they can clearly articulate what you stand for and what you’re capable of leading.

Here’s What Makes This Powerful

You can have strong presence with weak positioning, and you’ll be respected but not remembered.

You can be well positioned yet inconsistent in how you show up, and people won’t quite trust what they’re seeing.

You can have both working, yet if perception is unclear, you won’t be part of the conversations that matter.

The equation works when all three are working together. That’s the difference between being valued for what you deliver and being positioned for what you’re capable of leading.

Making It Practical

Most women I work with have at least one of these components that needs attention. The first step is simply knowing which one.

Ask yourself:

Presence: Does how I show up visually and energetically reflect the leader I am becoming?
Positioning: Am I in the right spaces, establishing my authority and being seen by the right people?
Perception: How are others introducing me? Does it match how I want to be perceived?

Once you know where the gap is, you can start making intentional shifts.

Food for Thought

Whether you’re doing it intentionally or not, your visibility is being shaped by these three components every day. The leaders who get recognised aren’t necessarily more talented. They’re more intentional about how they’re experienced.

Which of the three needs the most attention for you right now: Presence, Positioning, or Perception?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear what resonates.

Sonya x

Leadership | Brand | Style

Want to find out what might be holding back your visibility? Take my free quiz here.

90: Grounded Presence: Practical Strategies for Confident Communication

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 18:02:11 GMT

In this episode of the Style and Strategy Podcast, Sonya, a personal brand and style coach, shares the secrets behind maintaining a grounded presence when speaking in public or on video. Addressing a common question, Sonya explains her framework consisting of physical grounding, vocal grounding, and energetic grounding. She discusses her personal rituals and tactics, such as lighting a candle, using a power pose, and pacing her speech. Drawing from her corporate leadership and presentation coaching experiences, Sonya offers valuable advice for amplifying one’s presence and leading with confidence. Listeners are encouraged to practice these techniques and reach out for personalized coaching. The episode wraps up with holiday wishes and a preview of what to expect in 2026.

Key Takeaways:

Grounded presence is built through practice, not natural confidence.
Use three pillars:
- Physical grounding: Pre-speaking rituals and strong posture.
- Vocal grounding: Slow down, pause for impact, and speak from your chest.
- Energetic grounding: Focus on one clear message and be authentic.
The more you practice, the more comfortable and powerful you’ll become as a speaker.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to the Style and Strategy Podcast
00:46 Staying Grounded: The Honest Truth
01:54 The Three Non-Negotiables for Grounded Presence
06:32 Physical Grounding Techniques
09:58 Vocal Grounding Strategies
13:36 Energetic Grounding: The Internal Work
17:28 Final Thoughts and Holiday Wishes

Links and Resources:

➡ A 4 part private podcast to help you reconnect with how you want to be seen, so your leadership presence reflects who you are, not just what you do.

Own The Room

➡ Download the Wardrobe Checklist for Professional Career Women – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact:

Checklist

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media

Your Presence Speaks Before You Do. So what’s It Saying?

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 02:20:44 GMT

You’ve built your expertise, delivered results, and proven your capability. So when things aren’t connecting the way they should, it’s worth asking: what’s actually shaping how you’re being experienced?

Whether we realise it or not, how we show up influences how we’re perceived. Before you even speak, people are forming opinions about your credibility, confidence, and authority.

If you think I’m only talking about style, think again. Your visibility isn’t just about what you wear. It’s the combination of three key components. I call this the Visibility Equation™. When even one is off, there’s a gap between your capability and how others receive you.

I’ll be breaking down the Visibility Equation™ in my next newsletter. Stay tuned.

3 Quick Insights on Presence

Style is more than fashion. It’s a leadership tool. What you wear can either reinforce how you want to be experienced or create a disconnect.
Your presence communicates before you speak. People are forming impressions within seconds. The good news is small shifts can make a real difference.
The most recognisable leaders aren’t just known for their work. They have a presence that reflects who they are. How you show up visually and energetically is part of how you’re remembered.

Food for Thought

Visibility isn’t about shouting “look at me.” It’s about showing up with intention. I know this because I’ve been the one who was valued but not positioned for where I wanted to go. They’re not the same thing.

Your presence is either reinforcing your leadership or creating a disconnect. The most effective leaders don’t leave it to chance. They refine it with intention.

Does your presence reflect the leader you are and the one you’re becoming?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear what comes up for you.

Sonya x

Leadership | Brand | Style

Want to find out what might be holding back your visibility? Take my free quiz here.

89: Strategic Personal Planning for Your Leadership Presence in 2026

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:00 GMT

In this episode of the Style and Strategy Podcast, Sonya, a personal brand and style coach, emphasizes the importance of planning for personal growth and leadership presence before the New Year chaos begins. She discusses the tendency to prioritize others' needs over personal evolution and shares two diagnostic exercises to help listeners align their brand and style with their future goals. Sonya's exercises aim to identify key areas for improvement and establish a clear vision for 2026. The episode encourages listeners to take proactive steps in December to start the new year with a solid, personalized plan for success.

Key Takeaways:

Don’t try to overhaul everything, focus on strategic refinement in the areas that matter most.
Identify your two to three lowest-scoring areas and make them your focus for 2026.
Define three to five words that describe the leadership presence you want to embody in 2026.
Choose one concrete action you can take in the next seven days to align your style and brand with your vision.
Take time to plan now, before the new year and holiday rush, so you enter 2026 with clarity and momentum.
Your brand, style, and leadership identity should evolve with you, intentional planning and action are key to meaningful change.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and December Reflections
00:34 The Importance of Personal Planning
02:09 Welcome to the Style and Strategy Podcast
02:56 Why January Planning Fails
04:07 Diagnostic Exercises for 2026
06:43 The Brand and Style Life Wheel
13:19 Vision Exercise for 2026
16:53 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Links and Resources:

➡ A 4 part private podcast to help you reconnect with how you want to be seen, so your leadership presence reflects who you are, not just what you do.

Own The Room

➡ Download the Wardrobe Checklist for Professional Career Women – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact:

Checklist

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media

88: Unlocking Leadership Presence: The 3% Style Refinement

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 18:00:00 GMT

Episode Summary:

In this episode of the Style and Strategy Podcast, personal brand and style coach Sonya explores how leadership and personal evolution demand not just career proficiency, but also an aligned personal style. Sonya introduces her concept of the 'Ladder of Elevation' to make small yet impactful wardrobe refinements that reflect your current leadership presence. From understanding why your go-to outfit might feel 'off' to making targeted adjustments without overhauling your closet, learn how to ensure your style aligns with who you are now and the rooms you want to lead. Discover strategies for tailoring, upgrading finishing touches, and embodying your signature style to amplify your presence and impact.

Key Takeaways:

Your wardrobe reflects your personal and leadership evolution - when it feels "off," it's a sign you've grown beyond your old self.
You don't need a complete overhaul; small, strategic refinements can make a big impact.
Focus on tailoring, upgraded accessories, and intentional finishing touches to elevate your style.
These 3% changes help align your appearance with who you are becoming, boosting confidence and presence.
The right style choices ensure you're experienced as the leader you are in the rooms that matter most.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to the Style and Strategy Podcast
00:46 The Power of Your Go-To Outfit
02:15 Understanding the Wardrobe Shift
02:40 The 3% Change: Small Refinements, Big Impact
05:25 The Ladder of Elevation Framework
09:20 Foundation Fit: Ensuring Your Clothes Fit Today
10:27 Finishing Touches: The 3% Upgrades
12:14 Signature Style Embodiment
14:00 Practical Steps to Elevate Your Wardrobe
17:16 Conclusion and Next Steps

Links and Resources:

➡ A 4 part private podcast to help you reconnect with how you want to be seen, so your leadership presence reflects who you are, not just what you do.

Own The Room

➡ Download the Wardrobe Checklist for Professional Career Women – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact:
Checklist

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media

87: Why Your Ideas Aren’t Landing — And What to Do About It

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:00:00 GMT

If you’ve ever walked out of a meeting thinking, “I literally said that 20 minutes ago… why did it only land when someone else repeated it?”, this episode is for you.

In today’s conversation, Sonya breaks down one of the most overlooked elements of leadership presence: communication design — the bridge between how you naturally express yourself and how your audience actually processes information.

You’ll learn why capability isn’t your barrier, why confidence isn’t the real gap, and why even highly experienced leaders still feel unheard despite delivering results. Sonya explains the four primary communication processing channels (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, auditory-digital), how they influence perception in high-stakes rooms, and how to translate your message so it lands every time — without changing who you are.

This episode is essential listening for leaders transitioning from expert to executive, from execution to strategy, or anyone tired of feeling overlooked in meetings, boardrooms, and strategic presentations.

Key Takeaways

The real gap isn’t your capability — it’s how you're being experienced.
Leaders often get dismissed because their delivery doesn’t match the way their audience processes information.
People absorb information through four channels:

Visual: needs structure, mental imagery, “picture this”
Auditory: tuned to tone, pacing, resonance
Kinesthetic: needs to feel, notice, experience
Auditory-Digital: needs logic, sequence, step-by-step reasoning

You have a natural communication blueprint.
It can be precision, storytelling, emotional resonance, vision, simplicity, or real-time insight — and forcing yourself into someone else’s pattern creates disconnect.
The goal isn’t to change who you are.
It’s to translate your natural design into the channel your audience is prioritizing — especially in high-stakes moments.
When you don’t translate your message, you risk:

being labeled too in the weeds
being seen as not strategic enough
getting overlooked in critical conversations
walking out feeling unheard

Timestamps

00:00 — Why capability isn’t the gap
01:00 — The experience vs. delivery problem
02:00 — Visual communication vs. verbal communication
03:00 — The 4 communication processing channels
06:00 — Why mismatches cause brilliant ideas to fall flat
09:00 — Why “be more concise” advice fails
10:00 — Your natural communication blueprint
13:00 — Why the expert → executive transition feels uncomfortable
14:00 — How to translate your design into your audience’s channel
17:00 — What happens when the gap is unaddressed
18:00 — Why you’re making yourself smaller in meetings
19:00 — The real definition of leadership presence
20:00 — How to work with Sonya to map your communication design

Links & Resources

➡ A 4 part private podcast to help you reconnect with how you want to be seen—so your leadership presence reflects who you are, not just what you do.

Own The Room

➡ Download the Wardrobe Checklist for Professional Career Women – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact:
Checklist

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media

86: Invisible in the Room? 5 Leadership Patterns Quietly Costing You (and How to Shift Them)

Sonya Choi La Rosa — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:00:00 GMT

This isn’t a teaching episode—it’s a coaching session. Sonya guides you through a live inquiry to surface the hidden patterns that make high-achieving women feel invisible in high-stakes rooms. You’ll identify your dominant pattern, see where it once served you, quantify what it’s costing you now, and choose one concrete action to shift it this week.

You’ll learn

The five most common leadership patterns behind “I felt invisible”:
1. Strategic restraint (waiting for the perfect moment)
2. Room calibration (shapeshifting your energy)
3. Invisible influence (doing the work, missing the visibility)
4. Preparation as protection (over-prepping, under-trusting)
5. The recognition gap (excellent work, under-positioned)
Why these patterns worked earlier in your career—and why they stall you now
The specific costs: missed influence, diluted presence, and stalled advancement
A simple, one-step assignment to break the loop this week

Coaching prompts from the episode

“What story did you tell yourself in that moment?”
“When did this pattern serve you?”
“What is this pattern costing you now—specifically?”
“If you weren’t running this pattern, what would you do instead?”

Action menu (pick one this week)

Speak once in the first 10 minutes of a meeting (end the “perfect timing” myth)
Decide your baseline energy before 3 meetings and bring that energy
When praised, don’t deflect: “Thank you—here’s what I focused on.”
Prepare enough, then trust yourself to navigate live
Make one win visible (DM/email/post walking through your thinking)

Who this is for
Senior female leaders and founders who are deeply capable, yet feel under-seen in high-stakes rooms—and are ready to align identity, expression, and positioning.

LINKS & RESOURCES

➡ A 4 part private podcast to help you reconnect with how you want to be seen—so your leadership presence reflects who you are, not just what you do.

Own The Room

➡ Download the Wardrobe Checklist for Professional Career Women – Get a curated list of must-have wardrobe staples that blend versatility, style, and impact:
Checklist

➡ Book Your Strategy Call

➡ Find out more about programs and services

➡ Connect with me on social media