654: When Your Expertise Becomes a Liability Here’s Inspiration To Build Massive Executive Presence and Get Promoted

Know Your Own Executive Presence Strengths & Opportunities:

Click here to pinpoint the specific area in your executive presence that’s keeping you invisible to senior leadership and guarantees you stay working hard as a pack mule who never gets promoted.

What if the expertise that made you successful is the very thing putting your career at risk in the age of AI. I’ve got you covered.

You've spent years, maybe even decades, becoming exceptionally good at what you do. But as AI takes on more of the technical tasks professionals once relied on to demonstrate their value, being the most knowledgeable person in the room may no longer be enough.

So how do you stay relevant, influential, and indispensable without starting your career over?

In this episode, Laura shares the fascinating story of how Hermès evolved from making horse harnesses to becoming one of the world's most recognizable luxury brands—and what that transformation can teach you about AI, creativity, and executive presence.

By the end of this short episode you’ll know how to:

🎯Recognize when your hard-earned expertise may be limiting your growth and reposition your value around the strategic outcomes you help create.

😎Use curiosity, creativity, and powerful questions to challenge outdated assumptions and become someone whose perspective leaders actively seek.

🧩Reinvent your professional contribution without abandoning the skills, experience, and strengths that made you successful in the first place.

Listen now to discover how to turn your expertise into lasting influence and build the kind of executive presence that keeps you relevant, valuable, and heard in the age of AI.

And here's one more question for you.

As the world of work changes, are you being recognized for the value you bring today—or are people still seeing you through the lens of what you've always done?

Because your expertise may have gotten you where you are, but your executive presence determines how much influence you have over what happens next.

If you'd like to know where you stand, take my free Executive Presence Scorecard assessment.

It will help you identify where your executive presence is working for you—and where you may be missing opportunities to increase your influence, visibility, and impact.

Here’s the link.

To learn more visit www.speakupwithlaura.com. New Speak Up podcast episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday early in the morning.

The Speak Up Podcast helps high-performing professionals develop executive presence through strategic communication, executive confidence, and leadership influence. Each episode provides practical strategies to help you speak up in meetings, communicate with senior leaders, present ideas with clarity, build executive visibility, strengthen your leadership presence, influence without authority, stop overexplaining, answer difficult questions with confidence, and become a trusted executive leader.

Whether you're preparing for your next Vice President promotion or looking to communicate with greater credibility and gravitas, you'll learn actionable executive communication skills that accelerate career growth.

Topics covered in this episode:

• How AI is changing jobs, careers, and the value of professional expertise
• What Hermès teaches us about business reinvention and staying relevant
• How Nintendo, Nokia, and 3M adapted to changing markets
• Why creativity and curiosity are essential executive presence skills
• The difference between technical expertise and strategic leadership
• How to future-proof your career in the age of artificial intelligence
• Why your professional identity should be bigger than your job title
• How to recognize and communicate your transferable skills
• The role of creative thinking in executive influence and decision-making
• How high-performing introverts can use observation and curiosity to stand out
• Why being the smartest person in the room isn't enough
• How to build executive visibility by contributing fresh perspectives
• Reinventing your personal brand without abandoning your expertise
• How to assess your executive presence and identify opportunities for growth