Rosaria Meek on Executive Presence and Style

On this episode, I talk style, executive presence, and being a woman in higher education with Dr. Rosaria Meek, professor, student of leadership, and founder of the Oracle of Style.

Transcript

Rosaria's website: https://rosariameek.com/

Rosaria's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosaria-meek-ph-d-74b79a3/

Rosaria's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theoracleofstyle/

Rebecca Pope-Ruark (RPR): On this episode, I talk style, executive presence, and being a woman in higher education with Dr. Rosaria Meek, professor, student of leadership, and founder of the Oracle of Style.

Welcome to the Agile Academic, a podcast for women in and around higher education. In each episode, we tackle topics from career vitality to burnout and everything in between. Join me as I chat with inspiring women about their experiences, pursuing purpose, making change, and driving culture in the academy and beyond. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Pope Ruark. Hi, Rosaria, welcome to the show. 

Rosaria Meek (RS): Good morning, Rebecca. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. 

RPR: Excellent. So why don't you just take a second and introduce yourself to the listeners. 

RS: Wonderful. Where do I even start? I feel like we're so complex as human beings, but my name is Rosaria Meek and it is a full mouth. So I always tell people, just call me Rosaria. I am an Italian native and I am a college professor as well as a founder of the Oracle of Style, which is a premier style coaching business, an executive presence with an executive presence focus. 

RPR: Excellent. I'm excited to dive into your journey over the course of our time together this morning. So I always like to start with a question. How would you define your purpose in higher education? 

RS: I'm going to answer this question and I am going to put higher education as a complimentary part because I believe as human being, so we cannot really separate who we are. Also in the professional environment, who we are and what we do are different facets, but who we are does not change. So my purpose truly is I would love to see everybody thrive and by thriving means being in their authentic power. So when you get educated and higher, education is the highest form of that freedom path to be authentically yourself, to express yourself, and to have the tools to continue growing, right? So in a sense, when you are on the higher education path, it is a path to thrive. And then in my business, I help people thriving by being in their authentic power, which I translate into. I am able as an individual to tell my story through my visual presence, through my nonverbal communication, through my leadership, how I influence, how I impact people. And I also believe that everybody's a leader and these leadership skills, these presence skills can be and should be developed throughout our time. So essentially the purpose in my life is to empower people so that everybody can thrive. 

RPR: I love that. I think that's such an important part of the show's called the Agile Academic. It really is about how do we find that space for ourselves where we can do the work that we want to do, but also have the life that we want to have and be the person that we want to have. And you can't separate those things from your being. 

RS: Yeah, no, you can't really do that. And as a matter of fact, in my coaching training with the thriving part and the thriving aspects, I have explored that part of the holistic idea of the individual. And once again, it's hard. Yes, we have professional personas and we have personal, we move in different systems and environments. Yet ultimately who you are and how you lead and the impact that you want to make in your life and in the life of others should be in alignment. 

RPR: I love the connection between leadership and presence and the work that you do and the thriving connection to both of those things in one place. I mean, when we met you were the president of the Georgia Association of Women in Higher Education, which is connected to the ACE network. So I love to watch your leadership journey, but tell me a little bit more about your entrepreneurial journey. 

RS: That has been an interesting journey and I'm loving every bit of it. And it is journey that started way before it actually started. I think that is the case for every entrepreneur. So I am doing as an entrepreneur, what I was doing, what I have done my entire life. I literally start styling when I was three years old, I was styling my Barbies, I was making outfits, and I would tell people this color and this pattern, and I would always be interested in how people carry themselves. What is it about this person that makes me want to listen to versus not? What is it that I'm thinking? Oh, there's not resonance there. So truly the journey started a long time ago, but as a journey to an effective business development and all of that, it was a hard one to say the least. I had my own resistance to that because for so long I identified it myself as a college professor and I had to have people over people. 

And I'm so grateful for these people over people that said, why aren't you doing this? You are already doing it. Could you please let everybody know that these are your gifts and talents? Can you share those with the people that need them? So the path to entrepreneurship has been, once again, a wonderful one. It's a little messy, but I would say for your listeners that if you do a couple of activities, but there are traits of personality as well as gifts and talents and competencies that we all have, and in order to thrive, we should really maximize those. And I know Rebecca, you're doing a phenomenal job with the podcast, with the books and with everything that you do in developing others, I see you and I am inspired by you and so many other women who take the leap of faith of saying, I have these competencies, I have the skills and it is a must that I should share them with the world. 

If I want to add one more thing about the entrepreneurship journey is that they always say this in business. If that's the thing that keeps you up at night in the sense of it is the purpose, it is something that you want to do because it matters. Because in impacts others just do it. I got to that point that not only I had so many people telling me, you should be doing this, and I was already doing it, right? I was already studying people, I was already coaching people. And if it is truly the burning desire, no matter how hard it is to navigate, I had to learn how to do a business plan. I'm an academic, I've never done that. I took literally, I invested so much time of my time and myself, my resources, my financial resources to truly learn how to do this and it's worth it and it gives me so much joy and there is no day that I regret it. 

RPR: That's so great. Thank you for sharing that journey. I'm curious how we can connect, because part of your business, it's about style, but it's about executive presence and how you present yourself and how you show up in spaces. Talk to me a little bit more about that piece of it, the executive presence piece and how that's connected to the whole purpose of thriving. 

RS: Absolutely. So I'm going to give you the definition of the Harvard Business Review for executive presence because I think it helps put things in context. Of course there is much more that goes to that. But the definition of executive presence is the ability to project confidence, take charge in challenging situations, make timely decisions, and then hold your appearance, your communication and your in a way that makes people recognize who you are, feel your presence so that you can influence others. And we want to hope that the influence is always positive, right? For everybody's well-being and for the growth of an institution and organization wherever you are. So when we think about the three pillars of executive presence, which are appearance, communication, and gravitas, there are a few important data because the academics analysis, give me the numbers, there are significantly important to understand and those are things that corporate world understands very well because corporate world works on a return on investment while higher education might not embrace that perspective fully. 

So let's talk about appearance and me, I talk a lot about visual capital and the truth is that people within seven seconds, actually some research even says three seconds create a full, I mean a full story about who you are, your competencies, your status, very likely, your job, your personality, just by seeing you first impression type of thing. And I want to pause here because it is kind of scary, but the visual capital for people who have invested in their appearance turns into a double the salary. This is data, double the salary for women and for men who dress professionally, it's 18% more. Well, the salary and this is also across different fields, different type of businesses. To me, even if you don't want to do it for yourself, I would do it for the money. You know what I mean? So that's data and there's not much that we can say about that. 

As in this is what matters, this is what means. So once you are investing in your visual capital, I'm going to go a little more into the visual capital part because I work with the HR firms as well as search firms, especially in higher education. And it's that part that needs to be implemented either in the preparation to the interviews during the interview, and then crucially after the job has been given to you because you're going to have pictures taken and people do not prepare for photo shoots. That's a big mistake. Women out there know that the first thing that people Google is your name, but surely your picture. So how can we as women specifically tell a story with our picture of who we are and how well we can lead, how competent we are, how trustworthy we are, because these are all things that women in leadership already have. 

So can we translate that with our visual capital? I also work a lot with communication, the second pillar, and specifically with nonverbal communication, because data says nonverbal communication is 58%, 58% of what people are perceiving. So what do you do with your head? How do you enter a room? What does your posture says about you? And this is a big one. I also coach etiquette. How do you sit? You sit in an interview, you go enter the room, and then you will see legs that go into directions that should not, or recently I went to see a panel. I wasn't on the panel, it was just the spectator. And if you're wearing a skirt, make sure that the length is proper. I mean, there's so much that can be said. And this is not in a judgmental way, quite the opposite. This is have the tools and use them in your favor. And the last is gravitas, which translates into confidence. And this is how it relates 

To truly everything. First of all, you cannot earn the trust of others. And as leaders, we influence. So we want people to understand our idea so that we can implement the ideas and also have a win-win situation there. And I have many clients who will come and say, I'm shy, I'm introverted, I don't feel confident about X, Y, and Z. I always tell them confidence is a muscle and it can and must be built. I am a first gen student. I come from a very small town. As a child, I did not particularly have any bigger influence in my life that I could look up. I mean, my parents were honest. The integrity part of working, absolutely, and that's huge. But as far as the presence, I think the biggest presence in my life was my grandma who was uneducated, completely illiterate, almost. I think she did only one year of elementary school. 

But when grandma was in the room, you felt her. And when grandma spoke, she listened. So what was it about grandma is the gravitas, the confidence that makes the difference, that truly helps you in your essence come out not in a forceful way, but in a undeniable way of this is who I am, this is what I stand for, and I'm visible. Right? So I hope, I know it was a long answer and description of what executive presence truly is and there's much more, but I really wanted to give your listeners this comprehensive idea that there are things that we can and we must develop and they're all accessible to us. 

RPR: Thank you for that. I think that was really important. I think when women, especially, I spent a lot of the last year and a half talking to women leaders around higher education, and I think we think that our hard skill set is what's going to get us the job or what's going to help us in leadership, but it's a combination of things, right? It's how we show up in those spaces that gets us the respect and the gravitas that you were talking about. So it's not just the hard skills or what I've learned as a academic, what I've learned as an academic leader, it's really the confidence to be in those spaces where you're not always welcome as a woman leader. 

RS: And also another thing that it is important to talk about, because I don't think men talk about networking and they do it very confidently and it is what they do all day every day, right? They go play golf together, they'll have informal meetings for a beer or something. Women have a different approach. So I actually teach the art of networking because networking is truly where you can confidently and authentically show yourself, tell another woman, another man. This is who I am and this is what I do. Because ultimately this is not about our own ego. When you are not sharing who you are, you are denying the rest of the world of your light, your talents, your skills. So can we as women network in a more intentional way, can we not be frightened by it? I have some clients that truly think, you know what? 

I don't feel good. It's not my thing to go and I have this networking event and conferences. Can we talk about conferences? It is an opportunity to showcase who you are so that you can give back. I think that when we approach things where it's about others and not about ourselves, it inhibits all the limiting beliefs that we tell ourself of, I'm not worth it, the whole imposter syndrome, who am I to be here? Well, guess what? The world and everybody in the room needs to know who you are. So conferences and then overall, I also share with people, especially with leaders, we prepare, probably women, I would say we overly prepare for meetings. Do you agree on this? 

RPR: Definitely, 

RS: Right? You're not going to show up to a meeting, have not read the minutes, not read the data, and it is just not how we operate. So I teach people how to intentionally prepare their presence. So is that through the outfits that are curated? Is that through a timely manner thing? Like don't show up and pick up the first thing from your closet? Are you going to a conference? Absolutely no yourself know who's in front of you and know the environment that you are, the systems that you are navigating. 

RPR: When I've talked to folks about networking too, I've done some workshops on campus, it's that idea that you prepare for that, that you can go into that space prepared and confident, but that you're not just trying to find people who can do something for you, right? You're building relationships. It could be a long-term connection that you cultivate over time. That conference is that first impression, that first meeting, right? But over time, you develop those relationships and you foster those relationships. And that's where the real importance, I think, is to leadership and to thriving in so many ways, right? It's that connection that you build over time. But that first impression matters so much 

RS: And the first impression matters. And also even if you might have not done a first impression, it takes about scientific, it takes about seven other times to redirect that, even if, but that's okay. This is good news, right? This is very good news that even if you said, oh my goodness, I showed up last year at this conference and I did did X, Y, and Z. Well first of all, journal about it. Be intentional and then purposely show up in the very same space. You can change that. It might be a subtle thing, but people will start noticing either consciously or subconsciously. Also. Rebecca, you just said something that so important about the idea of thriving. We are neurologically wired to thrive in communities and we people, when we go networking, when we go to work, when we are around students, when we are around leaders, when we are in our communities, in our spaces, we need that exchange in order for us to thrive. 

RPR: I'm thinking that we often women who often go into these spaces are telling ourselves stories that long-term stories that we've created in our heads. For a long time I had this being a little vulnerable. Now I had this belief that no one would remember my face for some reason. I don't know where that came from. I don't know what that was, but I was always afraid to walk into a space and walk up to someone maybe I knew from social media or something and say hello and introduce myself in person. It just had this weird kind of belief that no one would remember me, that I wasn't important in that space. And it took a really long time to get over that and to realize that we all bring something to those spaces and we do need that community and we need to make those connections to thrive in our workplace, but also just as human beings, like you said, because we're definitely wired for that connection piece. 

RS: First of all, I appreciate that vulnerable share and let's normalize that we all have, we're going to use the word limiting beliefs because it's an easy word to understand. We all tell stories to ourselves. Let me share something with you. I had a phenomenal, and what I mean, phenomenal mentor, she actually lives in DC and her name is Nita Banks. And because it's important that women recognize other women who told me, you belong here. And one day she said, write it in a post. You belong here. I had the post. I still had that post because every day I was going, I was only an assistant professor and I was going into spaces where I had the lowest title. I have been around the presidents, I've been around the CEOs of BMW, mayors of bigger cities and Christian student, right? With an accent immigrant. I would be thinking, do I really belong here? 

And let me tell you, every day I would either open the computer, I had it on my desk, and I would hear her voice saying, you belong here. And it made the difference. It truly made the difference. So let's normalize that. We all have that. There are tools to work on that, to eradicate that. I do that with my clients. They do. I lead them through some EFT, which is emotional freedom training. Are you familiar with Yeah, it's a great, it's obviously science-based tool, and we go deep with journaling and we explore questions with coaching. In other words, the first step is what you were just talking about, the self-awareness of, well, I'm telling myself this story, and then there is the sage and there is the saboteur. The saboteur will tell you, well, nobody will remember your face. The sage will come in and say, Rebecca, you are a bright light. You give so much to others. Of course, people remember your face. Of course, people remember who you are, what you do. So the mastery yourself is you can still hear the saboteur. The saboteur is not going to go anywhere. Neurologically, we are actually wired to have saboteurs because it's a response. Yet, how can we move into the master yourself and say, well, hello, Sage, I see you. I hear you, and you are the best part of me that is telling me the truth, right? So it is navigating space of mastery, self mastery

RPR: Let's talk a little bit more about the coaching that you do with folks. Tell me a little bit more about your coaching style and how that contributes to the thriving and the executive presence. 

RS: Yeah, absolutely. First, I do different offerings. I work one-on-one with the clients. Sometimes the clients hire me directly or sometimes is through higher education or corporate, somebody who would like to invest on their leaders. So the one-on-one clients, and people use different packages. One is the elevated style that brings them from their closet to a fulfillment of a look book. In other words, for people who don't know what to wear, the look book will give you that. And it truly is branding and personal styling, right? It's the creation of the visual capital. Some people also go to the route of the executive presence, and that does include the presence coaching. It's the three tier, right? It's appearance, nonverbal communication, and the confidence. And then I also do workshops either virtual or in-person where I talk about executive presence, the art of networking and verbal communication style. 

And the last thing that I do kind of combines them all packages on event ready or if people have Pablo plans, I'll go and pack for them. The coaching, I have to say, is very flexible in a way. And I love that I can use all the training that I have truly worked on and invested on throughout the years. Because for example, some leaders need modern etiquette. And by etiquette I mean not just the table manners. People confuse when they hear etiquette. They think, oh, she'll teach me how to eat, of course. But truly is how do you even present in a virtual way is your background. I mean, there's so much that goes to that. How do you shake your hand, part of the posture part. And then because I leave the world in different spaces and all over the world, I love to offer people cultural competence. 

This is an understated pool that I think everybody should have awareness of and think about that. And then of course, I go to conferences. I'm an invited speaker and I love to talk to different audiences about what I do. And one thing that probably I am very intentional is I always want to leave people with tools, go home and implement this because ultimately confidence requires the science of confidence requires a risk taking. So is it risky today to wear something that I normally don't, but I know that it looks good on me? Is that risky for me to go up to my supervisor and said, I'd like to talk with you today because my performance has being X, Y, and Z, and I would like to see that reflected in my paycheck. I mean, all those things I think make the difference in people's thriving. 

RPR: So I'm curious how you balance it all. Rosaria. I know we've talked before about heavy teaching loads and things like that. As part of your professor life and then running this business, how do you work to balance it all so that you yourself are thriving as well? 

RS: Rebecca, that's a good question and I'm going to answer in an honest way because as an Italian, we always grew up with the binocular story. And I do not want my noses clearly Italian and important, so I don't need the add on. So I'll respond. But honestly, and the truth is that there's not a perfect day and there's not a perfect balance. What it is true in my life is that I know my priorities and when I get up in the morning, I look in my calendar, I have a system because without that system, it will be harder to balance all that I do. I am a mom before everything else. I identify myself as a mother and as a woman. So motherhood is my first priority. I am a single mom. I build my life around the needs of my child. And then I am a professional. 

And not that comes second, but it is my second priority. And then I go, how do I express this? How do I do this in my classroom? How do I show up positively and encouragingly for my students? And how do I do this with the people around me, with my friends, I do have a secret, which is not a secret, but I am an early riser. So I wake up around perhaps four 30 every morning. It does not cost me a thing to get a protein. It is just naturally I'm wired like that. So I will take at least 30 minutes every day to do some sort of contemplation, meditation, prayer, however people want to call it. It's a quiet time where I am by myself. I'm not still thinking about making the lunch for my child's school the day that is ahead of me. It truly is the time that I car for myself. Now, do I wish I had more of those 30 minutes, one hour implement during the day? Of course I would love to, but reality is I also have a pretty good sleep hygiene, which means by 10:00 PM I'm completely tapped out and I'm a very high energy person. So that is probably, I don't know if it's natural or if it is the espresso that I drink. 

I try to have a balanced life where I wake up more or less. At the same time, I have a routine, I have a full calendar, and I try to have some buffer time whenever I can to take a breath in between. But truly the balance comes into prioritizing the things that matter the most. 

RPR: Thank you for that answer. I think that's really important because a lot of people are interested in having a side gig or exploring that other side of their interests, and we don't really know how to balance it. And I think it's very important to recognize that there's no such magical 50 50 balance of anything. It's going to be that priority or how you're living your values, and those things are going to change in different seasons of your life as well. And being kind of open to that and flexible as you go through your life is really important when you're thinking about your own balance. I'm going to wrap up with two questions. The first question is, if you had one style tip you could offer women listening to the podcast to support their confidence and executive presence, what tip would you offer? 

RS: Absolutely. I would say first of all, prepare yourself. In other words, have a rack of clothes. Look at your calendar and say, these are the outfits that I'm going to do. I'm going to wear this week because on Monday I have a meeting with a donor. On Tuesday I have a cabinet, I have a board that whatever you have, so prepare yourself. And then for women, I would say, and men too, but for women specific, I would say know your body type. Know your body type people, especially women, we feel that when we shift in weight, which we all do, right, let's also normalize that absolutely we shift in weight is part of being a woman. Wonderful. When we do that, that our shape changes, that is a complete mistake because you are born with a body shape and once you know your body shape, you know how the type of style and fit that you should choose. 

So I would say all of you, and don't guess it have somebody, because yesterday I was sitting and somebody say, well, I'm an hourglass. I'm thinking like maybe you're not. Know your body style. Know your body shape, prepare. And last, I know you said one, but I really care about saying that invest in quality over quantity. Quality over quantity. The cheap stuff shows the cheap fabrics show they don't last. Invest on good. A few, maybe one or two things per season, but there are high quality classy things that will not go out of style, and I have to stop here and allow you question, otherwise I'll go. I get too overexcited about sharing style tips. 

RPR: I love it. That's such good advice. So the last question, and this is a question that I always wrap up with, is what's one thing you wish all women associated with higher education knew or practiced? 

RS: The first thing that I would like for women to know is that they are worth it. That they belong in higher education and higher education needs women. Even every single step of the letter and talking just about presidency, women should and must be in every single room. So that's what they need to know. What was the second part? 

RPR: What do you wish they knew or practiced? 

RS: What I wish they would practice is that owning their presence truly as a practice your presence, show your essence in your presence. And if it means that you have to practice on how to sit for a month straight until you know how to do that and you don't even think about that, do that. If it means that you need to open a meeting in a different way and do that over and over, practice your presence. Rebecca, thank you so much for this conversation today. 

RPR: It was wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show, Ari. It's always wonderful to talk to you. 

RS: Yeah, same here. You inspire me big time.

RPR: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Agile Academic Podcast for women in higher ed. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. To make sure you don't miss an episode, follow the show on Apple, Google, or Spotify podcasting apps and bookmark the show. You'll find each episode a transcript and show notes theagileacademic.buzzsprout.com. Take care and stay well.