Speak Up: Develop Your Executive Presence & Leadership Communication Style

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 reason your brilliant ideas aren't getting the attention they deserve is that you're trying too hard to sound smart? As a high-performing leader, you've spent years developing your expertise. But when you overload your message with explanations, qualifications, and unnecessary complexity, you risk losing your audience before they understand your point. In this fun Friday episode of Speak Up, Laura Camacho draws inspiration from Wall Street Journal journalist Emma Camp, whose straightforward, conversational communication style offers a surprising lesson in executive presence: The most influential person in the room isn't always the one who knows the most. It's the one who makes complex ideas easy to understand. By the end of this short episode you’ll know: 🚀How to grab attention immediately by opening with the question your audience actually cares about. 💰Why leading with your conclusion instead of endless qualifications makes you sound more confident and credible. 🔑How to turn everyday observations into memorable, powerful statements that shift conversations and strengthen your executive presence. Press play to discover how simplifying your message can make your expertise more visible, your ideas more memorable, and your leadership voice more influential. Access the Executive Presence Scorecard assessment here. 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 to speak up in executive meetings Executive Influence How to communicate with senior leadership How to develop executive presence How to be seen as VP material How to influence executives How to stop overexplaining at work How to answer executive questions concisely How to handle pushback from senior leaders How to increase visibility with leadership Director-to-VP transition Emma Camp Charisma for introvert leaders

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 becoming a better leader isn’t about talking more, making faster decisions, or becoming more extroverted—but learning when to listen, wait, and let others speak first? As you move higher in your career, the skills that made you a successful individual contributor may not be the skills that make you an effective senior leader. T. Rowe Price Chief Investment Officer Sébastien Page explains why leadership requires a fundamental shift from relying on your own expertise to bringing out the best thinking in other people. And if you’re introvert-ish, you may already possess some of the qualities that can make that transition easier. In Laura’s conversation with Sébastien Page, you’ll discover: 🪝When speaking last in meetings helps you make better decisions, empower your team, and avoid unintentionally influencing what others tell you 🚀Why asking for feedback, staying curious during disagreements, and focusing on positive feedback can strengthen both your leadership and your team’s performance. 🧩Two practical habits you can start immediately to increase your visibility, and demonstrate senior-level leadership. Play the episode to learn the counterintuitive leadership habits that can help you make the leap from high-performing manager to influential senior leader—without pretending to be someone you’re not. Access the Executive Presence Scorecard assessment here. To learn more visit www.speakupwithlaura.com. New Speak Up podcast episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday early in the morning. About our guest: Sébastien Page is Head of Global Multi-Asset and Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price. He has more than two decades of leadership experience and has conducted extensive research on positive, sports, and personality psychology. He currently oversees a team of investment professionals actively managing over $500 billion in assets under management. Page has written two finance books—Beyond Diversification: What Every Investor Needs to Know and the co-authored Factor Investing and Asset Allocation. He has also won six annual research-paper awards: two from The Financial Analysts Journal and four from The Journal of Portfolio Management. He appears regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg TV and was named a Top Voice in Finance by LinkedIn in 2022. He has been quoted extensively in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Barron’s. His latest book, The Psychology of Leadership, was published by Harriman House. 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 to speak up in executive meetings Executive Influence How to communicate with senior leadership How to develop executive presence How to be seen as VP material How to influence executives How to stop overexplaining at work How to answer executive questions concisely How to handle pushback from senior leaders How to increase visibility with leadership Director-to-VP transition

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 could change in your career—and your life—if you stopped waiting to feel confident before taking action? Fear can keep even smart, capable people quiet when they have something valuable to say. You hesitate to speak up in the meeting, introduce yourself to someone influential, volunteer for the presentation, or pursue an opportunity because you’re afraid of rejection, failure, or not saying it perfectly. In this episode, Joze Piranian shares how he went from avoiding speaking because of his stutter to performing stand-up comedy, delivering TEDx talks and corporate keynotes, and ultimately landing a book deal. His approach isn’t about eliminating fear—it’s about changing your relationship with it through small, deliberate acts of courage. By the end of Laura’s conversation with Joze Piranian you’ll know: 🔎How to identify your “inner stutter”—the moments when fear causes you to hold back—and uncover the beliefs driving that hesitation 🔑Why collecting small “micro moments of bravery” can gradually retrain your response to fear and help you take action even when you’re uncomfortable 🚫How to stop waiting for confidence and start using fear as a signal to move toward the opportunities that could change your career and life Play this episode to learn how small acts of courage can help you stop holding back, speak up when it matters, and build confidence through action. Access the Executive Presence Scorecard assessment here. To learn more visit www.speakupwithlaura.com. New Speak Up podcast episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday early in the morning. About our guest: Joze Piranian spent 25 years unable to say his own name. Not metaphorically, literally. A lifelong severe stutterer, he navigated social anxiety and depression while watching others take up space he couldn't access. Today, he delivers keynotes at Google, Tesla, and the UN. His book, Stop Holding Back:An Honest Guide to Turning Fear into Action (HarperCollins, 2026), is built around two concepts he developed: the "inner stutter," which is the invisible hesitation that stops capable people from speaking up; and "micro-moments of bravery," the small, uncomfortable actions that build real communication confidence over time. 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: Overcoming fear of public speaking Building confidence through action Micro moments of bravery How to stop holding yourself back Speaking up confidently at work Overcoming social anxiety and fear of judgment Using humor in workplace presentations Developing executive presence Turning fear into a trigger for action Exposure therapy for building courage Changing limiting beliefs about yourself Using discomfort for personal and professional growth How a stutter led to stand-up comedy and keynote speaking Networking and creating opportunities through courage The connection between small actions and career-changing opportunities

Are you Director or Above Who Wants Faster Promotions, More Influence, and Stronger Executive Presence? Book a confidential Executive Presence Strategy Call to discover the communication patterns that help high performers get seen as senior leaders. 👉 Book Your Executive Strategy Call here Have you ever walked out of an executive meeting knowing you demonstrated your expertise—yet still wondered why senior leaders don’t seem to view you as strategic? At the senior level, knowing the details and delivering great work are no longer enough. If you’re constantly explaining what happened, sharing more data, and giving extensive context while someone else turns that information into “what this means,” you may be caught in the Strategy Gap. In today’s episode you’ll discover: 🔥 How to recognize when you’re communicating like an expert instead of an executive 🎯 Why adding more data and detail can actually make you appear less strategic 🔑 How to communicate your judgment so CEOs, boards, and senior leaders experience you as someone who can shape decisions Play this episode to learn how to close the Strategy Gap and turn the expertise you already have into the executive-level judgment and influence that earns you a stronger voice at the table. If you're listening to this thinking: Laura, this is exactly what happens to me. I know I'm strategic. I know I understand the business. But sometimes what comes out of my mouth doesn't reflect the level of thinking happening inside my head... That's exactly the kind of work I do with senior leaders inside Executive Presence Mastery. If this episode felt a little too familiar, go to the show notes and click here to book an EPMS Discovery Call. I’d love to show you how Executive Presence Mastery can help you close your Strategy Gap and take your influence to the next level. 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 to speak up in executive meetings Executive Influence How to communicate with senior leadership How to develop executive presence How to be seen as VP material How to influence executives How to stop overexplaining at work How to answer executive questions concisely How to handle pushback from senior leaders How to increase visibility with leadership Director-to-VP transition

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. Imagine turning on a YouTube video or a podcast and hearing this: “Today, several people will discuss the status of a process. There will be an update on timelines, followed by a review of several outstanding items.” You’d change the channel before they finished the sentence. Your audience is busy, distracted, tired, and already juggling competing priorities. They may even have low blood sugar. When you begin with “Today I’m going to walk you through…” or bury your point beneath background information, you make other people work to figure out why they should care. In this episode, Laura Camacho reveals how to make your communication more interesting—not by becoming theatrical, but by getting clear on the job your message needs to do and leading with what matters most to your audience. By the end of today’s edgy episode you’ll know: 💰How to identify the most compelling starting point for an update, presentation, email, or meeting contribution so your audience immediately understands why it matters 3️⃣ A simple three-part framework—what changed, why it matters, and what needs to happen next—to turn routine business communication into clear, consequential messaging 🪝How to leverage curiosity without withholding critical information, helping you communicate with greater clarity, respect your audience’s attention, and naturally strengthen your executive presence Play the episode to learn how to stop sounding like white noise and make the first 15 seconds of your message earn people’s attention. Access the Executive Presence Scorecard assessment here. To hear E 215: Find your X Factor for Unstoppable Confidence and Executive Presence 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: Executive Influence How to speak up in executive meetings Executive Influence How to communicate with senior leadership How to develop executive presence How to be seen as VP material How to influence executives How to stop overexplaining at work How to answer executive questions concisely How to handle pushback from senior leaders How to increase visibility with leadership Director-to-VP transition