Master Your Ability to Influence Others with Dr. Laura Sicola
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
Dr. Laura Sicola is a cognitive linguist, former professor, and executive coach, and the author of Speaking to Influence: Mastering Your Leadership Voice. She has coached Fortune 500 leaders and TED speakers, her TEDx talk has garnered nearly seven million views, and her clients include Amazon, Kaiser Permanente, Accenture, and Comcast. She specializes in building presence, persuasion, and influence when the stakes are high.
Core Premise: Align Content and Delivery
Influence has two sides: what you say (content) and how you say it (delivery).
The highest-impact communicators align both; slides and spreadsheets alone won’t win buy-in.
The Expert’s Curse
Leaders overestimate what others know and need.
Result: gaps between what we think we said and what they heard.
Antidote: build messages from your audience’s perspective—context, needs, and constraints.
Repetition That Inspires (Not Repeats)
Repetition ≠ “beating a dead horse”; it’s reinforcement of the why.
Keep the vision visible (written) and vocal (spoken) across forums.
People are competing for attention; assume they won’t retain a one-and-done message.
Meeting Room Influence: Habits That Win Buy-In
Don’t “human spreadsheet” the room—tell the story behind the numbers.
Use vocal variety: purposeful emphasis, final downward inflection for gravitas, pauses.
Body language should underline key points, not read like a grocery list.
Common Vocal Pitfalls to Fix
Uptalk: everything sounds like a question → projects uncertainty.
Monotone: signals disinterest → audience tunes out.
Vocal fry: gravelly, low-energy tone → implies apathy or low conviction.
How to Improve—Fast
Record yourself (Zoom/phone). Review 2–5 minute clips in your “natural habitat.”
Ask: Does this sound like I believe this? Will it matter to them? What distracts?
Optimize one behavior per meeting (tone, pausing, posture, hand use, pace).
Authenticity vs. Unconscious Habit
“That’s just how I talk” often masks bad habits, not authenticity.
Authentic leadership includes adaptability—dial energy up or down to connect without mimicking.
Vulnerability + Authority (Not Either/Or)
Share foibles or unknowns with clarity and intent.
Use the structure: what we know / don’t know / are doing—confidence without the cape.
Leading Without Silencing the Room
Strong opinions can be heard as directives. Balance with:
“Help me understand what I’m missing.”
“If we choose this path, what must we solve for?”
End topics by having the team recap decisions, deliverables, and next steps.
Virtual Presence Standards
Cameras on: relationship, trust, and accountability improve.
Upgrade basics: framing (eye-level), lighting (front-lit), external mic (clarity reduces cognitive load).
Own the screen like you’d own the room—no “witness protection” backlighting.
Inspire: Breathe Life Into the Message
Use stories, analogies, and case studies.
Etymology of “inspire”: to breathe life into—move beyond informing to energizing action.
Managing Up with Specifics
Avoid vague claims (“people are overwhelmed”).
Paint a vivid picture with examples, impacts, and tradeoffs; connect to priorities (Eisenhower matrix).
Continuous Mastery
Even strong communicators drift into unhelpful habits.
Ongoing deliberate practice maintains presence, credibility, and influence.
Who Laura Helps & How
Works with senior leaders and teams (C-suite/SVP/VP) in mid-market to enterprise.
Formats: 1:1 coaching (often yearlong), team trainings, high-stakes presentation prep (e.g., RFP boards).
Focus: close the “linguistic glass ceiling” for technically strong leaders to rise.
Thanks for listening!
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Mike: [00:00:00] Dr. Laura Sicola has coached Fortune 500 leaders, advise TED speakers and help top executives become the voice of the vision. She's a cognitive linguist, that's tough to say. And former professor turned, executive coach and the author of Speaking to Influence. Mastering your leadership voice with nearly 7 million views on her TEDx talk and a client roster, including Amazon and Kaiser Permanente.
Laura helps leaders master presence, persuasion, and influence when the stakes are high. As leaders, we need to influence our teams, our clients, our vendors. That's what we're gonna talk about today. Laura, welcome to the show.
Dr. Laura Sicola: Thank you so much for having me today, Mike. Looking forward to it.
Mike: Same here. Same here.
Laura, from all of your experience, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Dr. Laura Sicola: without a doubt, [00:01:00] Mike, a great leadership team has to be willing and able to communicate proactively and directly and diplomatically all at the same time, and that's a challenge for a lot. But if you're not willing to talk in the first place, the door just closed.
Mike: Love that. And I have a feeling we're gonna be diving into that,
Dr. Laura Sicola: Yes, we will.
Mike: more detail, in this
Dr. Laura Sicola: that door.
Mike: Yeah.
So, so I wanna start out that there's, you know, you talk about the difference between what leaders say and what others actually hear,
Dr. Laura Sicola: Yes,
Mike: do most leaders get it wrong?
Dr. Laura Sicola: the, we all get stuck in what I like to refer to as the expert's curse. And that is where, look, we've been in our own fields, in our own industries and the companies for however long, and so we have built up this amazing expertise, which is wonderful, [00:02:00] except that it blinds us to what's to people, where people are who are not.
As expert as we are in those areas. So we forget what's not obvious to others. What's not intuitive or interesting or necessary to others. How much do we need to explain? How many, how much detail do they need? How much vision do they already have? So when we just talk like they should know what I mean, because in my head it's crystal clear.
So I'll say it in a way that's crystal clear to me. Not taking into account their perspective, their competing needs, their challenges, all of those things. We're just going to be creating that ever widening gap between what we think we say and what they think they hear.
Mike: And you talked about vision and as one of the examples in there, and it sparked a thought and I think we'll probably spend a good part of our time together talking about kind of the subtle nuances. The distinctions and how we speak.
But I actually wanna start out talking about how repetitive.
We [00:03:00] need to be. And the reason why I thought of that when I thought of vision is very often when I work with a leadership team early on, the CEO believes everyone is aware and everyone is an enthusiastic follower, evangelist of the company vision. They believe that. And the rest of the leadership team says something like.
I'd like to be, but I'm not sure what the vision is. and the challenge sometimes is the CEO, you know, over dinner three years ago when everybody was on their second drink, espoused his or her vision of the world and now expects, everybody knows it. Half the people weren't there. Half the people were on their second drink, as I said.
So talk a little bit about the importance of repetition.
Dr. Laura Sicola: So there's a. I think when we look in from the world of education in many ways, and parenting for that matter, [00:04:00] the notion of repetition gets a bad rap because it's just the idea of beating the dead horse there. But the right kind of repetition is about reinforcement. We are constantly competing for people's attention and the likelihood of anybody hearing what you said the first time, much less processing it or retaining it is very low.
So we do have to keep repeating the vision because the vision is the why. It's the rationale. It's the why are you here beyond punching a clock and cashing a paycheck. It's, you could do that anywhere. And we wanna have people who are here because they're passionate about what we are seeking, the change we wanna make in the world.
If you're just here punching a clock, cashing a check, you may not be a great fit for this. The work is gonna suffer, the teamwork is gonna suffer and it's gonna, there's a little bit of a, a way that it is kind of cancerous frankly, through the organization. You want people [00:05:00] who are inspired. By what you are collectively doing and by their individual roles in achieving that.
So if you're not explicitly establishing what that is on a regular basis, and it needs to be oral and in writing. You need to discuss it, make it part of it, and it needs to be visible someplace where people are going to regularly see it, to be reminded that's the objective for all of us.
Mike: Now I wanna bring us to a different scenario where now imagine we are in the. the executive conference room, that's probably an old term. The executive conference room. We're in a conference room.
Dr. Laura Sicola: executive zoom room now.
Mike: Yeah. Well, it could be virtual, right? but imagine where, you know, where the, it's a meeting with the leadership team and in that leadership team setting.
Sometimes even the best idea will lose if it's not delivered in the right way. So what have you seen a, as the right vocal or communication habits that [00:06:00] help leaders win buy-in from their peers around the table.
Dr. Laura Sicola: So there's two sides of the coin in influence in general. In speech, there's the. the content and there's the delivery, right? The what you say and the how you say it. And there's that old adage. It's not what you say, it's how you say it that matters. No. What's massively, what's most important is that they are aligned.
You can't have one without the other. And typically people at executive conference room, or any room for that matter, tend to default to focusing on the what. It's like as long as my slides are accurate, as long as my spreadsheets are complete, as long as my talking points are cohesive.
That's good enough. That's fine if you're going to send me a report to read, but if you're going to present it to me, then it's about the delivery that drives it home. That helps me hear what you need me to hear. and even within the content, are you [00:07:00] gonna go through every cell in the spreadsheet?
Please Don't talk to me like a human spreadsheet. Tell me what's behind those numbers. Tell me the story behind it. Tell me why these things matter. What are we, the story? We go right back to that vision. I need to understand what's. Not on the slide. All the pieces that come, that bring it together, and in the delivery.
It's about not being monotone and just going through things. It's not about making it sound like it's a giant list, like you're making your grocery list, I need apples and pears and bananas and milk, and I'm asking a bunch of questions and just going through the motions with that rising like, and that's how most people, not just young women, which is the stereotype, older people, men, Y chromosome is not a vaccine.
So there's. that sound of, I'm going through the motions as opposed to, here's what I need you to understand. I'm going to make a point. Here's what I'm gonna emphasize, and here's where my voice is gonna drop. Because that's a period and you need to understand the [00:08:00] gravitas of my, of this concept. Now, when your voice is rising and lowering, emphasizing at the right moments, and you have the body language to go along with it, it pulls people in and they feel the message beyond just hearing it.
Mike: And if we have built a. I was gonna say style of speaking, but maybe that's the wrong phrase.
If we built habits of the voice rising at the end and the question mark, and maybe you can get into a couple of other bad ha. Well, actually let's do that. 'cause what I wanna do is talk about what some of those bad habits are.
So someone listening could say. Oh crap, I do that. what are two or three of the bad habits? And then I wanna dive into if they're habits, how do you change? It's hard to change a habit. So what are some more of the, you know, other than that, you know, feeling like everything you say is a question.
What are some other bad habits you see leaders get into?
Dr. Laura Sicola: [00:09:00] The, so yes, that question like tone, that's called uptalk or up speak, which is very common. The, you mentioned something, one moment ago. The notion of people listening to this and going, oh, crap, I do that. Here's the bigger challenge, Mike. People will listen and go, well, I don't do that. Somebody else does that, but I don't do that.
Oh, yes, you do. That's the problem. We don't hear what everybody else hears, literally when we are speaking. So I'm gonna encourage, I'm gonna go first into the,I'll reverse the order of your questions. Mike. What do we do first and then. About what? And the, what we do is you need to start recording yourself and listening.
If you're on Zoom, hit the record button or just take your smartphone. If you're not gonna record the group meeting necessarily, but put on your video or your audio recorder and just record yourself. Prop the phone up against the monitor of your computer, and then go back. You don't have to watch the whole thing.
Two minutes here. Two minutes there, just see how you made your point, but you will see more in those two to five [00:10:00] minutes of watching yourself in your natural habitat, as it were, the way that you naturally speak to your coworkers than you would ever have realized. Now, nobody likes watching themselves on video.
I'm on video so much. I'm sick of my own face by the end of most days. I don't learn to love it. I learn to appreciate it and recognize how fast. I can get clear on what was effective and what I need to optimize. So that's the how. any point you wanna make on that before I go into answering your
Mike: No, let's talk about if that's the how. And I like it. I imagine people will watch themselves until they get totally disgusted after they see all the things they're doing, they're not doing right. but I love that how, but yeah, let's dive into. When we do that, when we're watching and listening to ourselves, what should we be looking for?
what are some of those bad habits that get in our way?
Dr. Laura Sicola: The beauty is when you watch your own video from that kind of objective third party perspective. I don't even need to give a list. I will, [00:11:00] but I don't because you immediately, within 10 to 15 seconds ago, oh my gosh, what was I saying there? I did X, I just did Y, I just did Z. Like who is that person on the camera That has seems to have taken over my body.
It looks like me. But I can't possibly sound like that, can I? Or what was I doing with my face? Or all sorts of little things that we didn't realize we were doing in the moment. So even if somebody zones for the next two minutes of this conversation, just watch the video. You'll figure it out on your own.
You're a smart cookie, but the. Okay. So as far as suggestions on what to look for, tonality in the voice is a really important one. So there's the traditional, and I'll date myself on this, reference here, but the Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The Bueller. Bueller. anyone, I'm just gonna be monotone my way through if you don't know what I'm talking about.
You have homework, go to Netflix or I don't know, Amazon or something, wherever it's recorded. Watch Ferris Bueller's Day off, John Hughes flick. 1987 or something along those lines. [00:12:00] Great stuff. but the monotone where it sounds like you don't even care about what you're talking about. Well, if you don't care, why should I care?
So you're automatically disengaging with the audience from your content and from you. the other piece, vocally speaking, is what is called, vocal fry. Okay. And that's where you tend to sit down in your lowest register and there's not enough air, there's not enough breath support. And you can hear what I'm doing right now and it's just kind of gravelly and I'm croaking my way through everything.
And it gives a different, people will have different interpretations of how it sounds. I'm curious how it sounds to you, Mike, if I were to kind of have the rest of this conversation down here.
Mike: it, it sounds that I've heard people do it to me. it, it's probably not true, but it sounds like. it's a purposeful affect. Like someone is doing that and it's like I'm showing the world that I don't care very much about what's going on. that's just the immediate reaction I have.
Dr. Laura Sicola: And that's the point is that [00:13:00] all of these things, even with the uptalk and that question like tone or mono, monotony, et cetera. Some of, sometimes they are legitimately reflecting, maybe an uncertainty with the uptalk or, I'm so tired, I just really wanna go home and take a nap. I can't stand it. but that's not always the case.
And this is where we do ourselves a great disservice because it projects the affect that seems to be. You don't care. You don't wanna be here, you are too good for me. Or you're really hesitant and hoping that, I don't know if you're gonna like what I'm saying, so I'm gonna just kinda let the words trickle outta my mouth.
I'm not so confident right now. It's all negative affect, none of it. all the perceptions, whether they are accurate or not. All of those impressions that people tend to infer. When we use those behaviors, say things like, I'm not confident, I'm not passionate, I don't care. [00:14:00] I'm too, I lack energy or conviction.
it's, it says everything but leadership qualities. So we need to have, and it's not about volume. While I'm not gonna yell to be clear, no, you can use a soft voice and still be clear and intentional and focused. So it's recognizing. When I listen to myself, when you listen to your own video, does it sound like you truly believe in what you're saying, that it matters to you and you truly believe that it needs to matter to me?
That's what you're looking for, broadly speaking.
Mike: So I am, I'm. practicing my psychic abilities.
And I'm hearing, I'm hearing the thoughts of folks listening to this and I would imagine there are people that are thinking, this is just naturally how I talk. And yeah, I could listen to it, but me purposefully changing [00:15:00] how I speak in order to influence.
Doesn't sound very quote unquote authentic, to use a word that we hear probably way too often, these days without people knowing what it actually means. How, let's dig into that a little bit.
Dr. Laura Sicola: Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. So those who say, well, I don't, I changing how I speak to do more, what, well, let me ask you a question. If I said, like, you know, after, like every sentence, that I was saying like, wouldn't that like be annoying to you, like, and undermine what I'm saying?
Wouldn't you be like. Oh my gosh, Laura, stop. I have to change the channel. I can't listen to you anymore. Well, but what if that's how I speak? What if that's my natural way? You're going? Well, that's not working for me. So either you change or I'm gonna find somebody else. Well, that's how everyone is with everyone else.
So just because you have built a bad habit, [00:16:00] most likely unconsciously, it doesn't mean that is quote unquote authentically you. It means you got a bad habit. Yeah, if you sat there and twirled your hair the entire time, or you know, I have a nine-year-old at home, so I'll use a gross analogy.
If you sat there picking your nose unconsciously as a habit, you are gonna call it authentic. No. So let's not use the word authentic to justify unconscious habits. Let's look at what do you want to have as the impact of your speech? How do you want people to feel? About what you're saying. What do you want to make them think about?
And what result do you want to get? What decision, what action, what behavior do you want them to take? Now, go back and look at your own message. Listen to your message, watch your video, and ask yourself. What in this message, content and delivery is going to compel that person to behave and [00:17:00] respond the way I want them to, or what might be undermining my own success. Be objective about it. That's the key.
Mike: I love that and I could relate to that in my own life. Not so much in meetings, but for many. Part of what I do is I'm a keynote speaker and for many years, you know, I was, I used to think I'm naturally, you know, I'm naturally an excellent speaker. Well, it turns out I was naturally. Okay. I was naturally pretty good, but part of the reason why I think I was just okay or pretty good, my ideas weren't so bad, but I have a, this habit, even when I'm on the phone and Zoom is really hard for me to just sit in one place when I'm on the phone.
I pace back and forth as I'm talking, and I would do the same thing on stage. I feel so passionate about what I'm talking about. I'm running all over the stage and my hands are all over the place, and I thought. That shows my passion. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. I [00:18:00] don't wanna just stand behind a podium.
And for years I resisted getting any kind of coaching on my speaking because it would make me, it, I'd lose my authenticity as a speaker. And what I learned is the more I moved around on stage, or you know, whether it was my feet, you know, or my hands, it was actually hurting people's ability to get my.
Message, even though that was quote unquote natural for me, I had to learn like, like picking your nose. I needed to learn how to stop that bad habit because it was absolutely getting in the way of my message.
Dr. Laura Sicola: Yes. And the key word here, Mike, is distraction. What is it about what we're saying or how we're saying where we're moving, what we're doing with our hands? If we're pacing, if we are fidgeting, if we're using any of those vocal ticks that we talked about, that is distracting the listener's ability to [00:19:00] focus on what we actually want them to focus on.
So where are we sabotaging our own effectiveness? And that may vary from audience to audience. You know, if you're with, there's something called matching and mirroring. And if you are with someone who's, you know, a very reserved kind of person, they tend to think quite a bit before they speak. They don't gesture much.
They use a softer voice. They are more paced. Now, I'm not mimicking them, but I'm not gonna be my Super Jersey girl, Italian extroverted self. I'm not gonna go off that deep end and not, they'll feel totally overwhelmed. It's not being inauthentic to. Tone it down a little bit. It's just recognizing I don't wanna overwhelm her.
This is still me. I don't have to be over the top all the time. Now, if I'm with somebody else who's super energetic and enthusiastic and talks with their hands and moves all over the place, then sure, I'll dial it up a little [00:20:00] bit. I own both of those degrees of energy and I prefer one or the other, but I have access to both.
So. Why shouldn't I adjust in a way that's going to help me connect, that's going to help the other person,to feel like they understand me. So little details make a big difference.
Mike: Yeah. And that's not being inauthentic. that's being smart.
Now the other word that is used way more now than it ever was, and it's a word I love, I use it all the time. So I don't say this in a negative way, but that word is vulnerable or vulnerability. And I could remember back when COVID hit early on and we were remote where we hadn't been remote before.
People were still constantly forgetting to unmute themselves on Zoom because no one knew how to use it or where the unmute button was. and you know, and it was early enough on where leaders really had no clue if their businesses, some leaders, no clue if their businesses would even survive [00:21:00] this.
Like, what's going on? And I had leaders who would get on Zoom calls with their team and feel like they needed to have their Superman or superwoman cape on. And everything's gonna be great and this is wonderful. and they were showing zero vulnerability. And it was impacting their team's ability to be honest and vulnerable back with them.
So how do we as leaders balance the idea of being vulnerable with the idea of, you know, being authoritative when we need to and credible when we need to.
Dr. Laura Sicola: Yeah, great questions. the. Integration of all of those pieces is challenging and essential to be a good leader, and they are not mutually exclusive. So vulnerability, much like authenticity, these are, we tend to look at all [00:22:00] these words and. miscategorize them as binary. This is me. That's not me.
This is authentic. That's inauthentic. This is vulnerable, this is strong. You can be massively strong in your vulnerability if you are confident in sharing that. You know, a great example I like to use, are you familiar with Brene Brown?
Mike: Absolutely.
Dr. Laura Sicola: So I think anybody who's not out there, please go watch any of her TED talks.
Frankly, I think TEDx Houston was the one that went to like 200 million views or something.
but her talk is all about vulnerability and shame and whatnot, and leadership. But she's such a great storyteller and half of her stories are about her own foibles. Mistakes that she made along the way, things, where she was insecure about something, et cetera, but she shares them in a way that a, is so relatable that you find yourself laughing along with her, not at her and going, oh my gosh, that's me too.
Yes, I've done the same thing. I know where you are. And, but she owns it. As she's sharing and she's like, this is what was happening. [00:23:00] This is what was going through my head. This was my fear. This was the mistake I made. This was the reaction that I had. And it's, she's not saying it in a way, and this goes back to our original conversation about content and delivery.
She shares it in a way that says, yes, I recognize that's what happened. I recognize that. That was my natural reaction. That was human. And I'm not apologizing for it. I'm not ashamed that I did it. I'm sharing with you. Honestly, this is me being vulnerable to you so that you understand, and this is something that even, you know, during COVID or when there's a market crash or when there's, you know, anything else, a cyber attack, that we have to address.
You can say, look, here's the challenge. Here's the concern. Here's what we know, here's what we don't. Here's where we're confident and here's where we're working on it. And as long as you're clear and intentional and honest, you can show the vulnerability. It's not about saying, Hey [00:24:00] hackers, let me show you where there's a hole in my wall.
Not that kind of vulnerability. I'm not trying to teach you how to kill me with one blow, but it's sharing the reality and bringing people in to work together to strengthen the individuals and the collective.
Mike: So I wanna bring us back to that leadership table and one, one of the, one of the challenges I see in leaders is. get incredibly passionate about an idea and passion is not a bad thing at all, but they get incredibly passionate about an idea and they fight for that idea with either peers around the table or the scenario that I wanna paint is it's a leader and that leader's direct reports.
Dr. Laura Sicola: And they believe strongly about an idea. and the challenge I found that I'd love your thoughts on is there are times that [00:25:00] a leader is stating their opinion.
But it's taken as a directive because it's coming from the leader. How can we as leaders kind of balance, Hey, we're also a member of the team.
Mike: We have strong ideas, we have opinions, but sometimes when we state our opinion, especially when we state it strongly, we shut everybody else up.
Dr. Laura Sicola: How, as leaders could we state our opinion, but still make sure the right conversation is happening in the room.
one, of course is knowing your audience because if you have a team of people who are similarly, outgoing, not afraid to voice their opinion, not afraid to challenge, and there's natural proactive debate, you've got a team of, we'll call them verbal basketball players. Everybody gets on the floor and scrambles.
That's the nature of the beast. So to just, to make sure that everybody has given input [00:26:00] is a little bit easier. If you have a team of people who tend to be more reserved, tend to be less, proactive in just jumping in to the conversations in particular, then. It is going to be important to make sure that you have solicited the input of those, especially, and more often than not, the teams are going to be mixed.
You'll have those who will dominate conversations, and you'll have those who tend to, sit back a little bit more, observe, maybe chime in later, or they'll come around and,they'll lobby outside of the room and speak to different people, maybe come to you afterwards with their ideas. so you may need to actively, Pull them out in the moment and ask their thoughts and opinions. Another part of course, is making sure that at the end of the topic, if you think it's the end of the topic of the conversation, whether it's the end of the meeting or otherwise, make sure that somebody is, has captured, and can [00:27:00] reiterate what is the understanding about what we're doing with this moving forward.
Or what is the understanding of where, what the status is? Because if someone can come back to you and say, so you want us to do this? And you go, no, where'd you get that? They're going? 'cause it's what came outta your mouth. I thought that's what you said when you said this. So that is a chance. You can't be the one to recap.
Okay, so we're gonna do this, and this. Ask the room to feed back to you what the, and collectively reconstruct the takeaways, the deliverables. the next steps, et cetera. 'cause that will share a lot to, to identify where there has been a gap between what you understood and what they understood.
Mike: Yeah, I love that and one of the distinctions I've seen work well is. You know, I think it's okay to be passionate about an idea, but I've seen leaders that are passionate and their goal is to win the argument as opposed to the goal being, I'm gonna be [00:28:00] passionate, but my goal is to gather the information we need so that we can make the right decision.
And you could still be passionate about your idea, but then say, Hey, I know some of you disagree with me. There's some smart people in this room. Help me understand what I'm missing.
Dr. Laura Sicola: Yep. And that's a great phrase. They help me understand, because that's very open. It's very, It's an invitation. It has a little bit of humility to it. another direction that people can go also is to say, if we were, if we go this way, you know, here's what I really want. I really think this is the right way to go.
What possible obstacles would there be? Or what would we have to, take care of to make this happen? So if allowing other people then to voice their concerns because then they can say, well, if we do that, then what about X? Or, you know, this project, would we table that? What about the resources? What about the timing?
these various collaborators and partners whose buy-in would we [00:29:00] need? I perceive there being a problem with regard to X if we do that. So we're exploring all of the possible. You're thinking ahead. You're thinking through it. And so that's a question that also invites discussion and says, I'm open to hearing the problems, but I still wanna talk about my idea.
Mike: with so much communication now happening virtually, whether it's with your team or with clients, or with vendors,is there any difference in how leaders. Use their voice or, you know, tone or eye contact or body language. Is there any difference when we are having these conversations virtually versus being live and in person?
Or is it all the same stuff?
Dr. Laura Sicola: Yes. And,the same principles always apply. Good communication is good communication. I find that. In the virtual space, people's standard slide, they are less [00:30:00] thinking about it. It's like, ugh, I have to be here again. I don't wanna see myself. the number of teams that I've worked with, where the default is to have cameras off, I find mind boggling.
Sure. Once in a while. Okay. You can have them off for some reason. Or if you need to turn it off for a minute to go and grab a tissue or do whatever it happens to be. Okay, turn it off, turn it back on. But. When you can't see each other, there's a difference in the kind of bond that you create, the kind of connection you have.
If you're talking and you don't see any faces, you don't even know if somebody's present. They could have left to walk the dog 20 minutes ago and not be back yet, you don't know what they're doing. So there's a lack of trust and there is an abundance of assumption. When the cameras are off. So I think having the eye contact with people, helps to really get to know who your team is and maintain that even in the virtual remote space.
but even the way people show up, people don't know how to, I'm constantly baffled [00:31:00] by how most people show up on Zoom, even five years. Into this whole remote work. It's like they should rename themselves with a disclaimer that says, I just want you to know if you met me in person, you'd be impressed.
Because they just sit there and their heads are way down here at the bottom of the screen. You get the ceiling and all the light fixtures and fans going on above them. They're in the dark or they're super backlit by their window. They look like they're in witness protection instead of data protection.
They have terrible microphones. Nobody is aware of how their own microphones make them sound, and so you really, this is another reason to go and listen to your recording from your Zoom or your team's meeting because you'll see how you sound compared to everybody else. Most microphones sound like this.
Who wants to listen to the guy who sounds like this? The answer is nobody. This is what you wanna listen to, and it changes. Again, like you mentioned in the beginning, I'm a cognitive linguist when you have to part, kind of work your way through the fog, just to [00:32:00] understand. What someone's words are. you're, there's way too much cognitive burden.
People are going, Ugh. I, it's too hard to figure out what he's talking about. I think I'll multitask, which means listen to pay attention to everything except you. And they don't. They can't process. They're working too hard to catch the words, so they're not gonna be bothered trying to figure out the meaning, how they feel about it, how they wanna respond.
So everybody desperately needs to upgrade their microphones. Nobody should be using the embedded microphone in your computers. If you're a senior leader in a successful company, drop 150 bucks on a decent microphone. I'm happy to send you recommendations, but you need to sound. As clear as your thoughts are in your head.
So, the, all of these things contribute to whether or not people feel your presence, feel your passion, and feel that connection with you.
Mike: It's so important.
what I'm taking from that is the same way we talked [00:33:00] earlier about certain habits impacting your ability to influence like the up speakor monotone or things like that. When we are. Virtual.
Dr. Laura Sicola: There are a whole bunch of things about our microphone or our lighting or whether people are, like you said, I'm on, in, on Zoom calls with people where I see them from like the eyes up or the, and it's like, are you, how do you not know this is happening?
Mike: But all those things. And, you know, it, what you're helping me understand is it makes that communication even more. Complex, if that's the right word, is that all of the same things apply to the up speak and the vocal fry and the monotone, but now it could be our lighting or our microphone or our webcam that could be having the same negative impact on our ability to get our ideas across.
Dr. Laura Sicola: A hundred percent and people get really self-conscious. It's like, oh, I put on weight, or I'm getting too gray, or I don't like the wrinkles in my face. Or, you know, all these kinds of things that, [00:34:00] that I hear from clients as far as where they're, self-conscious on being on camera. So sometimes, yeah, they do deliberately put themselves away at the bottom of the screen.
'cause they don't wanna. See themselves, and it's like you are leading a hundred million dollar company. If you were standing in front of the board, would you say, I don't want you to see me. I'm gonna hide behind the podium because I put on 10 pounds last year or whatever. Of course not. You're not gonna judge yourself worth based on how you look, you're.
Dress appropriately. You're gonna groom yourself. You're going to show up appropriate for the context. But it's not like if anybody said to you, Hey, you know what? You shouldn't, I don't think you're worthy of your role because you look X, oh my gosh, lawsuits, you'd be up in arms, all sorts of stuff going on.
So why are you gonna do that to yourself? Own the screen. The same way you would own the room. You're running the company. Get over whatever the mental blocks are. [00:35:00] Step up, show up, turn on the camera, speak into the mic. Own the screen. Lead that way first.
Mike: And I love the excuse, and I hear this all the time, and maybe it's not always a. Bullshit excuse. But I think most of the time it is. It's like, oh, I'm having a bad internet connection today. There's something wrong with my wifi. That's why I am not on, on camera. And my thought is, okay, if that's bs, you know, cut the crap and let's get on camera and do it the right way.
second thing is, if that's true. Part of being a leader and being able to communicate and influence, then go fix your damn internet connection and stop using that same excuse, Laura for the leader listening today. You know, one. One action we've already talked about, which I'm gonna recommend people do right away, is record yourself.
And it's way easier today than that ever was. [00:36:00] You know, you could do that right on your phone, put it on the desk and record. Or you could do that while, you know, while you're on a Zoom call, use Otter or use applaud. Whatever you need to use, go do it. So, so that, that's one action. But what's one thing as we start to, to wrap up, what's one thing.
A leader should do in their next meeting to kind of instantly increase their credibility, their influence, by using their voice. What's one more tip that would help with that in somebody's next meeting?
Dr. Laura Sicola: Paint a picture with the voice and with the words. Share a story, share an analogy, share a case study, but bring me in to the, being able to envision the result, you know, the cause or the effect of what it is that we're trying to achieve here. Remind me why we're doing this. [00:37:00] Give me an example of a client you worked with.
Where were they? Where are they? Or who are you trying to help? Now, if you're bringing a new cancer drug to the market or something, what's the, or cybersecurity, some new, software development, et cetera. Who are the latest actors? Who's the child that you met? Who has this, or a picture of a child that you've got?
Help me connect, help me as a listener to feel. In my heart, in my stomach, on a visceral level, what we're trying to achieve and why. Who are we helping? Now, maybe you're not curing cancer or you know, solving the world from the cyber attack that's going to be the next Armageddon. But you do what you do for a reason.
Remind people what that is. What's an excitement? What's a the we need to inspire, not just inform. And I'll geek out on you for 10 seconds here, Mike. The word inspire. The etymology of that word. We talk a lot about being an inspiring leader. Well, to inspire [00:38:00] literally comes from inspirare in Latin, which translates to, to breathe life into or to breathe spirit into something.
So when you are talking to your people, whoever they are you just letting words fall out of your mouth? Hoping they pick up them up and put them together in a logical order and do something useful with them. Or do you breathe life into your message? Do you breathe life into your team? Do you get them on board in that collective life energy?
To ride forward with that motivation, to get that, to turn that vision into the reality, that's what tends to be missing more often than not.
Mike: Yeah, and a real example I can think of there, and it's not so much inspiring the team, it was more of an example of managing up. But I was in a meeting with the leadership team and the number two on the team was said. well, we could do these things, but everybody's so overwhelmed right now. I think we're [00:39:00] doing too much.
And that's the way it was communicated. Now, that's not a vivid picture. Those are words and the CEO. Took that and painted her own picture of what that meant. And in her mind, that meant you are trying to protect your people. you know, I'm working hard. Why shouldn't everybody else be working hard? Is this really everybody or is it just one or two people?
Like it actually didn't help the number two person get their point across it hurt. but instead, if they would've said, Hey, I spoke to. You know, Susan yesterday about what she was doing. Paint the picture of what's going on. Paint the picture of another example versus just saying people are overwhelmed.
I think we're doing too much. So, so I think it's not just. Influencing down and painting a picture of an inspiring vision. It could, it's [00:40:00] influence. It's communicating anywhere, whether it's to a peer, whether it's up, whether it's down, but just using vivid examples and stories to inspire or breathe life into.
I think it's is such an important point.
Dr. Laura Sicola: Yes. Being specific, giving those case studies, those examples, what does. People mean what does too much mean? Too much of what maybe you're doing a lot of stuff that is utterly inefficient or not priority at all. When you look at that Eisenhower matrix about what's urgent versus what's important, are you spending an awful lot of time just putting out little menial fires?
Are you doing stuff that could be delegated? Are you doing a lot of busy work that, or working on a project where when we compare it to what we're talking about now, that needs to be put on the back burner? Yes. Okay. You're working a lot, but. Let's reprioritize, let's reevaluate. So there are other discussions that need to be had clearly, but just too much is not itself evidence [00:41:00] of, the reason to make a particular decision.
Mike: And this is an area when it comes to communicating to influence others. You may be wonderful at it today, but you can get better. You may be crappy at it today and you need to get better, but I, but there's never a point where it's like, Hey. I'm communicating. Great. I don't need to think about this anymore.
A, you could always get better. B, you could fall into bad habits if you're not careful.
So that being said,what are some of the ways that you work with clients? I guess first, who are your typical clients and what are the different ways that you work with them?
Dr. Laura Sicola: thank you. The typical clients are, Mid-market to higher to the larger enterprise organizations. You mentioned Accenture and Amazon in the beginning. Comcast, but also some smaller ones as well. it is typically the senior leadership team or a level or so down to SVP, VP, depending on the size of the [00:42:00] company.
Those labels can mean a lot of different things, but the idea is when. An individual or a team is great as the brains behind the operation, but not so great as the face and the voice in front of it, of the initiative. How do you get people to translate their vision, skill, expertise, ideas, et cetera, to be able to get other stakeholders of all sorts on board?
And a lot of it is about executive presence. Whether they're the bull in the China shop or they're a little too much of a wallflower or something in between. succession planning is also a really big issue because you've got those who've risen through the ranks because of their technical skill and they've now hit, or they're about to hit what I call the linguistic glass ceiling.
So they have that skill, but to move up to the next level, it's not about your skill anymore. There's that lateral shift, and now it's about how [00:43:00] you lead people, how you communicate. If you came up through the ranks through tech, you came up through the ranks, through finance. You like your numbers, you like your spreadsheets, you like your camera off, you don't like to talk a whole lot, et cetera.
Why would people think you're a natural fit for a top leadership position? You may have said for 20 years, well, I want my work to speak for itself. Well, congrats. It does. It just doesn't speak for you. What your work now has told everybody is that you belong staying exactly where you are executing those tasks, not leading other people.
So it's time to quickly close that gap so that you're those soft skills, which ironically are hard now rise to the same level as that tactical expertise. And I help people close that gap to get ready for that senior most promotion.
Mike: Is it typical working one-on-one with folks, working with a group? Is it both?
Dr. Laura Sicola: It's both. the, usually if I'm working with somebody in the C-suite, or a level, maybe SVPs, it's gonna be one-on-one. And. [00:44:00] You know, a year give or take worth of coaching. Sometimes it extends past that, obviously. I do a lot of team trainings with groups on breaking the expert's curse on speaking to influence on aligning that verbal, vocal and visual things like we were talking about before, board presentations.
sometimes it's more, what's the right word? More short term focused. So I've worked with a lot of healthcare systems, for example, where they have to respond to RFPs. So they have to put together a massive team presentation. They'll spend six months putting together this presentation to bid on a particular contract.
so that's more focused as opposed to working with a team on. Big picture skill development moving forward, and so it does definitely range, but it's all about helping people step up their executive presence and be seen as that trusted, confident, credible leader that others want to follow.
Mike: If people wanna find out more about you and what you do, what's the best [00:45:00] place for them to go?
Dr. Laura Sicola: my website, very easy. LauraSicola.com. Not terribly creative or cryptic. So, LauraSicola.com. Check it out there. And of course, if you'd like to follow on LinkedIn, or any of my other social media platforms, would love to connect.
Mike: Well, I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Laura, thanks for helping us get there today.
Dr. Laura Sicola: Thank you so much for the invitation, Mike. Loved every minute of it.