Executive Speaking Coach: What One Does and How to Choose the Right One
An executive speaking coach is a communication coach who works one-on-one with leaders on how they speak. The coaching covers how you organize a message, how you sound, and how you keep people's attention in a meeting.
Maybe a manager told you that you don't come across as confident, or you heard yourself on a recording and noticed how often you rushed or said “um.” Speaking habits can affect how others hear your message, and a coach can help you identify and change them.
You'll learn what an executive speaking coach does, what happens during sessions, how to decide if coaching is right for you, what to look for in a coach, and how much executive speaking coaching typically costs. This article is for adults who present to senior leaders, boards, or clients and want to communicate with more confidence.
Key Takeaways
What the coach does: helps you one-on-one with how you organize a message, how you sound, and how you come across when you present, lead a meeting, or answer hard questions.
Who it helps: leaders whose ideas are strong but whose delivery gets in the way, including people who present to boards or senior teams, and non-native English speakers who want to be understood more easily.
What sessions look like: the coach listens to you speak, often on video, picks one or two habits to change with you, and has you practice on the talk or meeting you have coming up.
How to choose one: look for a background in speech-language pathology or communication, experience with senior leaders. Sessions should be built around your own material rather than a fixed program, and a clear price per session or package before you commit.
What Is an Executive Speaking Coach?
What Skills Does Executive Speech Coaching Help With?
Who Should Hire an Executive Speech Coach?
What Happens in Executive Speaking Coaching Sessions?
How Do You Choose an Executive Speech Coach?
What We See Working with Clients
What Is an Executive Speaking Coach?
An executive speaking coach is a communication coach who helps leaders speak clearly when the stakes are high. They listen to how you speak during presentations, meetings, or questions from an audience. Then they identify speaking habits that make your message harder to follow and practice ways to change them.
Executive speaking coaches often have backgrounds in theater, broadcasting, or corporate training. Some are speech therapists with training in speech and voice, and some also have experience with breath, pace, vocal tone, and speech clarity in professional communication. Some speech therapists also specialize in professional communication and presentation coaching.
That training can be useful when your breath or voice affects how you speak. A coach with this training can look at how you use your breath while speaking and work with you on it when it affects your delivery. How you pace and organize your message, along with how clearly you can be heard, can contribute to what people call executive presence.
What Skills Does Executive Speech Coaching Help With?
Executive speech coaching can address several areas that affect how you communicate. The table below shows six areas you can work on and what each can sound like when it gets in the way.
| Habit | What it sounds like when it gets in the way | What you work on with a coach |
|---|---|---|
| Pace | You rush the points that matter most, or slow down so much that people drift. | Planned pauses, a breath before the first sentence, slowing down on the key line. |
| Vocal variety | Every sentence sounds the same, so the main point does not stand out. | Stressing the word that carries the meaning, a wider pitch range, a lower, steadier ending when you state a decision. |
| Organizing the message | You start with background and reach the point late, or ramble when questioned. | Main point first, then the reasons, and one ask per slide. |
| Filler words | “Um,” “so,” and “you know” fill every pause and make you sound unsure. | A short silent pause in place of the filler, and hearing it on a recording. |
| Nerves in the first minute | A racing heart and a shaky voice make the opening the weakest part. | A planned first minute rehearsed until it feels familiar, and slow breathing before you walk in. |
| Body language and eye contact | Reading from notes, looking at the screen, hands that never stop moving. | Eye contact with one person at a time, still hands, weight on both feet. |
| Connected Speech Pathology | connectedspeechpathology.com | ||
Pace and vocal variety can both affect how easy a presentation is to follow. When someone talks too fast, the audience may struggle to take in the main point, and a monotone voice can make it harder to hear which ideas matter most. Coaching can show you where to pause and which words to emphasize.
How you organize a message can contribute to rambling. Some professionals give the background first and reach the main point late. Coaching can help you state your main point first, give the reasons that support it, and recognize when you have answered the question.
Some people use more filler words when they feel nervous, especially at the beginning of a presentation. Nerves can also make you rush the start, which makes the first minute harder to deliver clearly. In coaching, you rehearse that opening until it feels familiar and practice replacing some filler words with pauses.
Coaching can also cover body language and eye contact. Reading from notes, looking at the slides instead of the people, and constantly moving your hands can pull attention away from what you're saying. Coaching can help you keep your hands still when you are not using them and make eye contact with one person at a time.
Another area you may work on is storytelling. A short, true story can make a number or decision easier to remember. A coach can help you choose a story that reinforces your point and makes it easier for the audience to follow.
Who Should Hire an Executive Speech Coach?
An executive speech coach can help when you know your material but struggle to communicate it clearly. Maybe a manager or colleague has told you to be more concise, speak with more confidence, or get to the point faster. Or you may notice that you rush, ramble, or fall back into other habits when you're under pressure.
Practicing on your own can help, but it isn't always easy to recognize what's getting in the way. A coach can identify specific patterns, give you feedback as you practice, and help you focus on the changes that will make the biggest difference.
Executive speaking coaching may be useful for:
Leaders who present to a board, investors, or a senior team and want to make their message and recommendations easier to follow.
Professionals who have received feedback that their presentation skills are making it harder to advance.
People who speak at conferences or lead large meetings and have been told that they rush, ramble, or sound flat.
Non-native English speakers who are sometimes asked to repeat themselves in meetings and want to keep their accent while making their speech easier to understand.
Companies that arrange business communication coaching for their leaders.
Some speech, voice, or anxiety concerns need clinical care rather than coaching. If stuttering or difficulty producing speech sounds is affecting how you communicate, start with a speech therapist rather than treating it as a presentation habit. If your voice keeps giving out or stays hoarse, see a doctor first, and speech therapy can be part of the treatment plan when appropriate.
When public speaking anxiety affects how you deliver a presentation, a coach can help you practice your delivery. If the anxiety is severe or interferes with daily life, a licensed mental health professional can evaluate and treat the anxiety itself.
What Happens in Executive Speaking Coaching Sessions?
Executive speaking coaching is usually hands-on. Rather than spending the session talking about communication in the abstract, you may practice an upcoming presentation, work through a difficult question you expect to be asked, or rehearse how you want to explain an idea in a meeting.
The first session often gives the coach a chance to see how you currently communicate. You might deliver a few minutes of a presentation while the coach listens for things like pace, pauses, filler words, vocal tone, and how clearly your message is organized. From there, you can identify priorities and set goals for the coaching.
Recording can also be part of the process. Watching a short clip of yourself can reveal habits that are difficult to notice while you're speaking. You and your coach might review a clip, choose one thing to change, and then try the same section again to see how it affects your delivery.
Much of the work can use material from your actual job. You might practice a board presentation, a story you plan to tell, or your response to a challenging question. The coach can give you feedback in the moment and have you repeat a section so you can practice making the adjustment right away.
Between sessions, you may have a short practice assignment, such as recording the opening of a presentation and listening to it afterward. Recordings can also help you compare your speaking over time and hear what has changed.
Session length, scheduling, and the number of sessions vary. Someone preparing for one important presentation may have different goals than someone working on broader communication skills for meetings, presentations, and other professional situations. Executive speaking coaching can also be done online.
How Do You Choose an Executive Speech Coach?
Before you choose an executive speech coach, look at their background, experience, approach, and whether the format works for you. These questions can help you understand the coach's experience and whether the sessions will be tailored to your goals.
Their background: a coach with a degree in speech-language pathology has studied speech and voice. Coaches from other backgrounds may have training in public speaking, theater, broadcasting, or corporate communication. Ask about their training and whether it matches what you want to change.
Their experience with situations like yours, presenting to a board or investors, can require different communication skills than giving a conference talk. Ask whether they have coached people preparing for situations like yours.
Whether they use your material: ask whether the coach will build the sessions around an upcoming talk, meeting, or interview and adjust the plan as you go. Ask, too, how they decide what to work on first and when to move on to another speaking habit.
Whether they coach online: video sessions can give you more options beyond coaches who work near you.
If a coach offers a free first conversation, use it to ask how they would approach your goals. Describe what you're preparing for and ask how the coach would approach your specific situation. Before you commit, ask what happens during sessions, what you will pay, and how many sessions the coach expects you to need.
How to Find a Public Speaking Coach
A step-by-step guide to finding a public speaking coach, with the questions to ask before you book a first session.
What We See Working with Clients
We coach professionals on how they speak in the meetings and presentations that matter most in their careers. The examples below are based on real clients we have worked with, with identifying details changed to protect their privacy.
One client, a finance director, came to us before a quarterly board update. She knew her material, but her updates ran long, and board members would ask at the end what she was recommending. A manager had told her that she did not sound confident when she presented.
In her first session, she presented a few minutes from her last board update, and we recorded it and watched it together. We noticed that she gave all the background before stating her main point and that her voice trailed off at the end of each sentence. Together, we practiced stating her recommendation first, keeping each slide focused on a single request, and finishing her sentences in a steadier voice.
She said the next board update was easier to give and more concise. Afterward, the board asked follow-up questions about her recommendation instead of asking what she was recommending.
Another client, an engineering manager who had learned English as an adult, had just been promoted to lead a team of 20. One-on-one, he was easy to understand, but in the weekly team meeting people asked him to repeat himself, and he had started reading from his slides because speaking to the group was more difficult.
He wanted people to understand him the first time without changing his accent. During sessions, we practiced slowing his pace in the first minute, then added pauses between ideas and emphasized the key words in each sentence. He recorded the opening of his meeting and listened back to identify where he started speaking faster.
After a few months, he reported that people asked him to repeat himself less often and that the Monday meeting felt easier to lead.
Frequently Asked Questions About Executive Speech Coaching
1. What is the difference between a speech coach and a speech therapist?
A speech therapist treats communication disorders, including speech and voice problems, while coaching focuses on professional communication skills such as organizing and delivering a message. Speech therapy can help with stuttering and trouble producing speech sounds. For ongoing hoarseness or other persistent voice changes, a medical evaluation may be needed before voice therapy begins.
Coaching can help you organize and deliver a message at work. Some communication coaches are also speech therapists and can provide either service when appropriate.
2. How much does executive speech coaching cost?
Prices vary widely, and coaches may charge by the session or offer a package. Rates can vary based on the coach's experience, services, and the type of coaching offered. Before you start, ask about the price per session or the total cost of a package and how many sessions the coach expects you to need.
3. Can executive speaking coaching be done online?
Yes. Executive speaking coaching can be done entirely over video. During an online session, you can practice speaking while the coach watches, listens, and provides real-time feedback.
Corporate speech coaching arranged by a company can also be provided online.
4. How long does it take to notice a difference?
How quickly you notice a change in your speaking depends on your goals, what you are working on, and how much you practice between sessions. If you have one important presentation coming up, coaching can focus on preparing for that specific event. Changing speaking habits across different professional situations may take longer and require practice between sessions.
How Connected Speech Pathology Can Help
At Connected Speech Pathology, our communication coaches are speech-language pathologists with graduate training in speech and communication. Their training in speech and voice covers breath, pace, vocal tone, and speech clarity. Coaching can also focus on organizing your ideas and delivering them clearly.
Sessions are private and online, and we can use an upcoming talk, meeting, or interview as part of your practice. You can then use the same speaking skills in future professional situations. Our online communication coaching can help with presentations, meetings, and other professional speaking situations.
The first consultation is free and gives you a chance to discuss what you want to work on.
Summary
An executive speaking coach works with you one-on-one on how you organize, pace, and deliver a message when the stakes are high. Coaching can start with a sample of you speaking so you and the coach can decide what to work on first. From there, you practice with your own material, get specific feedback, and try parts again using the speaking skills you are working on.
Look for a coach whose training and experience align with your goals and who will tailor sessions to the professional situations you want to work on.
About the Author
Allison Geller, M.A., CCC-SLP, is a communication coach, speech-language pathologist, and founder of Connected Speech Pathology, an international online practice providing professional communication coaching and speech therapy for children, teens, and adults. With more than two decades of experience, she has worked in medical and educational settings and published research on aphasia. Today, she leads a team of specialists who help clients improve their skills in public speaking, vocal presence, accent clarity, articulation, language, fluency, and interpersonal communication.
