An executive speech coach works on timing, not tone. Most leaders who dislike how they sound are really rushing: cramming ideas into one breath, skipping the pauses, and losing the room. The three fixes are to know your message before you speak, slow down more than feels natural, and breathe where the commas are.
The moment people find out what I do, something predictable happens. It is almost like when you find out you are talking to a hairstylist and you immediately start checking your hair. Everybody suddenly becomes aware of how they sound.
And then, very often, they apologize for their voice.
I have heard this for years, from executives, from teachers, from people who speak beautifully. For the most part people really do not like their voice, and they feel it gets in the way of communicating their message. I understand the worry. I just think it is aimed at the wrong target.
What does an executive speech coach actually do?
Less than people expect, and it is almost never what they ask for. Nobody needs a different voice. What most leaders need is someone outside their own head telling them what actually landed, because you cannot hear yourself accurately while you are speaking. You are in your own body, managing nerves, already thinking about the next point.
So the work is narrow and practical. We look at pace, at where you breathe, at whether you know your own message or are still assembling it out loud. That is it. Those three things account for nearly every complaint I hear about a voice.
I came to this from two directions. I spent years in a recording booth, where clarity is the entire job and there is nowhere to hide. Before that I had a career in leadership, and that is where I first noticed the pattern. Every time I was able to get people to slow down, it did wonders. It really helped a lot. Same fix, different room.
I work with executives and corporate teams in Toronto and remotely, and the pattern holds regardless of seniority. The higher up someone is, the more likely they are to be rushing, because they have the most to get through and the least patience for their own sentences.
Why the tone of your voice is almost never the problem
It is not typically the tone of someone's voice that is the problem. It is clarity, and it is timing.
That surprises people, because tone is the thing you notice when you hear a recording of yourself. But tone is largely fixed and mostly fine. Timing is entirely under your control, and it is what determines whether a listener follows you or drifts.
The full conversation on voice, clarity, and timing.
What I do before I read a single line
My preparation starts nowhere near my voice. Before I record anything I work to be very clear on the message that is trying to be communicated. If I understand what my client is trying to say, not simply the words on the page but truly what their message is, I will be able to communicate it better.
That gap between the words on the page and the message is where most unclear delivery comes from. If I sit down and just read from the page, it means nothing, it sounds like nothing, and the entire audience will drift. The words were all correct. Nobody was listening.
This applies well outside a recording booth. If you are about to present something and you cannot say in one sentence what you want the room to take away, no amount of vocal technique will rescue the delivery. You are not going to sound clear about something you have not yet decided.
Slow down, and then slow down more
The simplest thing I can tell anyone, and I am as guilty of ignoring it as anybody: everyone rushes. In a social setting I can talk a million miles an hour. But when you are trying to communicate, lower your voice a little and slow down.
Slow down much more than you think you should slow down. We are all in a hurry to get our point out, rushing to get to the punchline. The rush is what costs you the clarity you were worried about in the first place.
Commas are where you breathe
Here is the practical version, and it is the one piece of advice I would keep if I had to throw out all the others.
Commas are there for a reason. That is where we breathe, and it allows our thoughts to expand a little bit.
Breathing is terrifically important, and most people do not think about it at all until their voice gives out halfway through a sentence. When you breathe at the commas, two things happen at once. Your listener gets room to absorb what you said, and you get a beat in which your next thought can arrive properly formed.
You do not have to learn where to put a pause. You already know where the commas go.
Excited, not excitable
There is a difference between being excited about your subject and sounding excitable. You do not want to sound excitable.
Excitement is good. It is what keeps an audience with you, and a delivery with no energy in it will lose the room no matter how correct the words are. But excitable is different. The pitch climbs, the pace keeps accelerating, and what the listener hears is not passion. It is nerves.
Staying calm, slowing down, and paying attention to where those commas are will carry you most of the way there.
Taking care of the instrument
People assume voice work is all technique. A great deal of it is maintenance.
It is about being kind to your voice and understanding what it needs, including good rest. We think about physical fitness and forget that our voices are dramatically affected by the same things. My voice cracks when I have not slept. Smoke in the air will undo a good week. Over time you learn what makes it better and what makes it worse, and you plan around it.
Stamina is built, not given. When I started, most of my work was books, and developing the ability to record for many hours at a time is something you really have to build up to. Nobody walks in able to do it.
Three things to try this week
- Slow down. Much more than you think you should.
- Be excited, not excitable. Keep the energy, keep it under control.
- Breathe at the commas. They are already in your sentence. Use them.
None of these asks you to change how your voice sounds. They ask you to change what you do with it, which is the part that was always within reach.
Adapted from a recorded conversation with Jess Todtfeld, Certified Speaking Professional and executive communication coach at Success in Media.