607: The 6 Patterns that Make a Leader Captivating - Insights from the 2026 Executive Influence Index

Speaker A: Why do some leaders instantly command a room while others struggle to keep people's attention even when they have equally fantastic ideas? Learn what the latest research says. Welcome back to Speak up, the number one ranked business communication podcast where we help high performing introvert leaders, including you, social introverts, turn your ideas into influence and improve business outcomes. Because being brilliant does not automatically make you influential. I am your host, Laura Camacho, your executive presence strategist, communication coach and godmother. And um, by the end of today's short episode, you'll know the six communication habits shared by today's most captivating and influential leaders. The kind of messaging that creates far more impact than trying to sound impressive. And practical ways to simplify your message, create curiosity, and leave every conversation with a memorable takeaway. Every year I interview 52 extraordinary leaders. You hear them on the guest episodes that come out every Wednesday, right? Television producers, television writers, Fortune 500 executives, military leaders, communication experts, Broadway producers, authors, Olympic level performers. So, uh, I started reviewing my thousands of pages of notes from just this year, 2026, and I noticed something that really surprised me, that people coming from completely different worlds kept describing the same communication habits. They would use different words, but they're saying the same thing. And so I decided to nerd out. And I'm building a 2026 executive influence index. I'm coll and coding every interview for topics and messages. And today's podcast is just the first to come out of that because I wanted to share the answer to one question that kept surfacing through all these interviews. And that is what makes a, uh, leader captivating, not entertaining, although entertaining can be good, but captivating, impossible to ignore. All right, so there's six patterns. And the first one is that they do not focus on themselves, but they are focused on the audience. And I would guess, folks, that you listening that you really don't focus on yourself. I don't think that's an issue so much. What's more likely, I could be wrong in your case that you focus too much on your data, like all the info that you have, but you want to focus on the audience. You have to filter what you know, what you have access to for your audience. And one of my absolute favorite guests of, um, all time, and I've been doing this a very long time, is the brilliant television producer Maz Farrelly. We had her on in 2023, episode 215, which is linked in the show notes and I'm gonna bring her back, but she said it's not my job to Be interested. It's your job to be interesting. And it doesn't matter if you're giving the monthly debrief. It's still your job to make it interesting. Right, because everybody you talk to is probably overwhelmed and exhausted. Now, before you think that she was just talking about being a performer, she explained what was behind that, and that is ultimate respect for people's time, giving them something worth paying attention to. Now, see, she spent decades producing reality television. I've never seen a single episode of her programs, but 8 billion other people have. And her standard was simple, like, if somebody gives you their attention, you owe them something memorable. And the focus on her shows was always to make it memorable, make it more interesting, make it better. And that idea showed up again in other interviews. For example, more recently, we had on Joshua Bandoc, who is a persuasion expert, and he was an academic. I think he's with a think tank now. But he's the author of how to get what you want. And he reminded us that communication starts by understanding the other person's motivation, which is something I've talked to clients about. Think about, what are they? Are they motivated by status? Are they motivated by stock price? Is not your motivation, it's their motivation. So here are two people from completely different worlds giving us the same conclusion. Captivating leaders obsess over the audience. This was also reinforced just the last episode, 606, by Meredith Grundi, who's a public speaking coach. So think about who are the most important stakeholders in the room? What do they need? What is that that triggers them? What are they afraid of? Um, how can you help them? All right, so audience obsession is the first pattern. The second pattern is creating curiosity. Before you deliver the information, think about the guests that you most enjoy on this podcast. They rarely start by giving you the textbook explanation. They start with tension. A surprising question, a story, an unexpected observation. And we had a, um, Hollywood writer, former writer, he's now consultant Lee Jessup. He talked about creating emotional investment before delivering information. More recently, Broadway producer Ken Davenport talked about building anticipation. And, uh, from our success in school, we think, just answer the question. One plus one is two. But when you're trying to captivate the people, to really pay attention to what you're saying is not to be so straightforward. If there's not much going on, that's fine. But what it's resulted in, given our we are all data driven, is that people are just drowning in data. So some people call it grabbing attention, some people call it creating curiosity. It doesn't matter People won't remember if you don't get them to pay attention first. And that means give them a reason to listen, right? And some of you've heard me say, sell it before you tell it. That's another way of saying the Create the curiosity. All right. Third pattern. Simplify. This was another repeated message, because our world, especially the business world, keeps getting more and more complex. Former Microsoft executive Janice Kapner spoke about communicating so executives can make decisions quickly. Public speaking coach Meredith Grundy emphasized clarity over complexity. And then from a totally different perspective, cybersecurity consultant MK Palmer told us about translating technical ideas into business language. And what I loved was that he suggests framing what you want to say in terms of the decision that needs to be made and using that decision as the filter to simplify. Nobody gets rewarded for sounding complicated. I, um, had dealt with people who think that's true. It is not true. You are rewarded when you make complicated things understandable. And even Einstein said, if you can't simplify it, you don't know it well enough. So that should be encouraging for every listener and those of you for whom English is your second language. You do not necessarily need a bigger vocabulary. You just need greater clarity. Keep it simple. Fourth pattern. A point of view. That means an informed opinion. I have one chapter in my book, chapter 11, which is required reading for all my mastery clients, just about the point of view. Nobody tells you this, but because you think you're just reporting information like you're, uh, a channel of data. No, to add more value, you interpret that information and you're able to say why it's important. You don't just describe what is happening or the events. You explain why they matter. Or maybe they don't matter. That's the thing. What is important? What is not important. That is one of the biggest shifts I see when professionals move into executive leadership. You are no longer reporting, you are interpreting. And the easiest way to do this, you've heard me say it many times. This is why this is important. Here's why this is important. All right, moving along the fifth pattern. Captivating leaders make you feel something in PhD language, that's called emotional resonance. I'm not saying you have to make them laugh their heads off, but a sense of urgency, uh, could be optimism, could be confidence, could be possibility. But there's something that neuroscientists have understood for years, that people remember what moves them emotionally. They don't simply remember facts. And that's why stories. We remember 22 times more through stories, because the stories get us to feel something emotionally by identifying with the character, the conflict, or something. So it's not the facts, it's how can you make the facts help people think differently? Stories are not just decoration. They're a, um, vehicle through which ideas travel. Finally, the sixth pattern. Leave people with one memorable idea. Going to go back to my best guess, Maz Farrelly heard saying, your job is to be interesting. The PR queen out in San Francisco, Heather Kernighan, to quote her, she said, behave famously. We had investor Calum Lang, who's in Singapore, say, become the connector, right? One sentence, one idea, one thought that stays with you long after the conversation ends. As I was just reviewing my notes from all these interviews, I realized that I expected captivating leaders to be naturally charismatic, right? Because they seem to be, but they're actually intentional. They think about the audience, they prepare for the audience, they edit, simplify, practice. Those are not personality traits, they're choices. And the thing is, though, over time, it becomes second nature. So it doesn't require the time that it can require you, not only the time and the discomfort that it could cost you right now when you're making this change, but it's wonderful news. For introverts, being captivating is not about becoming a chatterbox. It's being more thoughtful, filtering better, putting the audience front and center, being memorable. We can all do that better. So as I continue building the 2026 Executive Influence Index, I'll be sharing other patterns that emerge from these remarkable conversations, which I now see as research. I've mentioned before that I believe that better communication, executive presence allow you to deliver material business value. A lot of companies have super smart people whose ideas are harder to follow than they need to be, or it takes them too long to get to it. So if you have people like that in your company, you can introduce them to the podcast, or I can come and talk to them about it. I, uh, just wanted to throw that out there. In any case, have a glorious day and I will catch you on the next next episode.