You May Recognize This Picture
This Is For You If…
Your high-potentials are clearly qualified on paper but not yet perceived as unmistakably executive.
Senior stakeholders hesitate to promote leaders who are smart, capable, and respected, but their communication does not yet carry the authority their next role requires.
Your technical teams lose audiences in jargon, detail, and over-explanation when they need to influence outside their function.
Important messages are getting lost in the gap between what someone thought they said and what others actually heard.
Communication friction is slowing collaboration, eroding trust, creating rework, or muddying the message that needs to land cleanly.
You’re getting feedback like “more presence” or “more polish” with no map for what that actually looks and sounds like and how to actually teach or learn it.
You know that your strongest people are capable of more, and if they don’t feel seen, heard and valued soon enough, competitors will make sure that they do.
If any of that lands, the gap isn’t capability. It’s the communication layer wrapped around it. That layer is teachable, the ROI is measurable, and the cost of leaving it untrained is already showing up, in slower decisions, stalled successions, and the quiet exits of people who didn’t feel seen. (Your competitors will happily make them feel seen.)
What Makes This Training Different
Built On Science. Rooted In Research.
Tailored To Your Business. Safe Enough To Be Honest.
As a cognitive linguist with an ivy-league PhD, Laura brings more than “tips and tricks” to the room.
She brings the science of how language lands, how authority is perceived, how trust is built, and how the gap forms between what someone thought they said and what others actually heard.
She turns abstract ideas like “executive presence” and “influence” into specific, observable and measurable behaviors your teams can actually practice.
Every workshop is grounded in research, anchored to real business stakes, and tailored to your organization’s goals.
What sets the room apart is not just the rigor of the content, but the climate Laura builds inside it. Sessions are safe, confidential, and judgment-free. Participation is encouraged but never forced.
Every participant leaves with a personalized action plan: the specific priorities that will most change how they communicate, how they’re perceived, and how their career trajectory bends from here.
Workshops are delivered as half-day or full-day experiences, in person or virtually, and per Laura’s clients, they are rigorous, deeply practical, and far more fun than anyone expects a linguistics PhD to be.
And because soft skills shouldn’t be soft on results, every program is anchored to KPIs you and Laura define together, so you can show exactly what changed, in behavior and in business terms.
Twenty Years Inside The Rooms Where Leadership Is Judged
Why Organizations Trust Laura
With The Work
Laura is a cognitive linguist with a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, three-time TEDx speaker, and author of Speaking to Influence: Mastering Your Leadership Voice. She has trained leaders and teams at Comcast, IBM, Amazon, Accenture, Intel, HP, Vanguard, Chubb, GSK, Independence Blue Cross, Chemours, Kaiser Permanente, and the U.S. Department of Commerce, among many others.
But the credential that matters most is not just where Laura has been. It is what she has learned inside those rooms.
For more than two decades, she has helped leaders identify the subtle communication patterns that build authority, earn trust, and move people to action, as well as the ones that quietly dilute credibility, stall advancement, and cost organizations alignment.
She knows how executive presence is perceived in real time, how influence breaks down under pressure, and how to help smart leaders close the gap between the expertise they have and the authority others hear.
She knows exactly which communication patterns build trust at the top, and which ones quietly cost it.
By The Numbers
7M+
Views on Laura’s flagship TEDx talk
3
TEDx talks delivered
5
Continents Laura has worked across
20+
Years training senior leaders
Signature Programs
Signature Training Programs
Programs can be delivered as a half-day, full-day, or multi-session experience, in person or virtually, and tailored to your industry, team, and goals.
01 · Speaking To Influence: Mastering Your Leadership Voice
Laura’s flagship program. Leaders learn to close the gap between expertise and influence by mastering the verbal, vocal, and visual cues that decide how their message lands. Each participant discovers what’s in their own “blind spot,” and builds an authentic communication style that reinforces the leadership brand and reputation they actually want: the kind that gets credibility, trust, and results in the rooms that decide their next move.
02 · Breaking The Expert’s Curse
Stop sounding like a human spreadsheet; start speaking to influence. For technical teams whose expertise gets lost in jargon, detail, and over-explanation. Participants learn how to translate their vision and rationale for audiences who don’t share their vocabulary, replace cognitive overload with clarity, and structure their communication so the people they need to influence can actually act on it. Especially powerful for finance, engineering, IT, R&D, and other deep-domain teams whose ideas need to travel beyond their function.
03 · Communicating Through Conflict
A creative, practical, and surprisingly entertaining look at conflict orientations, hidden assumptions, and the strategies that move difficult conversations toward resolution instead of escalation. Participants leave with a new perspective and concrete tools for navigating tension, with more composure, diplomacy, and strategic, intentional listening skills, which open the door to addressing misunderstandings earlier, and strengthening relationships through the kind of direct communication most teams never get trained on.
04 · Board Influence
Targeted executive communication training for leaders presenting to boards, investors, audit committees, and senior stakeholder groups. Combines observation, assessment, and tailored coaching to strengthen how leaders show up when credibility is being evaluated in real time. Focuses on recommendation-first messaging, calm authority under scrutiny, and the specific patterns that build, or quietly erode, board trust.
05 · Elevator To The TOP!
The 30-second self-intro, finally worth listening to. Leaders craft the pitches and signature stories that make their value unmistakable, in introductions, interviews, networking, and the hallway or elevator moments that turn into opportunities. (Ideal pre-conference institute program)
06 · Bespoke Programs
Custom workshops built from the ground up around your team’s specific communication goals, leadership development priorities, and strategic challenges, succession readiness, post-merger alignment, executive presence for a rising cohort, or something only your organization would name.
FOLLOW
@laurasicola
For communication insights, behind-the-scenes coaching moments, keynote clips, and the occasional dose of linguistic humor, come say hi on your favorite platform.
DR. LAURA SICOLA
Based in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. Available worldwide, in person and on camera.