Speak Like a CEO: Simple, Concise, and Confident Communication That Gets Results

Tim Newman [00:00:09]:
The most powerful communicators in any room aren't the ones with the most to say. They're the ones who say exactly what they mean and then stop. Welcome back to Speaking With Confidence, the podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on your journey to becoming a powerful communicator. So here's the myth I want to blow up right out of the gate. Most people here speak like a CEO and immediately picture someone drowning in buzzwords, tossing around words like leverage and synergy, sounding like they swallowed a quarterly earnings report. But that's not it.

Tim Newman [00:00:53]:
The people who actually run companies don't talk that way. They don't sound polished. They sound certain. They say what they mean, and they're not afraid to be plain about it. And today, I'm handing you the exact framework I use with executives who need to sound like leaders, not like they've been marinating in corporate speak since 2009. It's three simple things. Simple, concise, and confident. That's the whole formula.

Tim Newman [00:01:24]:
But first, let me tell you why most smart people accidentally sound junior. Because the problem isn't that you're bad at communicating. It's that you were trained wrong. You were trained to sound like a middle manager. School rewarded complexity. Longer sentences earned better grades. Bigger words got more nods and meetings, More caveats, made you look thorough. The unspoken rule practically engraves itself into your brain by year three of your career.

Tim Newman [00:01:54]:
If it sounds complicated, ah, you must be smart. But this is backwards. Completely backwards. CEOs don't have time to decode your message. Their job is decisions, not translation. They're scanning for the signal through the noise, and every extra word you add to makes their job harder. I watched this play out. In a pitch meeting, someone stood up and buried their ask under three paragraphs of context, including something called strategic resource allocation to optimize operational throughput or something like that.

Tim Newman [00:02:30]:
Because I got completely lost. That person got a polite nod and no check. Next person stood up and said, we need 200,000 to fix a supply chain issue by March. That person got the money. Same room, same decision makers. The difference was clarity. John Maxwell said it really well. People won't remember what you said.

Tim Newman [00:02:57]:
They'll remember how you made them feel. And if you make people feel confused, they won't trust you. Confusion kills credibility faster than being wrong does, because at Least when you're wrong, you took a position. And here's the part nobody tells you. The solution isn't working harder or gathering more data. It's filtering. So here's the first pillar. It's simple.

Tim Newman [00:03:21]:
It's the clarity filter. Simple means this. Remember, if an 8th grader can't explain your main point after hearing it once, you haven't figured it out yet. Remember, it's called the eighth grade rule, and we've talked about it before because it keeps showing up in every conversation worth having about communication. This isn't about talking down to people. It's about doing the hard work of clarity. And most people skip that work because complexity feels a lot safer if you're not entirely sure you're right. Big words give you somewhere to hide, and CEOs don't have that luxury.

Tim Newman [00:03:57]:
Their reputation rides on being understood the first time, every time. Here's a practical technique that takes 30 seconds before any meeting, any email, any presentation, write your Main point in one sentence under 20 words. If you can't do it, you're not ready. Keep cutting until there's nothing left to cut. Here's a second technique. Ban a handful of words from your vocabulary for one week. Words like leverage, synergy, optimize, holistic, strategic. Anywhere that feels like it belongs on a PowerPoint slide, kill it.

Tim Newman [00:04:35]:
Replace them with what you actually mean, like we need to work together instead of we need to leverage cross functional synergies. The person who says we need to work together sounds more like a CEO. You know why? Because they sound honest. The other person sounds like they're hiding something behind syllables. Watch Tim Cook introduce a product sometime. No jargon, no caveats, just this is what it does and here's why you want it. That's not because the technology is simple. It's because he did the work of making it sound simple before he opened his mouth.

Tim Newman [00:05:11]:
But clarity alone isn't enough. You also need to know when to stop talking. So pillar number two, be concise. It's the brevity advantage. The less you say, the more each word weighs. Most people get this completely backwards. They think adding more makes them sound more credible. It doesn't.

Tim Newman [00:05:34]:
Every extra sentence waters down the one before it. And junior employees over explain because they want you to see the work, the hours, the research, the thinking. You see, CEOs don't have that problem. They state the conclusion first because their time is constraint, not their credibility. Here's a rule I want you to write down. If you can't make your point in 30 seconds. You don't understand it well enough yet. This applies to meetings, emails, pitches, and conversations with your boss in the hallway.

Tim Newman [00:06:09]:
If you need four minutes of setup just to get the to the ask, what you're really saying is, I'm not sure which part matters, so I'm giving you all of it and hoping you'll sort it out. That's not communication. That's outsourcing your thinking to the listener. Here's a quick exercise. Pull up an email you sent last week. Cut it by half, not 10%. Half now. Read both versions side by side.

Tim Newman [00:06:38]:
The shorter one will sound more confident every single time. Brevity doesn't just save time, it projects certainty. And certainty is what people buy, whether you're selling an idea, a product, or yourself. And silence belongs in this toolbox too. CEOs are comfortable with pauses. They don't fill empty space with or nervous elaboration. A five second pause before you answer a question signals your thinking, not that you're stumped. It tells the room you're not scared of the silence, which means you're not scared of anything else either.

Tim Newman [00:07:12]:
And pill number three is confident. This is the certainty principle. This is where most advice goes wrong. People hear confidence and picture someone loud, aggressive and dominating the room. That's not executive confidence. It's called theater. Real executive confidence is simpler and harder to fake. It sounds like this.

Tim Newman [00:07:35]:
Talk like you're correct, listen like you're wrong. And we've talked about this before on the show because it's one of Tim Elmer's concepts. Keep coming back to Listening like you're wrong is what separates genuine confidence from performance. But first, the talking side. Talk like you're correct means killing every hedge in your vocabulary. Things such as I think, I feel. I feel like maybe we could sort of, kind of. These phrases are permission slips for people to doubt you, and you're the one who's signing them every time you lead with I think we should maybe consider you're telling the room you're not sure enough to stand behind your own idea.

Tim Newman [00:08:19]:
Compare that to we're expanding into the Midwest. Here's why. Same person, same proposal, completely different weight. One sounds like a suggestion you could take or leave. The other sounds like a decision with reasoning behind it. Now the second half of this, and this is what actually separates CEOs from egomaniacs. Confident leaders don't need to win every argument. They need the best outcome.

Tim Newman [00:08:48]:
And the best outcome doesn't care whose idea it started is. When someone pushes back, don't Defend, get curious. Tell me more about that is one of the most powerful phrases in leadership because it shows you're more committed to getting it right than to being right. Drop the expert facade. If you don't know something, say, I don't know yet. I'll find out. That one sentence builds more trust than 20 minutes of pretending ever could, and the paradox works in your favor. Admitting what you don't know makes people believe what you do know.

Tim Newman [00:09:24]:
The vulnerability is a weakness. When it's compared with competence, it's credibility. Here's your drill. Record yourself answering a question on your phone. Play it back and count every hedge. I think, sort of, kind of, maybe just now, answer the same question without a single one. Feel the difference? That shift, that dropping of the safety net, is what executive presence actually sounds like. So the formula in action.

Tim Newman [00:09:56]:
It's simple, concise and confident. It's not a checklist you run through once. It's a filter that everything passes through before it leaves your mouth. Before you speak, ask yourself, what's the simplest version of this? Good. Now cut that in half. Now say it without a single hedge. That's your answer. Here's what it looks like in the real world.

Tim Newman [00:10:21]:
Someone walks into a meeting and says, I was kind of thinking that maybe we could potentially look into restructuring the onboarding process because it seems like it might be taking a little longer than we'd ideally want. Nobody moves. Nobody writes anything down. Now run it through the filter. Our onboarding takes six weeks. It should take three. I'm fixing it. The second version gets attention.

Tim Newman [00:10:47]:
The first version gets forgotten before the meeting ends. Try this tomorrow morning. Write a three sentence email. Sentence one is the ask. Sentence two is the why. Sentence three is the deadline. No greetings, no sign offs, no circling back or touching base. Just clarity.

Tim Newman [00:11:07]:
You've got the framework. It's simple, concise and confident. For the next 48 hours, every time you speak in professional setting, run it through the filter. One sentence test. Cut it in half. Remove every hedge if it feels uncomfortable. Good. That discomfort is the feeling of a crutch you don't need anymore.

Tim Newman [00:11:29]:
That's all for today. Remember, we're looking for progress, not perfection. Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free eBook, the Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. You can also register for the Formula for Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change your world. We'll talk to you next time. Take care.