Know Your Own Executive Presence Strengths & Opportunities: Click here to pinpoint the specific area in your executive presence that’s keeping you invisible to senior leadership and guarantees you stay working hard as a pack mule who never gets promoted. Do your meetings end with everyone agreeing… but nothing actually improves? If you've ever held back an idea because you assumed it wouldn't make a difference—or watched your team avoid difficult conversations in the name of "being nice"—this episode will completely change how you think about communication. Gustavo Razzetti explains why silence isn't usually caused by fear, but by the belief that speaking up won't change anything. He introduces the concept of conversational debt and explains how avoiding honest dialogue quietly damages trust, innovation, and business performance. After listening to Dr. Laura’s conversation with Gustavo Razzetti, you'll know how to: 🧩Recognize the hidden signs of conversational debt before it hurts your team. 🎯 Replace false harmony and groupthink with healthier, more productive disagreement. 🪝Use practical conversation frameworks that lead to better decisions, stronger executive presence, and higher-performing teams. If you want your team to make smarter decisions, communicate with more confidence, and build a culture where the best ideas actually surface, don't miss this conversation with Gustavo Razzetti. Want to know how your executive presence measures up? Take my free Executive Presence Scorecard to identify your greatest strengths, uncover your biggest blind spots, and discover the skills that will increase your influence in every conversation and meeting. Get your personalized assessment here. About our guest: Gustavo Razzetti is a culture strategist, workshop facilitator, and keynote speaker with over 25 years of experience—first as a marketing and advertising executive, now as CEO of Fearless Culture, a culture design consultancy. He’s facilitated more than 1,500 workshops with leadership teams at Mars, Microsoft, Merck, the Inter-American Development Bank, and hundreds of organizations across the world. Razzetti is the creator of the Culture Design Canvas, now used by over 500,000 practitioners worldwide, and the Forward Talk framework. He helps teams surface issues early, challenge groupthink, and turn avoided conversations into decisions that stick. His work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, and Fortune. He’s a regular contributor to Psychology Today. Gustavo is the bestselling author of Forward Talk, Remote, Not Distant, and Stretch for Change. Gustavo helps teams say what everyone’s thinking, but no one’s saying. To learn more visit www.speakupwithlaura.com. New Speak Up podcast episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday early in the morning. The Speak Up Podcast helps high-performing professionals develop executive presence through strategic communication, executive confidence, and leadership influence. Each episode provides practical strategies to help you speak up in meetings, communicate with senior leaders, present ideas with clarity, build executive visibility, strengthen your leadership presence, influence without authority, stop overexplaining, answer difficult questions with confidence, and become a trusted executive leader. Whether you're preparing for your next Vice President promotion or looking to communicate with greater credibility and gravitas, you'll learn actionable executive communication skills that accelerate career growth. Topics covered in this episode: Executive presence Speaking up in meetings Conversational debt False harmony in the workplace Groupthink and decision-making Honest leadership communication Executive communication skills Leadership influence Receiving feedback Challenging ideas respectfully Consensus vs. better decisions Decision-making frameworks Conversational agency Communication that drives business value Leading without formal authority Executive influence High-performing teams Leadership development
