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For Senior Leaders
Executive Communication Training for Senior Leaders
Executive communication training from Pollack Peacebuilding Systems (PPS) helps senior leaders navigate high-stakes conversations with greater clarity, composure, and presence. Our programs are customizable to the real pressures your leadership team faces every day, from board updates and organizational change to tense negotiations and the everyday moments when a team is reading its leaders closely.
Our Peacebuilders draw on the psychology of conflict to help leaders understand what’s happening beneath the surface of a difficult exchange. We focus on the needs, interests, and emotions in the room, not just the words being said. This gives leaders a deeper understanding of what may be driving the conversation and helps them respond with greater intention rather than simply reacting under pressure.
We start by understanding your organization, your goals, and the specific communication challenges your leaders face. From there, we help you identify the right approach, with training that can be shaped to reflect your industry, leadership team, and the conversations that matter most.
Ready to strengthen how your senior leaders communicate?
Trusted by Leading Organizations
PPS is the largest workplace conflict resolution firm in the U.S. Founded by Dr. Jeremy Pollack, a social psychologist whose work in the psychology of conflict shapes our approach, our nationwide team of Peacebuilders works with organizations of every size to strengthen how their people communicate and navigate conflict. You can learn more about Dr. Jeremy Pollack.
Our experts are regularly featured in major media, including Forbes, NBC, CBS, Fox, and Business Insider. We’ve worked with organizations across more than 60 industries, including Amazon, Deloitte, Instacart, Robinhood, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Our work is grounded in interest-based and transformative conflict resolution, applied to the real communication challenges leaders and teams face at work. For executive leaders, that means bringing this approach to the high-stakes conversations, decisions, and communication challenges that come with leading an organization.
Want to see how this fits your leadership team?
Who This Program Is Designed For
This program supports senior leaders who set the tone for how an entire organization communicates. It’s built for the conversations that carry weight, where clarity and steadiness matter most.
We design engagements for:
- CEOs and founders who shape culture and represent the organization to boards, investors, and the public.
- C-suite executives managing cross-functional tension, competing priorities, and high-visibility decisions.
- SVPs and division leaders who translate strategy into direction for large teams.
- Board-facing leaders who present in rooms where every word is weighed and questioned.
- High-potential senior leaders stepping into broader scope and greater exposure.
- Executive teams that want a shared language for how they communicate under pressure.
Because the program is customizable, we can adjust the focus and depth for leaders at different levels of experience, from a first-time division head to a veteran CEO.
It’s also a strong fit for leadership teams that want a shared language for hard conversations. When an executive group learns together, they leave with common reference points they can use in the very meetings where clarity matters most.
Why Executive Communication Training Matters
At the executive level, communication is central to the work. The higher you rise, the more your day is spent aligning people, navigating disagreement, and staying grounded when the stakes are high.
Even strong leaders can find that the skills that got them promoted don’t fully carry into the executive seat. A message that once rallied a small team can land differently with a board, a skeptical stakeholder, or a room that’s under strain. That’s normal, and it’s exactly what focused executive communication training is meant to address.
We help leaders move beyond positions and reactions to better understand what people need in a conversation. When you can recognize the emotions and interests beneath the surface, you can respond with greater intention rather than simply reacting in the moment. Leaders are better prepared to keep dialogue open when tension rises and navigate difficult decisions without losing sight of the relationships involved.
The impact of a misread conversation can grow with a leader’s scope. A misaligned message can slow a decision, strain a partnership, or leave a team uncertain about direction. Focused practice helps leaders approach these moments more deliberately, creating more room for understanding even when the conversation is difficult.
This work builds on our broader communication skills training and complements the one-on-one support we offer through conflict coaching for individual leaders.
Our Approach: Transformative, Interest-Based Communication
Our approach is transformative and interest-based, grounded in the psychology of conflict. Rather than teaching scripts, we help leaders understand the needs, interests, emotions, and perspectives that may be shaping a high-stakes exchange.
Communication often breaks down under stress, even among highly capable leaders, because conversations can get stuck at the level of positions and reactions. We help leaders look beneath the surface to better understand what may be driving the interaction so they can respond with greater awareness and intention. This is the same interest-based approach our Peacebuilders use with organizations of every size, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses.
What makes this approach transformative is that it changes how leaders relate to conflict itself. Instead of treating disagreement as something to shut down, leaders learn to see it as information about the needs, interests, and perspectives in the room. That shift can help leaders navigate tension more thoughtfully and keep dialogue open, even when conversations are difficult.
Every engagement follows our three-step delivery model, so you know what to expect from the start.
Start With Your Free Consultation
Discovery begins with a free consultation. We start by understanding your goals, learning about your leaders, and identifying the core communication challenges your organization is facing. There’s no cost and no obligation to move forward.
Receive Your Customized Proposal
Next, a Program Director develops a Customized Proposal based on your organization’s goals and needs. It outlines the recommended format, focus areas, and approach for your leaders, with attention to the conversations and contexts that matter most.
Launch Your Program With a Dedicated Team
Finally, we move to Initiation, where your program launches with a dedicated team of Peacebuilders and coaches. Your leaders work through realistic scenarios with practitioners who understand the psychology of conflict and the dynamics of high-stakes communication. Curious what a Customized Proposal could look like for your team?
Program Overview: Delivery Formats and Duration Options
We deliver our executive communication program in formats that fit how your leaders actually work. You choose the setting, and we’ll help you identify the structure that best fits your team.
Delivery formats include:
- On-site at your workplace, so leaders learn together in a familiar, focused environment.
- Live virtual sessions over Zoom or Microsoft Teams, ideal for distributed or traveling executive teams.
Duration options include:
- Half-day sessions for focused work on a specific set of skills.
- Full-day sessions for deeper practice, richer scenarios, and more individualized coaching.
Sessions typically include 8 to 25 participants. That range keeps groups small enough for meaningful practice and feedback while still allowing an executive team to learn together. If your needs fall outside these formats, we’ll talk through the right options during your free consultation.
For leaders one level down, we also offer communication skills training for managers and supervisors that pairs well with executive-level engagements.
Book Your Free Consultation
Tell us about your leadership team and what is at stake. We will recommend the right program and outline a clear path forward. No cost, no obligation.
What You’ll Develop
Our learning outcomes focus on capability, not slogans. Throughout the program, leaders develop practical skills for communicating with greater intention across the highest-stakes moments of their role. The program focuses on six core areas.
Clarity under pressure
You'll learn to organize and deliver complex messages so they land clearly, even when the room is tense or the timeline is tight.
Emotionally intelligent communication
You'll practice recognizing emotional cues and considering the interests that may be beneath the surface of a conversation, then responding with greater awareness and intention.
High-stakes conversation skills
You'll learn to approach difficult conversations, negotiations, and disagreements with composure and structure instead of reaction.
Trust-based leadership communication
You'll practice communicating with transparency, consistency, and respect, especially when decisions are difficult or relationships are under strain.
Persuasive, credible messaging
You'll practice framing ideas around what your audience needs to understand, while keeping the message clear, credible, and relevant.
Executive presence
You'll learn to align your words, tone, and body language so your presence reinforces your message rather than distracting from it.
Each outcome is reinforced through practice, feedback, and scenarios drawn from your leaders’ real work.
Executive Presence Development
Executive presence is how your message and your manner work together. We help leaders develop presence across both verbal and nonverbal communication, so what you say and how you carry yourself point in the same direction.
On the verbal side, we work with:
- Vocal delivery, including pace, pause, volume, and emphasis that support a clear, steady message.
- Message structure, so key points are easy to follow and hard to misread.
- Framing and word choice, so you speak to interests and needs rather than positions.
- Responsive listening, so you can adjust in real time to what the room is telling you.
On the nonverbal side, we work with:
- Body language and posture that convey steadiness and openness.
- Eye contact and facial expression that build connection and signal attentiveness.
- Physical and virtual presence, including how you show up on camera over Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
- Composure cues, so your presence stays grounded when a conversation gets difficult.
Together, these elements help leaders communicate with greater steadiness and presence while staying attentive to the people in the room.
Want to build this kind of presence across your leadership team?
Curriculum Overview
Our curriculum moves from foundations to advanced application across five modules. We customize the depth and emphasis of each module to your leaders, but the arc stays consistent.
Module 1: Foundations of Executive Communication
Leaders establish a shared framework for communicating with clarity and intention. We cover the psychology of conflict, the role of needs and interests, and how communication shifts under pressure at the executive level.
Module 2: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
Leaders build the self-awareness and empathy that anchor every difficult conversation. You'll learn to recognize your own reactions, read the emotions beneath the surface, and respond in ways that can help keep dialogue open when emotions are running high.
Module 3: Building Trust and Psychological Safety
Leaders learn to communicate in ways that strengthen trust across teams. We focus on transparency, consistency, and interest-based communication that can create more room for people to raise difficult concerns.
Module 4: Navigating High-Stakes Conversations
Leaders practice approaching negotiations, disagreements, and moments of conflict with structure and composure. You'll work through real scenarios, moving beyond positions and reactions toward a better understanding of what matters to the people involved.
Module 5: Presentation and Storytelling
Leaders sharpen how they present to boards, investors, and large audiences. We work on narrative structure, persuasive framing, and the delivery skills that make a message clear, credible, and memorable.
For organizations that also want a compelling voice on stage, our keynote speaking engagements extend these skills to larger audiences.
How We Teach
We teach through active practice, not passive lecture. Leaders build skills by working through realistic scenarios and receiving direct, supportive feedback from our Peacebuilders and coaches.
Our learning methods include:
- Interactive workshops that combine short teaching moments with hands-on application.
- Role-plays and simulations built around the high-stakes conversations your leaders actually face.
- Live coaching and feedback, so leaders refine their approach in the moment.
- Peer learning, where executives learn from one another’s perspectives and experiences.
- Reflection and skill-building exercises that help leaders connect what they practice in training to their daily work.
When scenarios are shaped around your organization, leaders can practice situations that reflect the conversations and challenges most relevant to their work.
Assessment and Documentation of Completion
We assess progress against clear program standards so leaders can see how they’re developing. Rather than relying on a single test, we use practical demonstration, coaching feedback, and self-reflection to understand how leaders are applying the skills they practice.
Throughout the program, our coaches observe how leaders approach scenarios and offer specific, constructive feedback. Leaders also reflect on their own development against the capabilities the program is designed to build, keeping the emphasis on practical application rather than a score.
Upon completion, participants receive documentation recognizing their participation in the executive communication program. Organizations can use this to document leadership-development investment and support internal talent-development plans.
Because the emphasis remains on practice, leaders finish the program with a clearer understanding of the skills they’ve developed and where they may want to continue growing. We can also debrief with your Program Director so your organization has a clearer picture of the group’s progress and where continued support may be useful.
Organizational Impact
How senior leaders communicate can influence the way information, disagreement, and change move through an organization. When leaders communicate with clarity and empathy, they can create better conditions for teams to stay aligned, navigate disagreement, and continue working together through change.
This program is designed to help leaders:
- Approach conflict as a normal, workable part of leadership rather than a threat.
- Keep communication open and steady when priorities compete, or pressure rises.
- Model the interest-based habits that help teams work through tension constructively.
- Support more open communication across departments, including the exchange of information and feedback.
When executives model interest-based communication, the effect can extend beyond the leadership team. Managers see a different way to approach difficult conversations, and teams have a clearer example of how to raise concerns, navigate disagreement, and keep communication open when tension rises. Over time, communication can become a shared strength across the organization rather than a skill held by a few individuals.
Our training helps leaders build these capabilities through focused instruction and practice. During your free consultation, we’ll talk about the communication challenges your leaders are facing and identify where this work can be most relevant to your organization.
Implementation Options
We make it straightforward to bring executive communication training into your organization. You can start with a single leadership team or roll the program out across multiple layers of leadership over time.
Common implementation options include:
- A focused engagement for one executive team addressing a specific set of challenges.
- A phased rollout that begins with senior leaders and extends to managers and supervisors.
- An ongoing partnership that combines training with conflict coaching for individual leaders.
- A blended program that mixes on-site and live virtual sessions to fit distributed teams.
Whichever path fits, we design the details with you through our three-step model, beginning with Discovery, moving to a Customized Proposal from a Program Director, and launching at Initiation with a dedicated team of Peacebuilders and coaches.
Frequently Asked Questions
Executive communication training is focused development that helps senior leaders communicate with clarity, empathy, and presence in high-stakes situations. At PPS, we ground this work in the psychology of conflict and our transformative, interest-based method, so leaders learn to address the needs and emotions beneath the surface of difficult conversations.
It’s built specifically for the pressures of senior leadership, not general workplace communication. General programs often cover broad skills for any employee, while our executive communication program centers on board-level conversations, high-stakes negotiations, and moments when a whole organization is watching how you respond.
The program is designed for senior leaders who influence how their organization communicates. That can include CEOs, founders, C-suite executives, SVPs, division leaders, and high-potential leaders stepping into broader scope and greater visibility.
The program is delivered on-site at your workplace or through live virtual sessions over Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Sessions run as half-day or full-day formats and typically include 8 to 25 participants, which keeps groups small enough for meaningful practice and feedback.
Live coaching and feedback are incorporated into the training experience, giving leaders opportunities to refine their approach during exercises and scenarios. Organizations can also pair the program with one-on-one conflict coaching for leaders who would benefit from more individualized support.
Yes. We’ve supported leaders across more than 60 industries, including clients such as Amazon, Deloitte, Instacart, Robinhood, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Our executive communication training is customizable to your industry, goals, and the specific conversations your leaders handle. During your consultation, a Program Director will help identify the right focus and structure for your organization.
Yes. Emerging and high-potential leaders can build these skills before stepping into more senior roles. Because the training is customizable, we can adjust the focus and depth for different levels of leadership, including programs that bring emerging leaders and seasoned executives together.
You get started with a free consultation, where we learn about your goals and identify the core communication challenges your leaders are facing. From there, a Program Director develops a Customized Proposal based on your organization’s needs, including the format, group size, focus, and objectives, so you have a clear picture of the program and pricing before moving forward.
Strengthen Executive Leadership Through Communication
Your leaders set the standard for how your organization communicates through pressure, change, and disagreement. With the right executive communication training, they can approach difficult conversations with greater clarity, empathy, and presence while keeping communication open when the stakes are high.
Start with a free consultation. We’ll learn about your leaders, your industry, and the communication challenges they’re facing, then help you shape the right approach around the conversations that matter most.
