By Zach Nadler, CEO of VaynerSpeakers
Something fundamental has shifted in the leadership space, and if you're still booking speakers who deliver polished presentations about "unlocking unlimited potential," you're toast.
Audiences have grown tired of being talked at about leadership – they want to be part of the conversation. And honestly, it's about time.
The speakers excelling now aren't the ones with picture-perfect LinkedIn journeys. They're leaders who can tell you exactly how they screwed up, what it cost them, and what they built from the wreckage. Real stories with real stakes.
Take Claude Silver, VaynerX's Chief Heart Officer. While traditional executives were perfecting their "inspirational" keynotes, Claude pioneered something different: showing up authentically at work isn't a luxury; it's business-critical. Her upcoming book, Be Yourself at Work, doesn't just talk about empathy as a buzzword. It provides concrete steps for making heart-based leadership part of your organizational culture. That's the shift. A unique vision brought to life, with case studies and proof points.
Here's what I'm seeing at the best events: the most powerful moments aren't happening solely during polished presentations. They're happening in quiet conversations AFTER, when speakers drop their overly curated personas and talk human-to-human.
Smart event planners are designing for this. Fireside chats between leadership and speaker aren't just trending—they're becoming critical. Employees feel the authenticity when their leaders engage in a conversation with an expert rather than hearing a presentation. True experts can hear about an organization’s issues and offer 30-second consulting to help formulate a solution.
Same with workshop integration. Audiences want to practice leadership principles, fail at them, and iterate in real time. There is no replacement for instant feedback in an interactive format.
And please, for the love of all that's good, make your Q&A sessions matter! Today's audiences can detect scripted interactions immediately. They want raw, unfiltered dialogue about the challenges keeping them up at night. If you are going to have one person ask the questions, ask the hard questions. Things that you not only want the audience to hear about, but things that will help them in their day-to-day lives, personally and/or professionally.
A big name might fill seats, but relevance fills minds. The companies getting this right are completely overhauling their speaker selection. They're booking active leaders navigating today's challenges in real time themselves, not yesterday's victories that are not relatable to today’s employees. They're going industry-specific over generic, because sector-specific insights trump universal principles every time. Or perhaps another industry is doing right what you are doing wrong, and you need to learn from the best. And sometimes the most powerful speaker isn't the CEO, it's the VP who brought a struggling team back to life.
The playbook has changed:
The old model treated audiences like empty vessels waiting to be filled with inspiration. The new model treats them like equals in a conversation about the complexities of leading in an uncertain world.
And that's exactly where they should be.
