Pamela Meyer
Founder and CEO, Calibrate
This episode will premiere September 10, 2026 at 7:00pm ET
“What we used to think was a deception epidemic has now hardened into a much more significant trust crisis.”
Summary
On this week's episode of Leadership Matters, I sat down with my friend Pamela Meyer, the founder and chief executive of Calibrate, a Washington, D.C. firm that trains businesses and government agencies in deception detection. Pamela is well-known for her work on deception: her TED Talk on how to spot a liar has been watched more than 30 million times.
While deception detection is still a major part of her work, Pamela has just released a new book that argues catching lies is but one piece of a larger social observation toolset. Titled How to Read the Room: The Art and Science of Social Observation, the book explains the importance of social undercurrents in conversation and the ways effective leaders can make use of them.
Over the course of the episode, Pam and I explored why what we once understood as a deception epidemic may have hardened into something more consequential, a crisis of trust, and why overcoming our own assumptions is the first step toward seeing others clearly. We also talked about the limitations of AI in socially grounded contexts and what changes inside an organization when leaders make verification part of the culture.
At a moment when so much of what reaches us is summarized by a machine, Pamela makes a case for something deceptively simple: the ability to slow down, observe carefully, and understand the people in front of us. In a world increasingly mediated by technology, that is a critical responsibility no leader can afford to outsource.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
How to Read the Room: The Art and Science of Social Observation, by Pamela Meyer
Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception, by Pamela Meyer
Guest Bio
Pamela Meyer is a leading authority on deception detection, social observation, and trust, and the founder and chief executive of Calibrate, a Washington, DC-based firm that helps organizations better understand human behavior. Her work grew out of a longstanding interest in how people communicate what they believe through what they say and do, which led to her bestselling first book, Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception. Her 2011 TED Talk, “How to Spot a Liar,” has been viewed more than 30 million times and remains one of TED’s most-watched talks. Her new book, How to Read the Room: The Art and Science of Social Observation, extends that work beyond deception to examine how context, behavior, and beliefs can help us understand what is happening beneath the surface of a conversation.
Before turning to the study of deception and social observation, Meyer spent more than two decades working at the intersection of media, technology, and business, experiences that shaped her interest in how people make decisions and navigate complex environments. She has founded several media and technology ventures and held senior leadership roles across the nonprofit and private sectors. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Washington Post, Forbes, CNN, NPR, and ABC News. Meyer holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a master’s in public policy from Claremont Graduate University, and a bachelor’s degree in psychology and political science from Washington University in St. Louis.