CEO Reputation Management

Author: Simon Merrick, PR Director, Zest ST

There is an extricable link between the CEO and corporate reputation. No matter whether the Chief Exec believes this or not, a planned and effectively implemented CEO defined reputation programme can add great benefit, not only to an organisations profile, but also to the individual’s standing with their peers.

CEOs are generally clustered in to one of four different personality groups: democratic, autocratic, consultative and laissez-faire, each with their own leadership style which influences how they approach communications, both internal and external. No matter which type of CEO you are, you will benefit from a considered investigation into how much better you could be communicating with your stakeholders.

Many corporate communications campaigns are clearly implemented to promote products and services to develop the brands as assets and create market leading awareness and the opportunity to generate sales. Often brand programmes build their own momentum which can diverge from the higher level corporate plan. The CEO’s platform is therefore essential to communications throughout the organisation and as such their leadership should influence the development of all other communications plans.

Communications divergence is an important topic, and requires investigation in its own right as this divergence can dilute energies away from core communications goals. However, at the top of the organisation the CEO needs to provide a strong platform to lead divisional, operational and of course corporate communications.

Good reputation is carefully planned and managed and is a highly valuable asset and should be considered as such. Great reputations are built over time they do not appear over night. On the other hand they can fail that quickly.

The majority of CEOs have reached this pinnacle of their career through a combination of talent, salesmanship, grit and experience and the best of these are aware that being accessible to customers, the media and other audiences, while delegating to capable management team members, can create an environment for a long and successful tenure in the top job.

Are some businesses now too large for the CEO to make a positive effect on the communications agenda? If the CEO believes he must be involved in all decisions then yes, but as CEO the role is to set the organisations agenda, implementation is for others, although the CEOs involvement as the figurehead and chief thought-leadership proponent must be cultivated to achieve maximum exposure.

Creating a profile as a CEO is often a about treading a fine line between adding value to the organisation and self publicity. And therefore it is usually advisable to ensure that the development of a profile building programme is based around a CEO platform that promotes credibility and complements the corporate communications objectives.

Communications channels have dramatically changed during the past 10 years and any CEO reputation programme must consider the communications options in a creative manner to project the most appropriate profile to the target audiences. So we must understand and consider the corporate goals, the CEOs personal vision for the organisation and audiences requirements in terms of messaging and delivery route.

The CEO must take the lead in the communications agenda, when it works the organisation and the leader benefit, when it is left to chance and fails a enterprise’s reputation suffers, so do the company’s culture and bottom-line.