It’s time for leadership and action: Comms leaders see initiative and focus as keys to post-pandemic impact
Mike Klein FIIC, FCSCE, SCMP
Communication Strategist and Consultant; Founder, #WeLeadComms
Communication leaders see their own leadership - as individuals and as a profession - as key to driving the industry’s recovery from the global pandemic.??
That conclusion is based on the input of 100 professionals previously honored as “communication leaders” for their own actions and initiative by the #WeLeadComms effort, a sense is emerging that the communication profession has the keys to its own destiny, and that there are steps they can take to magnify both their input and their status in the organizations and communities they serve.
In answer to the question of:
Where are the biggest opportunities for communication leaders to make a difference in their organizations and communities in 2022?
Survey participants shared answers which broke down into the following categories:
Professional Leadership (taking action to strengthen perceptions of the profession inside and beyond organization) 13%
Culture & Workplace Strategy (getting involved in shaping direction and perceptions) 12%
Personal Initiative (developing skills and mindsets to deliver better results) 12%
Ethics & Values (supporting greater clarity and broader embrace) 11%
Measurement & Data (increasing fluency and reliance to drive strategic and tactical decisions) 9%
Engagement (internal and external interactivity with organizations) 5%
Connectedness (supporting greater belonging and creating new relationships between people) 4%
Sustainability + Climate + Diversity (embracing as organizational priorities) 4%
Alignment (building closer relationship between organizational words and actions) 3%
Channels & Digitalization (improving communication tools) 3%
Crisis (sharpening and prioritizing crisis communication) 2%
Noisebreaking (reducing the volume and pervasiveness of irrelevant information and?
messaging) 2%
Other, singular responses, and non-responses added up to 21%.
Reflecting a bias towards action
To be fair, #WeLeadComms honorees have a bias towards action as a criteria for being recognized, so there’s no claim these views reflect the entire industry, unlike this year’s excellent State of the Sector survey.
What these views do reflect is a sense of both optimism and ownership among highly engaged communication pros.?
This makes them potentially valuable guidance both for pros who are seeking inspiration for their own agendas for the next 12-18 months, and for business leaders who want more benefit out of their relationships with their own communication leaders.
In line with their answers to the first question, “looking broadly, what do you think is the biggest issue facing communication leaders today?”, survey participants focused most heavily on initiatives and disciplines they can personally take on or take part in. The remaining participants focused on specific topics that they wanted to prioritize.
Direct initiatives and disciplines 47%
Professional leadership 13%
Personal initiative 12%
Measurement & Data 9%
Connectedness 4%
Channels & Digitalization 4%
Alignment 3%
Noisebreaking 2%
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Priority Topics 32%
Culture and Workplace Strategy 12%
Ethics and Values 11%
Sustainability, Climate and Diversity 4%
Crisis 2%
Other/None 21%
Participant responses
Direct initiative
Looking at individual responses, the tone and intent of the answers themselves illustrates the extent that communication leaders are eager to stamp their imprint on the months ahead.
“Educating leaders and helping folks understand that Comms is the business of relationships.?Often the most effective comms mitigates crises and amplifies positive engagement, frames boundaries by telling compelling, inclusive stories.”
“Keeping communication at the forefront of pandemic recovery. No more ignoring and underfunding the comms function. We need to keep advocating at the highest levels.”
“It's a great time to build business acumen, speak the language of top decision makers and create greater understanding about the business value of professional, strategic communications.”
“Evolving professional communication for greater engagement and impact, both internally and externally.”
“World-class execution while using innovative communication platforms.”
“Stop waiting and take action and control of your own path.?Teach and mentor your younger team members, when they are strong, you are strong.?Become audience matter experts and strategists -- the path to business problem solving.”
“Exceeding expectations and thus improving accountability”
“#creativecomms - we have NOT tried everything”
“To get involved and help those community members learn more and look after themselves”
Priority Topics
Even where participants focused on specific topics, many of the answers focused on how communication leaders could contribute to resolving the issues, or at least, increasing participation in their resolution.
“To create awareness about the new world of work and build the organisational culture to support it.”
“Communication leaders can make the biggest difference in areas of transparency, ethical practice and helping to highlight diverse voices.“
“This will be a pivotal year.?The pandemic has polarized people, media, companies and government officials.?This has fractured our stakeholders and audiences.?Our challenge is to ensure our leadership understands the organizational core values, and we step up to build the right tools and methods with credibility to reach our audiences. “
“Advising leaders at all levels of the organisation on how to communicate with empathy and build an authentic relationship with their employees.”
“Navigating the transition into a hybrid working world and the increasing importance of ESG/Sustainability in relation to winning business and engaging clients/talent.”
“Holding on to the truth by being open, having the difficult conversations and delivering on your promises. Truth is a powerful commodity and something in short supply.”
A word about ESG/Diversity, Sustainability & Climate
It may be tempting to assume that the relatively low number of participants citing climate, sustainability and diversity as a primary topic indicates a disinterest towards these issues.?But the low degree of specificity around these may also reflect that these are increasingly seen collectively as “table stakes” - foundational ethical and values principles - that are intrinsic to an organization’s emerging belief system.
It is also important to note that the pursuit of improvements in the climate space presents a unique opportunity for communication pros to compare notes, to collaborate, and to develop common measurement metrics to measure their own effectiveness and that of their communication teams.??
Diversity is a different conversation in different geographies. In some, race predominates, in others it’s mainly a matter of religion, and in more ethnically homogeneous countries, gender is the main focus. Sustainability, in turn, suffers from the lack of a common and compelling definition.?
But the global nature of climate gives it the potential to provide the industry with a common platform both for collective and company-specific action.?Just as there is considerable potential for communication leaders to help change the ways their organizations and employees behave towards the climate, there is profound potential for the climate to become a way communication folks can both magnify and measure their own impact.??
Mike Klein is a communication consultant, strategist and researcher based in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is the founder of #WeLeadComms, a global initiative to identify, recognize and connect communication leaders, and promote the idea of communication leadership.
To discuss communication leadership, these research findings, or how investment in internal communication strategy, content, or platforms can make a difference, email me at [email protected].
#WeLeadComms #communication #internalcomms #internalcommunication #leadership #leadershipcommunication
Strategic Communication, Marketing and Engagement Leader | Internal & Employee Communication, Executive Communication, Public Relations, Public Affairs & Content Strategy Experience
2 年Some very insightful findings. Thank you for sharing Mike Klein.
Founder at AmplifyIC | Chief Communicator at GreenMegaphone
2 年Great insight, Mike Klein! The past two years have taught us that IC pros are nimble and can respond with strength. But responding is more than just running on the production treadmill, helping our organizations sort through, make sense and lead through a pandemic. Now we need to pivot and take initiative. It's time to get off the production treadmill and invest in our own strength to solve problems that the last two years have laid bare. Yes, we need to speak the language of our business leaders (that's fundamental), but we absolutely need to speak the language of our internal audiences, the people who drive organizational success. It seems as if the great resignation has only pointed out how much our business leaders have stopped being fluent in the lexicon, needs and wants of their employees. So, now is the time to step back and make sure, as IC leaders, that we are speaking in the language of our employee audiences, that we know what they need to do know and do to be successful in their roles. If they are, company success follows. We need to invest in ourselves and the fluency of our teams to respond here. We own this. So, it's time to get off the treadmill and start centralizing distributed audience knowledge and insight into a strategic advisory that can embrace whatever wave washes over our organizations next. Don't wait for permission. This is where we can lead.
Copywriting | Communications Counsel | Soundboard
2 年Interesting Mike Klein. ESG/Diversity, sustainability and climate are multidimensional issues within themselves. I think the ability of communication professionals to identify connections and relationships between things can benefit an organization’s leadership on these issues. Communications leadership can help to listen at scale and distil the info, supporting not just org leadership to communicate internally but also make sense of what is happening outside in these spaces. Thank you for this #WeLeadComms effort to spur more thinking in comms and beyond.
A well written piece Mike Klein !
Thanks Mike Klein for sharing this and it's good to see that comms leaders are looking to their own leadership to drive change. As Nicholas Wright and I talk about in our book Nimblicity, leaders needs to look at themself before blaming others. Has the penny finally dropped that we need to be talking our clients language if we want to carry influence? I do hope so. It's been a long time coming. However I can't hide my disappointment that (albeit further down the list) the profession is still talking about 'measurement and data'. We need to move on from this and start talking strategically by focusing more on audience intelligence and insight.