As the public trust of corporate America has dipped along with the economy, more attention and pressure is being placed on CEOs and other C-suite executives to deliver the right messaging to shareholders and other stakeholders.
Executives, particularly CEOs, are the faces of an organization. And with the spotlight on CEOs shining more intensely these days, communications executives need to better understand and leverage the strong link between their leadership and the reputation of their organizations.
That could mean a branding effort around one or more C-suite executives. Expertly linking leadership with an organization’s brand has the potential to move the reputation and trust needle in the right direction. Specifically, an executive branding effort can:
• Substantiate and enhance a company’s brand and message.
• Enrich a company’s relationships with its critical stakeholders, including key customers and prospects, opinion leaders, recruits and internal audiences.
• Improve visibility and stature of a CEO and executive team.
• Influence the industry agenda at all levels and establish the executive team as industry thought leaders.
But what are the required steps to brand, or rebrand, members of the C-suite? It’s a process that requires careful assessment, strong messaging and skillful execution, says Leslie Mayer, president and CEO of Mayer Leadership Group, a Philadelphia-based executive coaching firm.
Mayer brings a background in business psychology to her work with CEOs and other top executives. “I’m considered an adviser to chief executives, and I’m looking at them through a psychological lens,” says Mayer.
When branding a CEO, Mayer utilizes a strong conviction that branding is an emotional experience. “I’m looking at what it is about the executive that is compelling,” says Mayer. “What about this person will people be able to forge a strong attachment to?”
She then makes an initial assessment of the leader, going through the following steps:
1. “Start by making note of your own reactions and interactions with the executive,” says Mayer. “What touches you about this person?”
2. “Observe the executive in different settings: meetings, events and interactions with employees,” she says. “Keep an eye on the executive’s audience for their reactions. For example, do people seem comfortable when they walk into the CEOs office?”
3. “Make a checklist of a variety of emotional traits,” says Mayer. “These are things you wouldn’t think about in terms of brand, but important facets of the executive’s personality.”
After those steps, Mayer begins a series of probing discussions with the leader in which she takes key corporate messages and matches them up to non-business-related stories conveyed by that leader. “You can begin to tie individual character and value systems with those corporate messages,” says Mayer.
The key, continues Mayer, is that the executive’s brand has to be authentic, and the executive has to live that brand 24/7. “Internally and externally, people will always scan a leader for that credibility and trust,” she says. “They have to believe in that person.”
THE THOUGHT LEADER
Positioning, or branding of an executive, should not be based on image, says Carol Ballock, managing director of Burson-Marsteller’s U.S. corporate practice. It’s the messaging they’re disseminating that’s the most important. And central to messaging, she says, is thought leadership. “It’s the ability to discuss issues critical to a business,” says Ballock. “When we talk about owning an issue and thought leadership, some people don’t know how to mine that.”
Ballock looks for what she calls “breakthrough thinking” from an executive. “Fortunately, that type of thinking tends to happen at the C level,” she says. Ballock matches this breakthrough, issue-oriented thinking with the right executives and the right venues in which to disseminate those messages.
“Everyone has thought leadership to tap into,” says Ballock. “It’s having a point of view that differentiates an executive from the pack that’s the golden nugget.”
BRAND DISCIPLINE
If you want your leader to be well known for owning an issue, there’s a steady drumbeat of messaging that needs to take place over 12-18 months—the average time span of a thought leadership campaign, says Ballock.
One stellar example of executing this discipline is the executive leadership efforts at Cisco. Not simply an 18-month exercise, Cisco’s executive brand has been honed for consistency for years, with much of the credit going to its messaging-focused chief executive, John Chambers, who makes many Top CEO lists. Kelly Lang, director of strategic communications within Cisco’s corporate communications division, says keeping the executive brand consistent is all about process. “We’ve built a strong operating model in support of our executives,” says Lang. “While the business leaders determine the message objectives and priorities, we need to facilitate the process to get those messages out.”
Chambers knows exactly what he’s doing with messaging, says Lang. “It’s all-around vision, strategy and execution,” she says.
Each business leader within Cisco has their own focus area, which they tie back to that vision, strategy and execution message, says Lang. These days, with the business slowdown, Cisco’s leadership has been keying on how to best deal with market transitions.
Of course, says Lang, the audience that is being addressed is key, and messages are customized toward each. And in case Chambers or others haven’t spoken to a particular audience, Lang uses surveys to find out if a particular message will resonate with them.
Lang’s tips on keeping a consistent executive brand include:
1. You must have support from executives around your PR efforts.
2. Know what the business objectives are, and be a catalyst for driving the plan.
3. You must to be an expert collaborator and influencer within the organization.
4. Documentation is important. When you go through a messaging cycle, the objective is to repeat it in the future.
Mayer sums up executive branding efforts thusly: “While personality is one aspect of the CEO brand, the brand is bigger,” she says. “Leverage the strengths of the personality in order to achieve critical business success.” PRN
CONTACT:
Leslie Mayer, [email protected]; Carol Ballock, [email protected]; Kelly Lang, [email protected].
Four Pillars That Foster the Best Leadership Environment
Just as strong, well-branded leadership can help transform a business, how can a business provide the right environment to better empower its executives? Last year Hewitt Associates, a human resource consulting company, conducted a leadership practices study that identified key characteristics of organizations that nurture great leadership. They identified four disciplines of effective leadership:
• Leaders lead the way: Passion and commitment of senior leaders help develop leaders of the future.
• Practical and aligned programs and practices: Leadership strategies need to clearly reflect the overall business strategy.
• Unrelenting focus on talent: More than development, it’s how a company hires, coaches, promotes and rewards its leaders.
• Leadership becomes a way of life: Development of leaders is an institutionalized practice and mind-set.