Senior Client Partner, Culture, Change & Communications
Leadership
The Communication Conundrum
CEOs know even routine town halls can lead to a social-media backlash from employees. Are there ways to be open but protective?
CEO Transparency in the Age of Social Media
The CEO called the all-hands meeting assuming his comments to his staff would be private. That was his first mistake. What started out as a strategy chat then turned into something entirely different, with the impatient leader telling workers to stop griping. Not pleased, one worker recorded the talk and posted it on social media. Soon enough, it hit the news cycle.
Such incidents underscore not only the swiftness with which employees will turn on a CEO, but also the trickiness of communications today. Whether discussing business strategy or a public tragedy, CEOs are now expected to be front and center—and always speaking on the record. And slip-ups are rarely missed and even more rarely excused.
Indeed, the firewall between external and internal communications—including speeches to different stakeholder groups—has come down. What’s said at industry conferences can turn up on TikTok in a matter of minutes.
At the heart of the communications conundrum is the rise of empowered employees, one of five so-called CEO Breaking Points included in a new Korn Ferry report. Workers who once rarely commented about leadership in a public way now won’t hesitate to post CEO comments or actions they don’t like. “Any time a CEO is speaking they have to remember that the spotlight and microphone are always on,” says Tamara Rodman, a senior client partner at Korn Ferry’s Culture, Change and Communications practice. “What’s internal is external, and vice versa.”
Let’s not forget the holy grail of CEO communication these days: authenticity. People’s radar for performative statements is on high alert, and what a leader says must sound real. But that doesn’t mean CEOs should say whatever comes to mind at any given moment. Instead, they need to be strategically vulnerable, staying true to their values, and not acting like everything is okay when it’s not, Rodman says.
Different contexts demand different kinds of preparation, strategy, and caution. We took a look what steps CEOs should follow for town halls, email announcements, and statements to the media.
The Town Hall
When town halls first came about, they were opportunities for employees to interact with their leaders, much as citizens aired opinions to local officials back in the colonial era. But if not managed properly, today’s town halls can devolve into open-ended complaint fests. To address issues on employees’ minds while also keeping the meeting on track, the CEO can ask for questions in advance and pick which ones to address. “You don’t want to bury all the tough questions and only pick layups, or you’ll lose employee trust,” says Richard Marshall, global managing director for the Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations Center of Expertise at Korn Ferry. It’s also not always necessary for the CEO to be the point person for answering these questions. The chief communications officer or chief marketing officer can also represent the C-suite at such gatherings.
Of course, it goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: It’s important for leaders to practice and be prepared for any question—regardless of how many town halls they’ve led in the past. “You absolutely can say we haven’t figured this out yet,” says Peter McDermott, senior client partner at Korn Ferry’s Corporate Affairs practice. “Remember that no message is still a message.”
The Email Announcement
For years, communications experts have repeatedly told CEOs to assume any message they write will be leaked immediately. This is great advice when it comes to protecting the company, but the spirit of it has gotten lost in the shuffle. The result has been emails that now are so stiff, a robot might have written them. “If your final draft could be written by AI, you’ve got work to do,” says Rodman, who often advises clients to use generative AI only for first drafts to avoid this scenario. McDermott notes that he’s seen messages that “are edited so much there wasn’t a message” anymore.
This is where CEOs have the opportunity to be more candid and authentic. Sharing personal stories that tie back to core business values or the message at hand can be successful, particularly when those stories are stripped of corporate jargon, Marshall says. To ensure messages don’t alienate people, it’s also important to get feedback from diverse perspectives. “If you’ve got twelve middle-aged white guys trying to reach a diverse population, you need people there who are going to push back and provide alternative assessments of your message,” McDermott notes. “Otherwise, slipups will happen.”
The Media
The democratization of information means people are getting their news from a wider range of sources—which makes it critical for the CEO’s communications teams to ensure messaging consistency by pitching stories in multiple channels. Consider front-running TV segments by a group of employees, or having a segment hit at the same time that an internal message goes out. The last thing you want is employees learning about layoffs or a succession plan from a TV interview. Prepping with talking points is also important; it will help you steer the conversation and avoid sensitive subjects that you may not be ready to put in a public forum.
Keep in mind that it’s not incumbent upon CEOs to respond to every natural disaster or instance of social unrest that crops up—no matter the mode of communication. If you’re in charge of a company with an exclusively Northeastern customer base, for example, there’s no need to put out a message when devastating tornadoes are reported in the Midwest. And remember: You’re never going to please everyone, but you can proactively align as many of your messages as possible with your business values.
To read more about the impact of empowered employees on CEOs and other pressures chief executives face, read our Briefings feature, The Breaking Point.
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