Building an Executive Communications Strategy: Helping Leaders Find and Use Their Voice
A senior leader can be highly regarded within their organization yet may be virtually unknown outside of it. Helping them to develop their executive profile is more than writing their LinkedIn posts, preparing talking points of finding them speaking engagements. It is about helping them to establish themselves as a subject matter expert in their field, with a clear point of view, while advancing the organization's reputation and priorities. This is where a strong executive communications strategy matters.
Defining your executive as a thought leader doesn’t mean they need to have an opinion on everything, but an intersection should be established between what the leader knows, what is important to the organization they represent, and what their audience cares about. They should be well-versed in three or four topics that they can credibly own and speak to with ease and confidence. For example, a leader at an education organization may focus on making quality education accessible to all learners, or innovations to help differently abled learners. They don’t have to be a subject matter expert in every aspect of education, but they do need to build a recognizable point of view.
The communications team plays a vital role in shaping and developing executive messaging, but that content must be written in the executive's voice, and they may find themselves tasked with helping that executive to find their voice. To do this effectively, the communications team can capture that leader's unique perspectives on a topic by listening to how they explain complex ideas, taking note of what gets them excited, and drawing ideas from how they naturally think and speak.
Once a theme has been discovered, the next step is to turn ideas into a thought leadership platform. These themes might become LinkedIn posts, op-eds, keynote speeches, podcast topics, talking points for town halls, employee messaging, and so much more! A communications team can turn a 20-minute conversation with an executive into myriad pieces of content. Creating a system for capturing and developing these ideas helps to put the executive in the right places, saying something that is worth hearing.
Executive thought leadership isn’t intended to be simply a personal branding campaign, but it also serves to connect the leader's platform to organizational strategy. Executive communications share observations, perspectives, and ideas to address an industry challenge, and can help launch new initiatives that support their organization's mission and goals. It is important to avoid turning every piece of thought leadership into an advertisement or selling a product, but more so organic and unforced. Executive thought leadership isn’t about making a leader louder, but rather a trusted, visionary who shapes industry conversations.
