Why your leadership team is your biggest untapped resource
Did you ever stop to think how much influence a CEO has on the perceptions of people inside and outside the business? One study of global executives shows 44% believe a company’s market value is directly linked to the CEO’s reputation. And these figures increase significantly when it comes to attracting investors (87%), positive media attention (83%), and acquiring and retaining talent (77% and 70% respectively).
Based on these stats, you’d think every marketing and corporate comms team with a CEO would be champing at the bit to give their leader (and his or her outsized influence), a bigger platform. One they could use to talk about their business and their vision, voice their opinions on industry topics and challenges, and establish their credentials as a thought leader in the sectors they serve. All in a way that supported the company’s wider strategic business and comms goals.
But all too often, we see this asset wheeled out to write the statement for the Annual Report or introduce the quarterly newsletter, then neglected the rest of the year. Surely, that’s both a crying shame, and an exemplar of wasted potential? But it doesn’t have to be.
An untapped opportunity right across the Board
Develop a well-thought through executive content strategy. One that fits with your wider business goals and builds on your whole leadership team’s (not just your CEO’s) knowledge, expertise and reputation. Then, broadcast and amplify it through the right channels. And if you really want to turn the volume up, give other senior leaders their own platform, too.
We know the positive impact it has, because we’ve been working with some of our clients for more than a year with great success. In fact, it’s why we set up Executive Influence in the first place – to bring together a team to create, broadcast and amplify the thinking of Executive and leadership teams. So they could exert more influence inside and outside their organisation to achieve their business goals faster. Here’s what high-quality executive content can do:
Raise your leadership and your corporate profiles – in today’s hyper-connected world, it stands to reason a leadership team that has a positive industry profile will attract more visibility, interest and connections than one that hasn’t.
Showcase your market difference – your leaders have a unique perspective on the current and future direction of the company. Showcasing their thinking, opinions, and perspectives helps generate the right kind of noise and sets you apart from competitors.
Build trust – your leadership embody your brand. So having a single figurehead or executive team helping to communicate a company’s overall vision and purpose in a sincere and authentic way humanises and builds trust in the business – whether you’re talking to customers, colleagues, partners or investors.
Win customers – while most of your leadership team isn’t directly or personally responsible for sales and marketing, its ability to show its understanding of your customers’ challenges and showcase its approach can go a long way to engaging with, and warming up, prospects.
Attract investment – leaders with an authentic voice, a strong reputation, and a clear sense of direction breed confidence. And confidence is, ultimately, what investors are looking for. Executive content can help support, nurture, and convey all of these things.
Enhance your employer brand – a positive leadership profile for an organisation is a good way to attract, keep and motivate talent. People are more likely to want to work for a company if the Executive team comes across as engaged, articulate and communicative.
Build a stronger culture – opinions, viewpoints and thinking from all levels of the business provide a powerful way to celebrate, strengthen and even change company culture. It’s also an opportunity for leadership teams to reinforce what the business stands for to people inside and outside the organisation.
So the question isn’t, “Should you be making more of your leadership talent?”, but “How can you?”. Which is where we come in.