What PR Pros Need to Say in Career-Defining Moments

PR professionals spend their careers making other people’s work easier to understand and harder to overlook. The real test is doing the same for ourselves.  

Too often, we do what we would never recommend to a client. We edit ourselves out. There are times when listening first is the right move, especially when the facts are still coming together.

The problem begins when the pause becomes the pattern. Then we can lose recognition for what we deliver and influence over decisions our expertise should inform. Organizations lose the honest perspective of those who see the work up close.

When strong results still need a case

This pattern often shows up in performance reviews. In one case, a communicator moved from an individual contributor role to an acting senior leadership role during a period of intense organizational change. 

Within days, she was leading a 50-person team, managing highly charged issues and stabilizing a function that had been without senior-level attention. The organization extended her assignment and then promoted her. 

At the end of the year, her review did not reflect that record. The score was below what her outcomes supported, and the explanation ignored the scope she had taken on. She sat through the review meeting, barely speaking, stunned and unable to make the case she could have made. 

Afterward, she did what she had done for leaders under pressure. She let the anger settle before writing, then put the record in front of those who needed to see it. In her written response and the discussion that followed, she asked the question the review process could not reconcile with the facts: If her performance had fallen short, why had she been trusted with more responsibility and promoted? 

Her score was restored, and the record was corrected by the same case-making instinct she had always reserved for others.  

Why communicators hold back

That same instinct to stay quiet appears well before a performance review forces the issue. Silence takes many forms. Some professionals explain so much that the ask gets buried.

 Others give so much credit to the team that their own contributions disappear. Some hold back because they have seen direct communication misread and decided the risk is too high. 

That concern is often learned through experience. Directness is not received the same way in every environment or for every person. The 2025 Women in the Workplace report from LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, released in December 2025, found that women outside leadership are less comfortable asserting themselves.

Entry- and midlevel women are also less likely to feel they can disagree with colleagues or make mistakes. The report says this hesitancy can lead women to hold back, leaving companies without the full benefit of their best thinking. 

For some, staying quiet is a form of self-protection in a workplace that has not shown it will respond well to candor. That risk is real. The danger comes when silence becomes the default and decisions move forward without their perspective.  

The organizational cost

When communicators stay silent, leaders lose access to information they need. The people closest to the work often know first when a message misses the mark or trust is slipping. If they learn it is safer to withhold what they know, the organization makes decisions with an incomplete picture.

I saw that play out during a public information effort. Leaders initially dismissed the recommended channel strategy, even though it would have reached the audience most affected by the issue. The audience missed the intended messages, and questions on the channels they were already using quickly outpaced the response. 

Once leaders adopted that approach, the team responded more effectively, and the organization had a better way to work with that audience going forward.

The loss grows when experienced communicators leave or disengage without passing on their knowledge. In lean, mission-driven organizations, that loss can leave leaders without context for key decisions. Honest counsel requires room for disagreement and respect for people who understand the issue from the inside. 

Four internal conversations worth preparing for

That room for honest counsel starts with specific conversations. For communicators, four come up often. 

• The performance review. Do not let the review begin and end with someone else’s record of your year. Come prepared with your own. One way to open is, “I would like to walk through the major initiatives I led this year and the results they produced, because I want the review to reflect the level of responsibility I took on.” 
• The scope conversation. If your responsibilities expand without additional recognition or support, raise it with the person who assigned or approved them. You might say, “I want to make sure we agree on what this adds to my role and what support is needed to deliver it well.” 
• The visibility discussion. We regularly highlight others’ contributions. When your own go unrecognized, discuss them with your manager or the leader most involved. A direct version sounds like, “I led that effort, and I would like to remain part of the discussion so I can speak to the strategy behind it and what we learned.” Hold yourself to the same attribution standard you set for clients.  
• The restructuring conversation. During organizational change, waiting for clarity can leave your value open to interpretation. Go to the person leading your function or communicating the change. Ask, “Here is the capability I have built and where it is already creating value. How should that be used in the new structure?” 

Before you walk in

Each of these conversations deserves the same care you would give a client message. Before you speak, decide what should change. Support the request with proof and give the other person a concrete next step. 

VOICE, a five-part model I use with clients and organizations, helps turn the issue into a conversation you are ready to have: Validate the wins. Own the growth area. Influence the narrative. Claim the ask. Execute the plan. By the time the conversation begins, you should know the case you are making and the decision you want the conversation to support.

When the record is yours

The same discipline we bring to difficult messages for clients applies when the message concerns us. The record needs support, and the person with influence over the outcome needs to hear it directly. Nothing about that changes because the subject is closer to home. 

Leaders have responsibility here too. When communicators stop sharing what they know, the team learns what is safe to say. By the time the consequences show up in execution or in the departure of someone the organization needed, it is too late to recover what people were never given room to voice.

You already know how to make the case. The only question is whether you make it for yourself.