Why Tomorrow’s CEOs May Come From Public Relations

It hit me a few months ago. Speaking to a head of communications at a global brand, I asked her what the most exciting and satisfying part of her job was right now.

“I haven’t really thought about that,” she said, laughing off the question as if it were a throwaway pitch and the curveball questions were coming next.

It crystallized what I had been hearing from so many communicators recently: Job satisfaction is not top of mind, perhaps even a luxury to be considering. Organizational transformations, accelerated in large part by generative AI, have meant heads down until we get through it.

“It” isn’t going away. And it doesn’t have to be a grind.

AI has raised the bar, not lowered it. While it can handle more of the execution, it can’t replace judgment, leadership and influence. Further, the pressure to integrate AI into work across the enterprise is creating cognitive stress as employees see the infinite possibilities of the LLMs. Harvard Business Review, in a recent article, terms it “brain fry.” Time to add this to your employee communications checklist.

The real challenge isn’t getting the work done. It’s leading people, shaping decisions and serving as the trusted adviser. Let’s face it: It’s often easier to complete the work than it is to lead it.

Taking stock of the challenges

At Ragan, we regularly take the pulse of our communicators worldwide and host candid conversations about the work, challenges and opportunities facing the communications department. There are very few organizations not experiencing a transformation. Upskilling on AI and change leadership are focus points.

And yet, when asked what stands in the way of producing more effective communications, more than a third of respondents in Ragan’s Communications Benchmark Survey cited “too many last-minute requests” and nearly 45% cited lack of staff. 

Nearly a quarter of respondents say the communications team is not involved in the strategic decision process. And the risk to an organization is no longer productivity — it’s burnout, disengagement and apathy. Communicators need to start operating like enterprise leaders.

Tracking progress in the comms community

There is some good news. Formidable progress has been made across Ragan’s community of more than 300,000 communicators and marketers. We are seeing corporate communicators creating agentic chiefs of staff and serving on enterprise task forces to be the strategic voice and the brand protector against deepfakes and misinformation.

We are seeing PR agencies elevate their offerings to provide even more strategic guidance to clients, who in turn can benefit from this acceleration of ideas and outputs. 

At our conferences, we meet IT directors and marketing officers, who accompany their communications counterparts to our events to learn more about this world. Think beyond integrated communications toward integrated disciplines.

We continue to see more attention paid to workplace culture and employee experience. Add to the mix the near-future reality of the “digital employee,” that workaholic bot managed by their human counterpart, and you’ve got a whole new level of challenge for communicators to consider.

As organizations reinvent themselves, communicators have the opportunity to become one of the most influential leadership functions in the enterprise. That will happen by thinking more like business leaders. 

Here are five capabilities that will define the next generation of enterprise leadership.

1. Sharpen business fluency: Understand how your organization creates value, from customers and operations to financial performance and competitive pressures. Brush up on the language of your CEO and CFO by connecting communications to the metrics that matter most to them.
2. Create a personal leadership stack: Spend time honing your presentation skills, understanding the rules of negotiation and diplomacy, and learning from those with executive presence. Embrace AI at the same time you harness the leadership qualities that make up the human operating system.
3. Spread your internal wings: Build stronger interdepartmental relationships as the lines blur in the areas of risk management, crisis preparedness and brand storytelling. How well do you work with legal, IT, marketing, sales and HR? Start with these departments and develop a cadence of give-and-take with your peers.
4. Rethink influence: The bar is wider and perhaps a bit lower when it comes to earned media and who might influence brand perception. Whether it’s a journalist from a tier-one media brand, a podcaster with a loyal, on-target following, an employee with an enthusiastic TikTok following, or a local citizen with a powerful megaphone, the options for brand storytelling are more robust than ever. Own the narrative; understand the influencers.
5. Lead change: With an enterprise transformation comes communicating the change, managing the process and getting in front of the workplace triggers that can turn an organization upside down. The most successful communicators will be the ones organizations rely on to create alignment, move employees from uncertainty to action and build trust during the seismic workplace shifts.

This moment is not just about adapting to change and hanging in there until things settle down. If you hone the new skills of a modern communicator, you’ll find the influence, impact and purpose that brought you to this profession in the first place.