The face of leadership communication

The face of leadership communication

Although the term senior leadership can often cover many hundreds of people, communication activity around senior leadership often only seems to be centered on just a few people - or even only one.

In 48% of all companies surveyed by Melcrum, for its new leadership report, Delivering effective senior leadership communication, it is the CEO who is the face of leadership communication, followed by senior managers at 29%, the chairman at 9% and the chief operating officer at 5%.

But the face of leadership communication changes according to industry. In transport and logistics companies, only 32% put forward their CEO as spokesperson, with 42% saying senior managers are the predominant employee communicators.

The trend is also true in the healthcare and retail sectors, where 42% and 40% respectively say that senior managers are the face of leadership communication.

Respondents from the consumer goods/FMCG and utilities industries are more likely to report that they have a chairman/CEO who is their chief spokesperson. It seems that it's more common in these industries for the same leader to hold both these titles, and to be in charge of communicating with employees.

Source: Delivering effective senior leadership communication