Great Communication Is Core Competency for Business Leaders
Intentional and Effective Communication Can Move Markets, Shape Culture, and Impact Employee Morale
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June 05, 2025
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Business Leaders Speak to Everyone.
Whether it be with shareholders, customers, or employees, leaders are expected to represent and demonstrate their organisation’s vision and values.
The opportunities and capacity for leaders to engage with their key audiences have grown exponentially in the last 20 years with the advent of digital convergence and the growth of platforms that allow them to have direct conversations with their stakeholders.
While the strategies businesses deploy in navigating this changing communications landscape evolve, media engagement remains a critical tool in the communications kit.
Focusing on What Media Engagement Can Achieve
Sometimes, business leaders are reticent to engage with the media because they become focussed on what they think they can’t do.
They can’t control what a journalist writes, whether positive or negative.
They can’t guarantee the coverage they want without other perspectives or the voice of their competitors included.
It can sometimes feel to those leaders that speaking to the media is too much of a risk.
It is absolutely true that engaging with the media should not replace an integrated communications strategy that encompasses internal and external audiences and stakeholders.
It is also true that well-planned and carefully executed media engagement can persuade, inform, and educate a key audience, stimulate debate, and encourage action.
Beyond simply creating awareness of an organisation, product, or service, media engagement is an essential tool in building and protecting a company or individual’s reputation.
Now more than ever, a leader’s words can move markets, shape culture, and impact employee morale.
For CEOs and Other Senior Leaders, It Is Both Commercial and Personal
It’s not just about press interviews anymore as CEOs and senior leaders are part of an ongoing public conversation.
Every webinar, results announcement, AGM, internal town hall, LinkedIn Live, or off-the-cuff comment at a conference can be a media moment and leaders need to be ready.
A well-crafted message delivered authentically carries weight and can cut-through.
On the other hand, a poorly framed response or an off-message line can become tomorrow’s headline—or meme—impacting reputation and, in the worst cases, the value of the business.
That isn’t hyperbole. In today’s business world, where openness and transparency are expected, these media moments are hugely significant and, like most aspects of business, preparation is paramount.
Train Hard, Fight Easy
At FTI Consulting, we have advised Boards and governing councils of industry representative and not for profit organisations on strategies to strengthen and improve their communications and capabilities and have advised high profile business and community leaders at critical times in their careers.
We have found that the ability to both confidently present to any audience and navigate a media interview well is anchored in consistent and well-tested messaging and delivery techniques.
These must be developed, rehearsed, and regularly tested.
Media training isn’t about being slick, it’s about being intentional. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s clarity, credibility, and connection.
Media training also allows leaders to set a good example for their teams, showing that they’re willing to learn and to take media interviews seriously.
It illustrates that great communication skills are important to practice and maintain, and that winging it (as with anything in business) isn’t a good strategy.
There is too much at stake for that.
Clients have heard us say, “The best time to fix your roof is when the sun is shining” and the time to build communication muscle is before it’s needed.
When was the last time you trained for the moment before it arrived?
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Published
June 05, 2025
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