New Year’s Resolutions for the Boss

Like everyone else, when the calendar turns over, communicators make their list of resolutions: hire another writer, tell better stories, fix that damn intranet.

This year we’re turning our attention to the boss. How can your CEO be a better communicator in the New Year? Here are six resolutions for leaders that won’t disappear before Valentine’s Day, with our tips on how communicators can help.

1. Walk around more. The least hi-tech communication of them all, but one of the most effective. This comes up in every comms audit we’ve ever done: Employees want to see more of the boss, not necessarily at a town hall (more on that later), but just showing up to say hello and asking how things are going.

There’s an obvious problem here. Leaders are very busy and tend to be over-scheduled, making it hard to keep a vow that can so easily be brushed aside.

Our tip: Employees know leaders are busy. They’re not expecting a lot, but a little goes a long way. Communicators should work with the CEO’s staff to schedule these casual visits around the boss’s regular schedule. If the chief executive is at a meeting somewhere in the company, add 30 minutes to walk around and talk with employees. It matters.

Better yet, communicators should accompany the boss when they can. We’ve heard of executives slipping into a building without acknowledging anyone or showing up at a Town Hall with a quick wave before ducking out before the meeting ends. Be the CEO Whisperer, encouraging your leaders to take a few minutes and make the rounds. It’s virtually painless, and they’ll feel better having done it.

2. Communicate outside their comfort zone. I know a terrific CEO who excels at face-to-face meetings but was forced by COVID to record videos for employees. He hated making them, mostly because he thought he wasn’t very good. “I had to do so many takes just to get it right,” he told me.

The employees loved the videos, and they hardly cared that the final product was less than perfect. In fact, they preferred it.

Our tip: The pandemic is over, and lots of people have returned to the office, though hybrid work continues. Wherever they’re working, employees still prefer video to the famously mind-crushing “Letter from the CEO.” Keep leadership videos short and punchy, a la TikTok, or have the CEO interview someone in the company. For fun, publish a video of leadership outtakes. Your audience will love it.

3. Construct the reverse cascade. Our communications audits reveal that leaders are often frustrated by the so-called cascade ― the idea that clear and important information will move from leaders to managers to staff in a timely fashion. That’s hard enough, but we rarely come across any formalized way for managers to send their insights back up the chain.

Our tip: Carve out 15 or 20 minutes in every leadership meeting for managers to provide feedback to the big bosses from their teams. Senior leaders need to hear this stuff, and the sessions also can hold managers accountable. (They can hardly tell the boss how employees are feeling about an initiative if they haven’t properly delivered the message.)

4. In a crisis, add communicators to the inner circle. Time and again, we’ve watched CEOs mess up a crisis with poorly written or ill-timed communication. We’ve seen too many statements posted internally or on social media that looked like they had little or no input from the communications team.

Our tip: In a crisis, leaders typically consult with their lawyers, financial officers and operations team. They’ll tell the boss what’s best for the company, and rightly so, but it takes a good communicator to call out messages that duck the problem and thus extend the crisis. It can feel daunting to butt up against the groupthink that grips many a corporate crisis, but this is where communicators earn their stripes.

5. Delegate leadership communication. In many organizations, employees look to the CEO to provide the big picture: here’s how we’re doing, where we’re going and how we’ll get there. And that’s as it should be. But giving employees a progress report on the strategic plan or specifics on a change in operations is a good place for other senior leaders to step up.

Our tip: I’ve worked on audits where employees say they know the CEO but wouldn’t recognize other members of the leadership team if they passed them in the hallway. The boss should share the responsibility of keeping the workforce engaged in the enterprise. Town halls are a great place to start. No, don’t assign the CFO to read the quarterly financials. But yes, ask the CFO to pick a number, or set of numbers and explain what they mean. Bring in the chief of operations to take employees inside a company process, highlighting the expertise (and the people) it takes to make things work.

6. Embrace AI ― but demand accountability. Artificial intelligence is sweeping through organizations and helping us work more efficiently. But it’s also giving employees heartburn about their job security. It’s the CEO’s job to establish some guardrails around this new way of learning.

Our tip: This is particularly true of communications. AI can provide research and ideas, but we still need actual humans to capture the emotion in a good story. AI is getting better all the time, and leaders will be tempted to accept what it offers as good enough. Communicators can help CEOs keep a firm hand on their messages, incorporating their own words and passions.

Jim Ylisela has interviewed hundreds of smart and capable business leaders, and he always finds them open and willing to be better communicators. To learn more about our customized communications audits, email Jim to schedule a free, 30-minute conversation.

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