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LISA-ANN JOSEPH

When you are the jefe of an organisation, you are required to act like one. It matters not whether you may have had the training or a particular disposition to take on the role of the company’s major public communicator. The buck stops with you.
We meet CEOs and chairmen (men and women) who prefer to be in the background of the company’s public outreach. And while it is certainly the job of the public relations executive to do the day-to-day talking with and listening to the corporation’s audiences, there comes a time and occasion when the jefe, the big boss, has to come forward on behalf of the company.
The fact is the tone, image and personality of the corporation are established from the top and by the top executive in the corporation. There’s no question about that. There are dividends to be gained from the CEO walking the plank as it were; not all of it is sacrifice.
Starting inside the corporation, employees feel a sense of pride when their CEO and or chairman leads the pack and does so successfully. They feel pride in the public communication profile of their leader. Who wants a leader who is slinking back with “no comment” when approached by reporters at those critical times? No one!
Consumers, clients, and even the ordinary man in the street following the news will be only too happy to say their piece, good or bad, to corporations and their public communications. And it is well-known that radio and television talk shows over the last couple decades have allowed tens of thousands of followers of the news to track the statements and doings of corporations and react in kind.
Out of that public communications by the CEO and the chairman, the corporation is given life and a public face. It, therefore, falls on the leader of the organisation to give the corporation that face that the publics of the company are looking for. Through it, the public will examine the integrity of the company, to make judgements about the services and the products offered. And no one should think for a moment that the public face of the corporation is disengaged from the products and services offered by the company.
Public communications by the CEO and the chairman is serious business and not something to be taken lightly. It is the face, the soul, the humanness or otherwise of the company that the public examines looking to find moles, examines for integrity, credibility and what they find they brand the company with.
We have found in our travels among big and small corporate bodies, many CEOs and chairmen who take the position: “Look public communications was not listed as a requirement for me getting the job; they looked at my CV for the technical capacity and my track record and made the judgement to give me the job, so don’t expect that of me.”
Moreover, many of them tell us: “I am essentially a private person and I really have no desire to be making public statements; to compound all of that, I am a bit of a recluse, shy if you like, not given to be appearing on television and newspapers and talking with reporters who want to know all your damn business.”
Reputation Management Caribbean has intervened in many such situations of withdrawn CEOs and chairmen and assisted them to become effective spokespersons for their corporation when that becomes necessary so to do. And we are not here talking about “ra-ra” talkers who pop up at every possible occasion and talk their heads off; we are focusing on powerful and strategic communicators who on the right and necessary occasions come to the fore and speak for the company – give the company a face.
The results have been most encouraging and inevitably impacts positively on the corporate image and bottom-line of the company. The training offered is practical, and also based on theory and logic in public communications. It is carried out in a most professional manner and by expert public communicators; persons with long and successful careers in the business of giving a positive face to corporations especially in times of crises and the day-to-day communications required of a corporation in “peace time.”

Lisa-Ann Joseph is Managing Director of Reputation Management Caribbean, a Public Relations and Crisis Communications Agency. Recently she launched a training division, Institute for Reputation Management. For feedback and comments contact Lisaann@rmcaribbean.net
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