Transforming CEOs into Chief Communications Officers

Academic journal article By Pincus, J. David; Rayfield, Robert E.; DeBonis, J. Nicholas
Public Relations Journal , Vol. 47, No. 11 , November 1991
Traditionally, the CEO's communication efforts and the public relations function have focused on the
external world. Internal publics were considered to be outside the public relations circle, usually the
responsibility of the personnel or human resources department.
Increasingly in the modern business world, public relations executives are taking responsibility for
managing the communications relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. As more
attention is paid to employee communications, an overlooked and undervalued asset is surfacing: the
CEO as the "CCO," or chief communications officer. "Our ability to communicate effectively, as
opposed to just communicating, makes a big difference in results," said Philip Hawley, CEO, Carter
Hawley Hale Stores Inc., Los Angeles, CA. "That's true internally as well as externally."
Regrettably, many CEOs today neither have this understanding, nor appreciate the power of their
communication leadership role in winning the support of stakeholders, including their own employees.
Public relations executives should consider how to best integrate the CEO into the internal
communications mix.
There are four essential principles that are the roots of this type of successful integration. These
principles can validate your CEO's current role in internal communications, provide support for your
contention that this participation is necessary, and/or help you form or modify your CEO's
communications activities.
Since the end of World War II, American business has defined effective managers as people who are
effective bureaucrats and equate managing with power, value process and procedures, and prefer
indirect, unemotional forms of communication. This "controlling and organizing" perspective has
created what Harvard Professor Abraham Zaleznik, a highly respected authority on business and
management, calls the "managerial mystique": the notion that creating bureaucratic structures and
accumulating power is effective leadership.
The CEO's job, however, has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, broadening in scope and
increasing in complexity. Once a largely administrative job, the CEO position today demands a "jackof-all-trades" individual who not only understands the mechanics of business, but is a strong
communicator and motivator as well.
Communication central to leadership
To an organizations' constituencies, the CEO is the organization, both symbolically and literally. As
guardian of the company's integrity, the CEO can't easily sidestep the communication obligations of

working with increasingly vocal and demanding stakeholders. Many employees, skeptical of CEOs' big
salaries and personal motives, aren't easily convinced to give their allegiance to "the company" or the
boss. The same is true for customers and stockholders, each of whom holds the corporation,
personified by the CEO, accountable.
Public relations and corporate leadership each seek to develop productive, long-term relationships
with these and other key constituencies. Strong communication is central to effective public relations.
The same is true of credible leadership. Business leaders are dependent on their relationships with
their stakeholders, and vice versa. These relationships will succeed or fail as a result of the leader's
communications efforts to understand and meet stakeholders' rational and emotional needs to believe
in the organization's mission and in its leaders. Too often, business people think of communication as
merely the sending of information, usually from management to employees. In a broader sense,
however, communication is a process of developing relationships of understanding.
Similarly, leadership is a process of creating relationships of commitment. Communication and
leadership are synergistic concepts. "Leaders need to foster environments within which people can
develop relationships with each other, relationships within work groups, and relationships with clients
and customers," maintained Max DePree, former CEO of Herman Miller, Inc.