Beyond Messaging: Why Comms and Marketing Teams Need a Leadership Brand
Why Corporate Affairs, Communications and Marketing Professionals Need a Leadership Brand
Over the past decade, the remit of Corporate Affairs, Communications and Marketing leaders has expanded dramatically.
Once focused primarily on messaging, campaigns and media relations, these functions now sit at the centre of an organisation’s most strategic questions: trust, reputation, narrative and stakeholder alignment.
At the same time, expectations of leaders in these roles have shifted. Boards and CEOs increasingly look to them not simply as technical specialists, but as strategic advisors who can shape how an organisation’s value and intentions are understood by employees, customers, regulators and the broader public.
This is where the concept of a leadership brand becomes important.
A leadership brand is not about personal promotion. It is the consistent value that others experience from how a leader thinks, communicates and acts. As leadership researchers Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood describe it, a leadership brand exists when a leader’s strengths reliably deliver value to stakeholders.
For leaders responsible for corporate narrative and reputation, the absence of a clear leadership brand can create ambiguity about what the function stands for and where it is best positioned to lead in the organisation. When it is well defined, it becomes a powerful source of influence, credibility and organisational alignment.
Why a leadership brand matters for Comms and Marketing teams
1. An organisation’s reputation is shaped through leadership, not just messaging
Reputation used to be thought of primarily as an outcome of communications and marketing activity – but that view is increasingly outdated.
Research and advisory work from organisations such as McKinsey emphasises that organisational reputation is shaped by leadership behaviour, transparency and narrative, not simply communications outputs.
In other words, stakeholders no longer separate the organisation from the people leading it.
For Corporate Affairs, Communications and Marketing leaders and their teams, this creates both opportunity and responsibility. Their influence now sits as much in how they guide leaders to articulate and embody the organisation’s story as in the communications plans they design.
But to be able to guide leaders in leadership… you must be seen as a peer to those leaders… a leader yourself.
“…to be able to guide leaders in leadership… you must be seen as a leader yourself.”
2. Strategic influence depends on clarity of value
In many organisations, Communications and Marketing functions still face a persistent challenge: demonstrating strategic value beyond tactical delivery.
Without a clear leadership brand, the function can easily be perceived as reactive or service-based.
By contrast, when the leadership brand of the function is well positioned – not only as a source of strategic narrative, stakeholder insight or reputational judgement, but as a key player in governance and commercial strategy – it changes how senior executives and board engage with the team.
Research on personal and professional branding emphasises that leaders who intentionally define and communicate their value are more likely to influence organisational decisions and be recognised for their contribution.
For leaders in these roles, the question becomes: What do people experience when they work with me and my team?
Leadership branding is also a team capability
One of the most powerful applications of leadership branding is not individual but collective.
When a Comms team articulates a shared leadership brand, it creates alignment about:
- how team members communicate with stakeholders (as leaders in their field!)
- the standards they hold and the strategic outputs they prioritise
- how the organisation’s narrative and strategy is shaped and reinforced.
A well-developed team leadership brand can transform the function from a delivery capability into a strategic leadership capability. Instead of only producing communications, the team helps shape how leadership shows up.
Questions for leaders and teams
For leaders of Comms teams who are considering their leadership brand, a few questions can be a useful starting point.
For the leader
- What do people consistently experience when they work with me as a leader?
- What value do I want executive peers and boards to associate with my judgement?
- Where do I bring a distinctive perspective to leadership discussions?
For the team
- What do we want to be known for as a leadership group?
- How do we want stakeholders to experience our function?
- Where do we add the greatest strategic value to leadership conversations?
Some practical considerations for shifting how you are seen
In our experience, professionals in the communications space can encounter internal roadblocks and cultural challenges in being perceived as leaders. After gaining clarity on ‘who we are’ and ‘why us’ to strengthen the team’s leadership confidence and communication, it’s useful to check in on some of the specific ways our language and behaviour send messages about our leadership (or lack of).
These can include:
- How much we communicate from value, aligned with what our intended audience (such as the C-Suite) care about – such as strategy, risk and commercial outcomes.
- How we make connections between our work and current business challenges (such as AI adoption and risk, shareholder and stakeholder pressures etc.), in order to emphasise the value of our work and explain our priorities and decisions.
- How pro-actively we integrate our work with other departments and encourage cross-pollination of ideas, creating a sense of working towards shared goals.
- How well-informed we are on industry best practice, trends and opportunities for competitive advantage – and whether we reference these in our work.
- How we ‘show up’ to be taken seriously (through personal presentation, verbal and body language, conversational and presenting skills) – sometimes this means coming across less as ‘creatives’ or ‘journalists’ and more as business leaders.
The opportunity ahead
As expectations of organisations continue to evolve, the role of Corporate Affairs, Communications and Marketing leaders will only become more central, where these professionals are truly leading.
Developing a leadership brand — individually and collectively — is one way these leaders can clarify their value and strengthen their strategic influence.
Related material
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How CPOs can get their Board & Executive aligned