Leadership Focus: What rising comms leaders need to know

It will require much more than AI prompting to be a future communications leader

By Robbie Caploe, director of strategic initiatives

To be successful, the next generation of communicators will require more than good writing skills or AI fluency. They’ll need business acumen, adaptability, strategic judgment and curiosity.

To explain why and how, we asked three communications executives about evolving expectations for the next wave of leaders and why staying relevant means embracing change, comprehending impact, and steering with consistency, empathy and a point of view.

Here’s what Johnna Muscente, vice president of communications and PR at Corcoran, Cynara Charles-Pierre, senior vice president, culture and communications at Council member New York Times, and Alyssa Bernstein, TelevisaUnivision’s senior vice president, corporate communications, had to say.

Develop business acumen

Johnna Muscente: You have to understand how your job supports business goals, trickles into revenue, talent retention or investor confidence. Anyone who does that will always have a seat at the table.

Alyssa Bernstein: It sounds so simple but there were times in my career where I was focused on my lane and not thinking about how my work was contributing to how the company brings in revenue.

The best communicators focus on the work that helps drive business outcomes and weed out the work that doesn't.

Be strategic and adaptable

Cynara Charles-Pierre: You have to be strategic and see the full picture. What happens when this domino falls? What happens when the tenth one falls? You must be able to think through the impact of your decisions in every way possible. That requires a lot of discipline and patience. What I've always thought of as a good leader is someone who exhibits good judgment.

Muscente: Every comms person now should also be a crisis comms person. Learn how to write fast, stay calm and who to loop in when something breaks. You must also know how and when to navigate the news cycle.

Bernstein: It's not one-size-fits-all in how you work with people. You have to be adaptable, with a natural curiosity. You can’t be a great communicator without it.

Develop emotional intelligence

Charles-Pierre: IQ is important but EQ [emotional intelligence] is most important in a leader, and that has traditionally not been the case.

This may sound a little overly gendered, but this is why you're seeing many more women rise to the most senior levels, whether it be CFO, CEO or COO. We have a woman who's CEO, Meredith Kopit Levien. And she brings a people-centric mindset to how she leads. Every month we do all-company meetings, and she leads them. She is responsive to all ideas and has no problem sharing the stage.

Know the competitive marketplace

Muscente: Be aware of how other brands are operating and communicators are thinking. There's incredible mindshare on Substack or LinkedIn or even Instagram for PR people.

For example, look at how another brand on LinkedIn told a story; how they took a keynote speech and broke out the key points into bite-sized pieces of content that they then put on different social platforms, and then turned that into an internal employee memo to rally the troops. 

The AI effect

Bernstein: AI can make more agile, efficient communications leaders who can contribute to the company with cost-effective resources. When done in a smart, effective way, AI will supercharge comms teams forward. I've seen it. I've done it. I'm amazed by the output I can deliver using some chat models.

Muscente: AI is like a magic wand. You can use it for stress testing messaging or, if you're having some stumbling blocks over drafting a first paragraph for instance, to move faster.

Bernstein: The downside, however, is that the next generation cannot lose their analytical mind. You can't use output from a chatbot on messaging if you don’t have the strategic framework also. It will be wrong. I worry that the next generation will be like, “Great. I hate writing, but now I can just put it all in a chatbot.”

Charles-Pierre: With something like ChatGPT, maybe editing is not the most important thing that you do as a communication professional anymore. But how are you thinking about what you're saying? Who is the audience and what is this message for? Who gets it first? And how do you maintain the difference in nuances between those things? Those are still very much human decisions that you can't just program.

Bernstein: I fear that the ease of AI for the younger comms generation will result in more mediocre work and they won't necessarily rise as much in their career. And, thus, leaders may lose faith in communications as a strategic function that has a seat at the table. People will think comms can be replaced by AI when it cannot.

Muscente: What it will replace is the people who were not wanting to touch it. But it will never replace human instinct.

Embrace a learner’s mindset

Charles-Pierre: I've learned a lot by having great leaders and not so great leaders. I don't want to pooh-pooh leadership books totally, but I think experience sticks with you way more than something you read in a book. Nothing teaches you better. I've seen what good leadership looks like and what not so great leadership looks like — and more importantly, what it felt like.

Muscente: I had a boss years ago who would say that you can't spreadsheet your way out of a boring campaign. It may tick all the boxes, but if it falls flat … well, that didn't work. You want to create an environment where taking chances and trying something different is encouraged and expected, that allows for the fact that it might be a disaster that you have to fix.

Work hard

Bernstein: You can’t be there for only the work hours. You're not going to succeed if that's your mindset. I'm not saying you have to work 24/7, but the best comms pros are always thinking of what can be done better.

I don’t wait for my leaders to come to me. I've been effective because I've always been competitive, trying to recruit the best people and make sure our company shows up in the best way. If you don't feel like you want to do much more than is asked of you, you shouldn't have leadership aspirations. 

Be an information consumer

Muscente: I tell our team all the time that, yes, we’re here to place news stories, but we're also here to absorb and read them, too. Make sure you're consuming as much as you can from as many different places as you can, even ones that you don't agree with. You to have a sense of the landscape.

In the morning, I do a scroll of big headlines: Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post. I live in New York, so I read the New York Post. It's trashy but they have their pulse on what's happening. X is still like that, too. The Cut from New York Magazine.

Substack is like new social media, like Tumblr from 100 years ago. I'm a huge advocate of trade publications. I read The Real Deal or Inman for real estate news. From a comms perspective, Ragan is always in the mix. I also love the PR Girl Manifesto.

Bernstein: We work with Cision and created a bespoke newsletter. I have CNBC on in my office all day so I hear everything that's going on in the media sector and overall in the market. I'm also on LinkedIn, reading up on what our competitors are doing. In between work throughout the day, I'm on TikTok and Instagram, too.

Charles-Pierre: I read the New York Times, Washington Post, AP News, The Atlantic. Several podcasts are on daily/weekly rotation: The Bulwark, The Headlines, The Ezra Klein Show, The Opinions, What Now with Trevor Noah, Political Gabfest, The Daily Show (Ears Edition), Late Show Pod Show with Stephen Colbert, Pop Culture Happy Hour.

Communications Leadership Council members have access to Ragan Training and certification courses, including the Leadership Certificate course happening this month. Missed the live session? Register to access the on-demand recording.