Leaders Must Understand And Practice PR

September 30, 2008 on 7:35 am | In PR, Public Relations | 4 Comments
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Leadership requires an understanding of public relations. To lead you must be willing to listen and gain trust from followers. That’s what PR is about: dialogue and honesty. People don’t always have to agree with you to follow you. But they do have to trust you.

We have just seen – on both sides of the aisle – the largest failure of leadership I’ve ever witnessed. Our elected officials – after saying they had a deal – could not get members of their own parties to go along with an agreement to shore up financial markets. Consider this: 40 percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans opposed the legislation. If their own colleagues in the House don’t trust them, why should we?

Our governmental leaders, for too long, have given us the partisan-painted “truth”, have made decisions that benefit their cronies and have cried wolf too many times. Clearly, they were not listening to members who were reluctant to spend $700 billion for what many considered a bailout of failed executives.

If this were a real crisis, many believe, they would have developed a crisis communications plan to get America on board with their plan. And the Congress would have pulled out all the stops and voted last week.

From President Bush on down, we have seen no real leadership, nothing that would indicate this is anything more than a scare to get voters’ attention before the election. For too long partisanship has come before country. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, if really convinced we have a crisis, would have just called for a vote instead of berating Republicans first.

I believe many of these elected officials have just lost their jobs because they don’t understand the elements of PR and how it relates to leadership. What do you think?

Harry Hoover

Harry Hoover is a partner in My Creative Team, the agency that makes Fortune 1000 clients look good. His communications career spans 35 years and runs the gamut from print and broadcast journalism, government and corporate communications to advertising and public relations agencies.

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  • http://www.afpr.com Andrew Finkle

    I never really looked at that from a PR perspective, but your post is spot-on. It (Congress inaction) really is about trust – And PR is really all about trust….nice thought!

    I for one can’t wait for elections so I can vote them all out.

    http://www.twitter.com/A_F

  • http://www.buzzgain.com Cindy

    Now that’s a perspective I have not heard, but its a good point you make.

    Most senior executives & elected officials like the part of “seeing the name in the lights” more than “working to get your name in the lights”.

    I got here thanks to Jason Fall’s tweet BTW.

  • http://trainingtime.wordpress.com/ Marie

    Only with a strong communication base built with public relations can you start “selling” to people. I agree with your point that, in politics and everywhere else, successful “leadership requires an understanding of public relations.” Their focus on PR got lost along the way and the public’s trust may have gone right along with it.

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