Chapter ten. Leading through Effective External Relations.

Summary:

The goal of organizational leaders is to ensure that the company’s ethos is positive-that all external audiences consider the company honorable, trustworthy, and ethical. Managing external relations effectively is essential to achieving that goal and essential to leadership communication in any organization.

Any communication activity that touches a company’s outside constituencies-such as advertising, sales promotions, direct marketing, or public relations-falls into the category of external relations. All of these are important and influence how the public perceives a company. Also, these activities must all be coordinated as part of an overall external relations campaign so that all messages are consistent and delivered effectively.

This chapter’s focus was primarily on the activities usually considered public relations, including press and media management, philanthropic activities, community involvement, investor relations, and external publications-annual reports and company magazines. Companies must manage all aspect the company’s public ethos. In most organizations, the leadership communication skill of the managers has the greatest impact on that external ethos through their involvement in public relations.

In this chapter, the following objectives:

· Developing an external relations strategy

· Building and maintaining a positive corporate image

· Working with the news media

· Handle crisis communications

The chapter provided guidelines to help manage external relations in day-to-day encounters and in crisis situations so that the company projects a positive image. Also, focused that how to apply the communication strategy model introduced in through all chapters, how to shape a positive image, how to deal with a media, and, finally, how to manage crisis communications.