Whither the bully pulpit: leadership communications and corporate transformation

摘要

Recent geopolitical tensions around the world have shone a fresh light on the role of leadership communications in shaping the outcome of events. Much ink has been spilt criticizing President Obama's communication style (Stolberg, 2009) and applauding (or mocking) Vladimir Putin's taste for virile photo ops that involve playing with tigers (Kramer, 2012). Implicit in much of this commentary is the idea that a leader's communications style has a distinct impact on perception, whether in stiffening the resolve of one nation against another or giving a people in the midst of deep economic recession a hope to soldier on until better times return. President Theodore Roosevelt is probably the best known of American leaders who held this view when he described the successful leader as someone who spoke softly and carried a big stick (Goodwin, 2013) but the idea of the voice of the leader him or herself carrying a people forward, expressing fundamental principles, pointing to the future has had many transcendent expressions. President Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats during the Depression (Roosevelt, 1933-1944) come to mind as does Ronald Reagan' s challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev "to tear down that wall" (Reagan, 1987).