Talk Is Chief: Leadership, Communication, and Credibility in a High-Stakes World

With compelling stories and strategies, Talk Is Chief inspires leaders and aspiring leaders to treat their daily communication practices as seriously as their fiscal, operational, value creation, deal making, business transformation, and other executive responsibilities.

Leaders today spend up to 90 percent of each day communicating to make good things happen in their organizations. They communicate with colleagues, customers, shareowners, creditors, regulators, advocates, and competitors. They influence culture, opportunity, risk-taking, and risk aversion. The stakes in this new communication environment are very high, driving home Winston Churchill’s statement: “The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.”

These days, leaders are likely to face adversity and career-testing situations. Crisis defines leaders and their organizations. But it does not have to take them down. Talk Is Chief provides sound advice, examples, and even a list of the “Ten Commandments of Crisis Management” so that leaders can either avoid crises or avert worst-case scenarios when confronted with an existential threat.

Jack Modzelewski’s vast years of experience working with numerous Fortune 500 companies as a communications consultant tells us that too many leaders undervalue and therefore underperform their vital communication responsibilities. They do so at their own disadvantage and sometimes peril in this age of heightened activism, transparency, disinformation, and disruption.

Whether they recognize it or not, leaders are chief credibility officers, with organizational reputations often resting on their words and actions, especially in times of crisis. As a CEO quoted in the book said: “Communication shouldn’t be just another hat that a CEO wears. It should be at the core of everything you do.”

Leadership communication today—the ability for leaders to be heard and clearly understood above the constant noise of the complicated worlds in which they must lead or govern—is of the highest importance. It’s proven that effective leadership communication inspires people to perform collectively better, leading to better outcomes. Which is why Talk Is Chief is a must-read for twenty-first-century leaders.