Reputation Is Earned: Strategic PR starts with culture in the quiet times, to build credibility and prevent crisis.
- miriam4437
- Feb 17
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 3
Recently the PRCA published its new definition of PR: “the strategic management discipline that builds trust, enhances reputation and helps leaders interpret complexity and manage volatility.”
I fully agree (although I don’t think it applies just to leaders). But that succinct definition encompasses an awful lot. Some pretty big ‘stuff’! Manage volatility – that bit alone deserves particular attention, because that is the gnarly bit that can undo all the work previously mentioned in the sentence; and crucially it is something many organisations underestimate: volatility is now a daily reality.
So let’s define and unpack ‘volatility’ for a moment. For those who aren’t in the comms world or who have never had the misfortune of sailing in reputationally choppy waters or navigating a full-on storm, stay with me - it’s a vital point to understand (I’ll come back to how your approach to managing volatility makes the difference between your PR being reactive, haphazard and less effective and it being truly strategic later on). It could be a simple as ‘unpredictable change’. Good or bad. But volatility, in my understanding and certainly my experience, is more along the lines of:
Unpredictable, fast‑moving pressures that can destabilise an organisation’s reputation,
Issues that escalate when unhelpful culture, bad behaviour or poor decision‑making goes unchecked and culminates in an event or events that could have been prevented,
The reputational consequences of lack of transparency, slow or defensive responses or poor leadership,
Or a combination of the above with shifting public expectations, cultural sensitivities, operational risks, media scrutiny and the speed at which information and misinformation now travel thrown in for good measure!
Crucially, volatility isn’t just about the dramatic events. It’s about the conditions that allow those events to happen. That’s where organisations sometimes find themselves in hot water, over and above the actual outcome or the actions of an individual. If it could have been prevented…your reputation is going to be on the line.
The best way to manage volatility is long before a crisis hits. You must start in calm waters.
Why “managing volatility” matters:
Volatility becomes dangerous when organisations lack the culture, credibility and internal mechanisms to manage it. Reputation can be a fragile thing and can pivot on a pinhead if mis-managed.
How you manage volatility:
A significant part of PR is not about chasing headlines, it's about preventing them in the first place. Let me be clear – I am not advocating spin or suppression. What I mean is managing a situation through excellent leadership, ethical practice and good cultures; and ensuring that if scrutiny does come - it is accurate, proportionate and rooted in fact, not sensation. That is achieved through proactive leadership, good media relations, and behind that - credibility and trust. Strategic management discipline!
This is the kind of strategic, preventative crisis work I support organisations with.
Credibility in action:
A few years ago, I managed a serious reputational issue involving behaviour that rightly required robust reporting, accountability and ultimately a substantial prison sentence. Recently, I bumped into a former senior colleague who follows these stories closely. He hadn’t seen it. That is success in my book, and I will take it.
At the time, I was told by both stakeholders and external industry colleagues, that the coverage was “far less extensive than expected” and “far less negative towards the organisation than expected.” It hadn’t spiralled. It wasn’t sensationalised. It was balanced, factual and fair. It held the individuals and the organisation proportionally accountable, whilst recognising actions taken to address the issue(s) and prevent recurrence. It gave context, voice and right of reply. That outcome was not about lack of transparency, manipulation or concealment. It was due to credibility and preparedness.
What strategic PR leadership actually looks like:
Firstly, planning is everything. A PR strategy with a robust, considered crisis comms plan, preferably that has been stress tested and practiced, is not to be underestimated. Experience, a calm-head, good judgement and a willingness to listen and consult, to check and test, are enormously beneficial. But leadership and credibility are key.
When you have been a senior comms professional working within the context of long-term reputational management, you must be bold, brave and consistent in advising leaders/clients to be transparent, to apologise when necessary, not to be defensive and to put meaningful change in place BEFORE something happens - let alone afterwards. When you do, you build something invaluable: credibility. When you do need to defend a position or respond to a situation, that credibility matters.
The outcome in the case I mentioned was the product of a lot of hard work and grown-up conversations with both C-Suite and journalists. Existing relationships built on openness, trust and earned credibility. Because if your organisation is consistently transparent, non-defensive and respectful of the media, you give them time, facts, context and don’t just give them the brush off or spin and glitter, when you do have to make the call and say: “There is more context here. Here are the facts,” they will listen. They will still challenge. They will still verify, and they absolutely should. But they will give you their time.
However, prevention is better than cure. Senior comms leaders are often seen as difficult. The people asking uncomfortable questions, being pokey and challenging - and that’s what we should be doing. Done well, you become the trusted voice in the room. The one who sees the 8pm Sunday night call from the media at 10am on a Tuesday morning, two-months before it happens. The one who helps leaders navigate issues before they escalate. Often the ones who challenge and ring the alarm bells before anything even happens. It’s not about skirting or supressing scrutiny. It is about preventing the need for it (and God knows we need more ethical business practices and people who cry ‘foul’ at the moment) by demonstrating good leadership. But if justified scrutiny does come - ensuring it is informed, fair and constructive then becomes the job.
A bit like death, change and taxes, which we might not want but are inevitable, recognise the reality of volatility. Acknowledge and embrace it and use it to show your organisation where it can grow up/improve/change/evolve and how the impact of proactivity now will prevent or mitigate the headlines you don’t want in the future. As a senior comms leader, you need to:
Help shape healthy, transparent internal cultures
Insist on ethical business practices
Ensure internal reporting mechanisms actually work
Challenge poor behaviours early
Advise C-Suite of emerging risks
Say no, stick your elbows out or ask the difficult questions even when it would be easier to stay quiet
Be noisy when you have joined the dots across an organisation and spotted patterns others miss (and we do spot those patterns)
Get stakeholder buy-in to invest in a good comms resource, an effective media policy and grown-up media relations
Ring alarm bells when you are uncomfortable, your spidey senses ping or frankly you know that the ‘optics’ would be horrible and the Daily Mail headline would be hideous, when you apply a scrutiny lens to a situation!
In short, strategic PR and particularly effective management of volatility, needs experience, nerve, good judgement, resilience and a proactive approach. It cannot be passive or purely reactive.
In my humble opinion that is the reality and the requirements of “strategic management” as per the definition. And I do support the new definition, essentially, it’s what those of us who are old experienced have known and been working to for years. But it’s good to see it acknowledged and officially defined, and I think it’s helpful to highlight volatility, and give leaders a bit of a nudge to properly acknowledge, understand and embrace it and the skill, time and experience needed to deal with it. Properly.
Advice for comms professionals and business leaders:
Early career comms professionals: be brave and stick your elbows out when your gut tells you to. Question and challenge. Invest in media relationships before you need them.
Senior comms leaders to do:
Make sure your organisation is honest and accountable when things aren’t right, so you are credible when you so take a more defensive position.
Embed yourself in culture and process change – make organisations better. That is not just tactical PR.
That is strategic management. It matters and often you are it!
You must be an organisation’s eyes and ears, their conscience, an alarm mechanism, an auditor, and their North Star in dark times.
Business leaders: If your organisation wants to proactively and effectively manage volatility, strengthen its culture, reduce reputational risk, and ensure you’re prepared for scrutiny - I offer strategic, experienced, calm and confidential counsel, crisis planning, media and crisis comms training; and if things do go wrong, I can provide hands‑on delivery or specialist support to in-house resource. Let’s make sure you’re ready long before that volatility arrives, or even better – prevent it in the first place.
Download a Service Summary below or give me a call.
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