New calendar years often come with a fresh perspective and a commitment to a fresh start. And though there’s been no shortage of reflection on the current era of unprecedented and pervasive uncertainty, many organizations are still struggling to shift from reactivity to recapturing strategic agency and advantage.
The compounded experience of widespread corporate shifts on social and political stances, sustainability and product development and the pervasive fear of what AI might mean for work, security and safety have played into a new paradigm of what it takes to build confidence in a company’s leadership.
It’s past time that every executive leadership team and corporate affairs organization develop a durable playbook for success under these conditions. Our experience counseling C-Suites and communications teams from across global industries and markets have shown us that the central challenge facing organizations is often not determining the right strategy. It is securing the permission to execute when bold or evolving strategies test the limits of stakeholder confidence. That’s what we call having License to Lead.
Organizations and executives with a License to Lead do not avoid volatility or always manage to walk a straight line from strategy to execution. Instead, they move and adapt with less friction. Why? They start from a position of strength and confidence with their stakeholders. They can pivot earlier and with less reputation clean up, enabling them to recover faster and sustain legitimacy. All while their competitors stall under resistance and skepticism.
A new survey from our Global Executive Advisory and True Global Intelligence identifies what it takes to earn the License to Lead and where executive teams are falling short. The comprehensive global study includes and compares the opinions of 1,550 business and political leaders and 4,000 engaged consumers—a new, modern definition that identifies proactive individuals who have recently taken multiple tangible actions tied to a company’s values and reputation. Together, the findings paint a clear picture of shifting corporate expectations and reputation. Jump Straight To The Full Report
1. Data from engaged consumers and policymakers show they aren’t blind to the challenging dynamics that business leaders face, leading to a new belief that a top leadership skill is the ability to adapt quickly to change.
- 84% of engaged consumers and 82% of policy stakeholders agree the current business environment is more unpredictable and disruptive than it was three years ago.
- 51% of engaged consumers believe the ability to adapt quickly to change will matter most for business leaders to succeed over the next decade.
2. While engaged consumers understand changing circumstances must be met with strategic shifts, there are clear expectations of what must be true to have permission to pivot without losing stakeholders along the way.
Compared to a few years ago, around half of engaged consumers report higher expectations of companies to:
- Act with their customers in mind (52%)
- Act with a balanced stakeholder approach (47%)
Over 90% of engaged consumers report the following actions are key to building confidence in a company’s leadership:
- Communicating their strategy and direction in clear, straightforward terms (93%)
- Ensuring a consistent message about the company’s goals (93%)
- Being transparent about the reasons behind difficult decisions (93%)
- Genuinely engaging with and listening to their stakeholders (94%)
The top three factors to building long-term loyalty include:
- Product the company offers (42%)
- Company’s mission and purpose (38%)
- How the company treats employees and stakeholders (38%)
The benefits of meeting these expectations are striking: 92% say a company with a strong, positive reputation has more permission to undertake a major business transformation and 85% of engaged consumers being likely to give a company they respect the benefit of the doubt if there is a crisis or mistake.
3. However, there’s a major gap between how leaders think they’re doing, and how stakeholders grade them – and that gap reveals a major erosion of confidence in business.
- Business and policy stakeholders express great confidence in large companies despite today’s volatility. 49% of executives and 44% of policy stakeholders are very optimistic in corporate leaders’ ability to address challenges; 51% and 41% respectively have a lot of confidence that business leaders will act in the best interest of society, and 44% and 36% believe large companies are very prepared to lead effectively during future disruption.
- However, engaged consumers don’t score business nearly as high. Just 20% of global engaged consumers are very optimistic about large companies’ ability to address major challenges. Only 19% have a lot of confidence that corporate leaders will act in the best interests of society, and only 15% believe companies are very prepared to navigate uncertainty and disruption.
4. The consequences of failing to bring stakeholders along as a company drives the strategy forward go well beyond an abstract benchmark on reputation.
- Corporate credibility has become highly fragile: 98% of engaged consumers say they are paying attention to corporate follow-through, and nearly half (48%) say that inconsistent or conflicting messages from company leadership greatly decrease their confidence.
- That loss of confidence comes with a loss of spending. In the past 12 months, engaged consumers reported that after a company’s actions caused them to lose confidence they stopped buying or significantly reduced spending (58%), switched to a competitor’s products or services (50%), or privately advised friends or family against the company (40%).
5. Engaged consumers are over grand purpose and vision statements. Today’s priorities are about rebuilding the table stakes of corporate behavior, communication and stakeholder respect – and to earn License to Lead, executives must take a hard look at whether they’re measuring up.
- When asked what gives a company the “right to lead” during periods of change, engaged consumers ranked demonstrated ethical behavior (24%) and clear and consistent communication (21%) the highest. When it comes to confidence-building behaviors from leaders, an overwhelming 76% of global engaged consumers say displaying integrity is very important and 74% say the same of accountability. These values rank higher than even raw competence (66%).
- A major perception gap must be addressed by business leaders about the success of their current efforts. While executives say they often see business leaders displaying integrity and honesty (44%) and accountability (40%), engaged consumers rank their performance much lower at 23% and 22%, respectively.
A New Executive Playbook to Create the License to Lead
What emerges from the data validates that a new playbook for leadership is both urgently needed and also completely within a company’s control – built through a consultative partnership between the C-Suite and corporate communications, corporate affairs, public affairs and other critical functions. In other words, while so much of the world feels out of a company’s control, successfully winning and retaining license to lead isn’t.
Becoming a high performing, aligned organization that can move quickly to fast-track opportunities and adapt without the drag of residual “reputation pollution” isn’t accidental. It is the result of cultivated conditions.
- Simplification as an Antidote to Complexity: High-performing leaders focus relentlessly on answering three fundamental questions: Where are we going? Why now? What principles guide us? If your stakeholders can’t repeat the direction back to you, you haven’t simplified enough.
- Ruthless Leadership Alignment: Misalignment erodes permission faster than bad news. In organizations with a License to Lead, alignment is a discipline, not a communications exercise. Visible alignment signals strategic confidence and pivots feel coordinated rather than chaotic.
- Campaign the Strategy: Too many companies assume everyone is following the breadcrumbs. Recently, one of our clients had an analyst who attended the company’s Investor Day where the strategy was launched act surprised when he heard about it again six months later. The strategy for the future should anchor every communication to drive to a consistent audience takeaway.
- Owning the “Why”: Our data proves that stakeholders are savvy to the big picture – and they don’t want to feel gaslit by leaders about decision reasons or implications. Radical honesty about rationale and tradeoffs behind strategic shifts protects credibility and keeps leaders in control of the narrative.
- Stakeholder Relevance Without Shortcuts: Permission is earned through engagement, not declaration. Broad, aspirational purpose statements are insufficient during real change. Stakeholders grant permission when can see their concerns reflected in how decisions were made and how the human impacts are handled.
When these conditions are met, reputation becomes an enabling force. Stakeholders grant leaders the permission to change course, absorb uncertainty, and continue moving forward even when the path is not yet fully visible. That permission is what allows ambition and adaption without breaking execution.
Corporate Affairs as Leadership’s Operating System
Meeting these conditions cannot be improvised. It requires a system. To build License to Lead, corporate affairs must operate as an integrated leadership infrastructure—one that continuously converts complexity into clarity and builds reputational capital through stakeholder buy-in to sustain legitimacy as leaders make decision that move the strategy forward.
This shift is subtle but profound. Leaders increasingly rely on corporate affairs to answer fundamental questions:
- What do stakeholders have confidence in us to do?
- What do they need to understand to stick with us through change?
- Where will friction emerge and how can we smooth it?
