✅ What communications management really looks like
Two new book reviews published last week on the Wadds Inc. website explore how communications leaders earn influence by guiding strategy and building trust from within.
Tabita Andersson’s Chief Communications Officers at Work brings together the voices of 23 senior communications leaders across international organisations. There’s a quiet revolution underway, and these leaders are living it:
Soft skills are the real hard skills - curiosity, courage, and critical thinking keep showing up as key traits. The best leaders ask better questions before offering strategic counsel.
The role is still evolving - despite progress, communications still fights to be seen as a strategic partner at the executive table. Measurement and AI may help make the case, but judgment and influence remain irreplaceable.
This is a leadership discipline - whether navigating crisis, ESG pressures, or reputational risk, CCOs today are expected to lead conversations that shape organisations.
The flip side of leadership is trust. This is where internal communications earns its keep, especially in moments of crisis.
Alison Arnot’s Internal Communications in Times of Crisis is a wake-up call to organisations that still treat employees as passive recipients of information. As Claire Munro notes in her review, this is a handbook for doing better by starting from within.
Employees are your first and most credible audience - if your own people don’t know what’s happening your external communication is already compromised.
Good crisis plans start with people - internal alignment, clarity, and empathy are essential to avoid confusion, rumours, or disengagement.
Tone and visibility of leadership matter - in uncertain times, leaders who speak with honesty and show up consistently (not just on slick town hall meetings) build a foundation of advocacy.
What it means for your job
These books land at an important time for our discipline. Communications is a lever of management, a builder of trust, and a shaper of organisational direction.
Andersson’s book shows how CCOs are carving out space in the C-suite and what it takes to lead there. Arnot’s work reminds us that trust starts inside the organisation, not outside.
We launched two courses last week to help practitioner build communication management capability within their own organisations and critical thinking skills within their own practice. Please check out the details below.
Have a good week ahead.
We’ve launched two new courses for 2026 focused on management communication and critical thinking. Please follow the links below to check the learning objectives, syllabus, dates and enrollment.
Communications management and leadership (full-day, online)
This one-day online course examines how the role of corporate communications and public relations is being reshaped by structural change rather than incremental skills development. The programme reframes communications as a management discipline focused on sensemaking, governance, behavioural insight and organisational legitimacy.
Critical thinking for communications professionals (half-day, online)
This half-day online course examines why critical thinking has become the defining capability for communications practitioners in an age of AI-generated content, synthetic media and institutional distrust. The programme equips participants with habits and frameworks for evaluating information, questioning assumptions and forming reasoned judgments before acting.
We’re offering £50 off our half-day courses and £100 off our one-day courses booked in January.
📣 DEFINING PR: The PRCA has launched a members-only consultation on a new definition of public relations, responding to industry calls for clarity and leadership amid uncertainty. It says that this is a pivotal moment to assert the value of public relations. Strategic communications is rising in importance, yet misperceptions at the top continue to hold the sector back. Source: PRCA (opens as a PDF).
✨ SUMMER STARS: The Taylor Bennett Foundation is seeking host employers for its Summer Stars Internship Programme, which prepares diverse early‑career talent with a bootcamp before flexible placements of four weeks to 12 months. Leading organisations such as Virgin Media O2, Lloyds and Cancer Research UK have participated - employers can apply now to connect with workplace‑ready, high‑potential interns. Source: Taylor Bennett.
🧐 TIP TRICKS: JustGiving faces scrutiny from the Fundraising Regulator over claims it misleads donors by defaulting to a 17% “tip” and obscuring the option to opt out. With £35 million profit last year and fees also deducted from donations, the platform’s tactics risk eroding trust in digital charity fundraising. Source: The Times.
🚨 FAKE EXPERTS: Press Gazette has named more than 50 fabricated “experts” linked to more than 1,000 dubious media stories, many generated by AI and pushed by SEO-driven agencies. The rise of synthetic commentary risks polluting trusted media and eroding the relationship between journalists, public relations practitioners and the public. Source: Press Gazette.
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Please check out our new courses for 2026 in communications management and critical thinking.
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