When Communications Strategy Becomes Business Strategy
Source: ChatGPT
Here’s a professional pet peeve of mine. A lot of organizations treat communications like little more than appendage that has little to do with the heart of the business. In organizations like this, communicators deliver press releases, draft social copy, manage talking points and craft speaking notes, and otherwise stay out of the way of the “real” decision-making.
But anyone who’s worked in communications at a senior level, especially on high-stakes files, knows how limited this view really is. In fact, when it’s done well, communications strategy isn’t a support function—it’s business strategy.
Communications unearths what the business believes
One of the first questions I ask any client at the start of an engagement is: What do you want your stakeholders to believe about you?
That’s not just a messaging question. It's a business question. Because in answering it, we unearth the organization's priorities, its gaps, its unspoken anxieties, and sometimes even its contradictions. You can’t communicate what you don't believe. And if you can't articulate what you believe, you can’t build trust with your customers, your staff, your investors, or your community.
Clarity of message forces clarity of strategy.
The way you frame a problem changes how you solve it
Framing isn’t spin. It’s leadership.
Whether it’s in crisis response, regulatory affairs, or public consultations, how you frame an issue shapes the options available for resolution. A labour dispute framed as a breakdown in values requires a different approach than one framed as a logistical breakdown. A policy change framed as an investment in future sustainability lands differently than one framed as a cost-cutting measure.
Communications leaders often sit at the centre of these framing decisions, quietly influencing how the organization understands its own choices—and how those choices will be received externally.
The messenger is the message
In executive communications in particular, the line between business strategy and communications disappears almost entirely. The narrative a CEO shares with their staff or investors isn’t just PR; it shapes market confidence, internal morale, and stakeholder alignment. Executive comms work is strategy work because it informs how leadership decisions land across every audience.
Strong communications teams don’t just draft talking points. They help leaders think through the sequencing, tone, and risks of what they’re about to announce and often influence the very decisions themselves.
The communications lens makes businesses sharper
When communications is brought into strategic conversations early, and not just when it’s time to write the release, it sharpens decision-making around questions such as:
What are we actually trying to achieve?
Who will be affected?
How will different stakeholders interpret this?
What risks are we creating and what narratives are we reinforcing?
Good communications forces clarity, alignment, and intentionality. That’s not “nice to have.” That’s business leadership.
Communications leaders belong at the leadership table
We sometimes underestimate how much of executive leadership is communications leadership. Some of the most effective CEOs out there, among them Richard Edelman, Andy Polansky, and Margery Kraus, come from comms backgrounds, having built their entire leadership approach on a foundation of trust, narrative, audience alignment, and clear messaging. Strategy lives or dies in how it's communicated.
For organizations serious about trust, reputation, and long-term value creation, communications isn’t a downstream function. It’s an essential lens for making better, sharper business decisions. Because in the end, no matter how sophisticated your strategy, if you can’t explain it—clearly, credibly, and consistently—you don’t really have one.
