Breaking the echo chamber of our own brilliance – some tough love for #CommsPros

17 July 2025 Reading Time: 5 minutes

by Louise Thompson:

Now be honest – you’ve seen, heard and experienced this echo chamber too, haven’t you? On panels, in LinkedIn posts, at industry events: we in the communications profession spend a lot of time talking to ourselves, about how strategic we are, how vital our work is and how misunderstood we are.

And I agree with ALL OF THAT. Wholeheartedly.

Of course I do. I’m a leadership and careers coach for senior comms people AND a former Director of Communications myself.

Advocacy within our profession, for our profession? SIGN ME UP. (I do a lot of this by the way and am always happy to come and speak to your organisation, chapter or team.)

Especially when it comes to tackling the structural/systemic challenges that abound over any type of diversification or difference in our profession at all levels, that so many are doing brilliant work to help tackle.

BUT (you knew there had to be a but…)

I saw a stat in Helen Dunne‘s new corporate affairs newsletter recently that sadly, didn’t surprise me…

Comms vs. Reality: A Sobering Statistic

A recent report by WE Communications found that 81% of communicators believe they’re effectively reaching internal and external audiences. Yet…

Only 39% of stakeholders agree that their organizations excel at communicating through complexity.

Hmm. Seems there’s a disconnect.

And maybe it’s our own echo chamber in full effect?

Are we disconnected from leadership reality?

We must be! After all – that’s a pretty wide gap between our own perception of our impact, and those of our stakeholders.

So we must, actively and courageously, consider these perception gaps in terms of our impact and what they reveal about how connected we really are to the drivers of the business.

That by the way, is the first principle of leadership coaching – hold the mirror up to your own performance, leadership impact and identity and consider it in ALL its facets – the strengths, the skills and the values, but also the blind spots and the biases.

I think we have a pretty big blind spot actually in terms of the way we are perceived AS leaders, and AT leadership level.

I think we under-estimate the importance of earning and proving our strategic value alongside other leaders, and I think we over-estimate our own impact when we are not “in the room.”

I think we need (and deserve) to be in the room where discussions are being had and decisions are being made, either directly, or with a strong advocate for our work.

As a former Director of Comms (one who sat at board level as part of the organisational leadership team but also one who in a different role, had the title, but not much else in terms of influence or strategic empowerment), I’ve seen and experienced the difference first hand.

And so have the audiences and people I’ve led. And the outcomes for those organisations have also reflected that leadership.

There are so many challenges in our profession when it comes to leadership – gaining visibility, credibility and traction are three of the greatest – that I’d like to offer a bolder step for all of us here.

And a piece of “medicine” that I took as that board level Director of Comms, and bring into my coaching and other advocacy work.

We have to do a lot more work OUTSIDE our own echo chamber in order to work on tackling and closing that stakeholder perception gap.

We need to recognise the value of relationships across the board (pun intended), not just with the CEO who “gets” Comms. CEOs can change fast.

What about the other members of your exec team? The Chair of the board? Non-execs?

Who influences your CEO? Perhaps some of these people are outside or adjacent to the organisation, or partners.

How do they listen to their staff, partners and other stakeholders? What about? As a comms pro (or even leader) you may well have a steering hand on this programme, so show that and use it.

Are you asking for feedback from professionals and leaders in your organisation that have nothing to do with Comms, but share your audiences, pain points and organisational goals?

And instead of waiting for your hard work and impact to be noticed, how are you forging these relationships?

Not for your ego. Not to climb a ladder. Not for status sake. But because:

• You can’t influence priorities if you don’t know what they are and what they mean to the people outside Comms.
• You can’t shape narratives if you’re not part of the strategic conversations.
• You can’t build credibility if your insights are always delivered second-hand, through someone else’s filter.

Remember, leadership is also about connection, and that MUST go beyond our own audience of those who “get it” to include and influence those who don’t (or don’t want to, or don’t know why they should care…)

So what does it take to move beyond the echo chamber?

Here’s a starter list:

• Sponsorship: Find a senior ally who gets it, speaks up for you and gets you into the room where it happens (then get ready to show up as the leader you know you are!)
• Business fluency: Understand budgets, operations, commercial drivers, not just messaging.
• Evidence, not vibes: Prove your impact with data that matters to leadership. (To do this, you must know what matters to leadership!)
• Feedback, not validation: Invite challenge from stakeholders, not just applause from peers.

And maybe most importantly:

A willingness to confront the gap between how strategic we feel and how strategic we are perceived to be.

(That’s where leadership coaching comes in btw.)

Let’s talk about it

This isn’t an attack on our profession. I love comms people. I am one. But we’re not doing ourselves any favours if we only ever talk about how misunderstood we are, how undervalued, how brilliant and how overlooked as leaders.

Yes, all of these things are true. Of course they are and they deserve us shining a light on them. (I for one will continue to do so here and in other place, at events and in my workshops!)

BUT not to the exclusion of vital perspectives of those outside our own community of practice.

We need to look harder at our blind spots, our assumptions, and yes, our own idealism about what leadership really entails.

The good news? We’re already halfway there. We know how to listen, influence, translate, navigate. We know how to build trust.

But we need to point those skills inward too, and be ready to ask the uncomfortable questions.

Hold the mirror up to ourselves.

(There’s a reason why my favourite leadership book as a coach is “When Things Fall Apart” by the Buddhist Pema Chodron – it focuses on sitting with uncomfortable feelings, even leaning into them, as a way of navigating them and I think it’s an apt way to describe the practice of leadership coaching too.)

Consider these three prompts as you evaluate your own leadership practice as a comms professional:

👉 What if we stopped celebrating only mindset and started measuring access, influence, and strategic proximity?

👉 What would happen if we built structures for feedback from outside our comms bubble?

👉 Who do you need in your corner to advocate for that seat at the table? And sponsor you into it?

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Louise Thompson is a Leadership Coach and a former Director of Communications.

Written by: Editor