Slaying Dragons and Managing Chaos: The Communicator’s Path to CEO Trust

29 October 2025 Reading Time: 4 minutes

Sarah L. Manley Robertson, SCMP®, Prosci®, ABC:

Your eyes meet across the room. Your legs shake as you stroll toward them. Their outfit’s impeccable; their eyes smolder. It’s instant love. 

You embrace. You’re married in the morning. You live happily ever after.

Ya. ‘Cause that’s how it happens, right?

Except it doesn’t. Not in personal relationships, and certainly not in business. 

As communicators, too many of us arrive expecting our CEOs to “love” us instantly – to just take our counsel.  But trust isn’t instant and it doesn’t come with the role. It’s built, tested, and strengthened over time.  

Trust is a process earned through integrity, competence, and results. It comes when you use genuine curiosity to slay their dragons and manage their chaos.

Trust Matters

Because your work matters.

Communications isn’t an order-taking support function. It’s a core business driver. Done well, it mitigates risk, accelerates execution, drives productivity, and builds engagement. These are not “nice-to-haves.” They are essential to an organization’s success and are tied directly to the outcomes against which CEOs are measured.

Both the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD) and the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence (CSCE) map the communicator’s trust progression clearly:

1. deliver messages efficiently.
2. deliver outcome-focused communications that shift what people know, think, feel, and do.
3. be a trusted advisor: help build leadership competence and solve business problems alongside the C-Suite.

But you won’t get the chance to do this work unless the CEO trusts you. 

What Is Trust

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, trust is built on two foundations: ethics and competence.  Charles Feltman’s Thin Book of Trust says individuals choose to trust others when they experience integrity (care, reliability, and sincerity) and competence.

You know how to deliver solid communications outputs (competence) in line with our professional codes of ethics. So, how do you demonstrate you genuinely care about the CEO and the organization? 

Curiosity

CEOs don’t need another pontificating professional, they need a person who takes the time to understand what drives them, what holds them back, what they value most, and puts it all into the context of their business. 

That takes genuine curiosity – a trust-building superpower.

First, aim your curiosity at the CEO. Ask:

• What gives you energy—and what drains it?
• Who or what consistently inspires you to lead at your best?
• What professional challenges have shaped your approach?
• What’s one thing you had to unlearn to lead more effectively?
• What results are non-negotiable for you this quarter?

The answers sharpen your advice and elevate your counsel. 

Next, set your sites on the business. “I didn’t know” or “I’m in communications not operations” is never an acceptable answer. 

Work IN the business not beside it: 

• Work the shop floor (or retail floor, or drive-thru etc.).
• Ride along with sales. 
• Read the balance sheets and P&L.
• Learn the industry regulations (go to industry roundtables and read future-casting trends reports). 
• Meet customers (attend the marketing focus groups and advisory boards).
• Say yes to leading cross-functional projects (not just being part of them).

The more curious about and closer you are to the business, the more relevant you become.

Slaying Dragons and Managing Chaos

While being relevant lays a solid foundation, building trust is also about helping the CEO create clarity and connection amidst the dragon-fire of inflation, competition, supply chain instability, geopolitical tensions, and performance pressure.

You may experience the effects of it on them: sending you multiple concurrent and competing requests; asking for multiple reworks and rewrites (they may not be able to describe what they want from you until they see what they don’t want). Don’t take it personally – anticipate it.

Manage Their Chaos. Seek clarity. Use P.A.U.S.E. to bring order:

• P – Problem: What are we trying to fix?
• A – Achieve: What outcome do we want – awareness, action, alignment?
• U – Uncover the root cause (asking Why x5 usually works).
• S – Solutions: What are the possible options?
• E – Execute and Evaluate: How do we act quickly, and how will we know we got there?

P.A.U.S.E. keeps you grounded and proves to your CEO that you can bring clarity where others may contribute noise.

Slay Their Dragons. Use your insights (see Curiosity) and purposeful communications to connect employee action to business priorities. Here’s a four-step framework (too bad this one doesn’t spell a word):

1. Filter – Which priorities can employees affect?
2. Map Actions – What actions can those employees take?
3. Craft the CEO Message – Why are these priorities now? What’s at risk if not addressed? Why do we believe we can? How do they tie to our vision/purpose? 
4. Reinforce – Create transparency on progress and setbacks, generate dialogue on innovations and lessons learned, and publicly recognize wins (especially the small ones along the way).

Creating clarity and connection aren’t side skills. They are the very practices that turn communicators into trusted advisors; each signaling to your CEO that you aren’t there to just deliver words, but to help them get results.

The Payoff

When you consistently demonstrate Curiosity, Manage Chaos, and Slay Dragons  – the everyday actions that inform ethical strategies and deliver results  – you put care, reliability, sincerity, and competence into action. Your competence grows and your integrity shows.

That’s when the CEO doesn’t just ask you to write messages; they treat you as the leader of a critical business function. They see you as a trusted advisor.

And that’s the real prize: not the whirlwind love-at-first-sight romance of fairytales.

That’s the kind of trust that’s built step by step, tested in small moments, and proven over time. Because trust is never a moment: it’s always a process.

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Sarah L. Manley Robertson is President and Founder of Prospect Strategies, Limited, and is a Strategic Columnist.

Written by: Editor