Strategic by title, tactical by task

22 April 2025 Reading Time: 4 minutes

What the 2025 CSCE professional development survey reveals about growth, recognition, and the myth of mastery in communication.

by Sia Papageorgiou FRSA, FCSCE, SCMP, Co-founder, Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence

If you’ve been working in communication long enough, you’ve probably heard a colleague say, “I’ve been doing this for years – I know what I’m doing.” Fair enough. But the landscape we once navigated with confidence has changed, and continues to change, at speed.

What we now face as a profession is not a skills gap. It’s a mindset gap. And our latest research reveals just how far we still need to go.

In early 2025, the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence (CSCE) conducted a global survey to understand the state of professional development in communication. The results, now published in our report Signals and Shifts, confirm what many of us have sensed for some time: communication professionals are at a critical crossroads. We’re ambitious, resilient, and committed – but we’re also overextended, undervalued, and, in some cases, overconfident.

The confidence–competence disconnect

One of the most telling findings from the survey was the stark gap between how professionals assess their own capabilities and how their managers assess them. While 74–79% of professionals believe they fully possess key strategic skills, only 25–37% of managers share that view. That should make us pause.

When confidence runs ahead of competence – and when that confidence isn’t grounded in feedback or evidence – we don’t grow. We entrench.

This confidence–competence disconnect isn’t just an internal issue either. It plays out in how we show up to the business. When leaders sense that their communication team lacks insight, objectivity, or accountability, they sidestep us. Or worse, they see us as order-takers rather than strategic partners. That’s a perception issue we can, and must, correct.

The resource reality

Professional development budgets are worryingly low. Nearly half of all respondents reported annual development budgets under USD $1,000 per person. Meanwhile, communication teams are lean, with almost 50% operating with fewer than five people. Expectations continue to grow, yet support is often static – or worse, shrinking.

What makes this even more alarming is that we’re being asked to deliver outcomes that require systems thinking, leadership coaching, behavioural insight, and data analysis – often with little more than a Canva account and good intentions.

This isn’t sustainable. We can’t expect to meet today’s strategic demands while resourcing yesterday’s team structures and learning models. We need bold investment, but we also need better internal advocacy – something too many professionals still feel uncomfortable doing for themselves.

Tactical work, strategic aspiration

Many communication professionals identify as strategic advisors. But the data shows that most of our time – and our teams’ time – is spent on content creation, channel management, and execution. Advising senior leaders and coaching others on effective communication are far lower on the list.

This misalignment between how we see ourselves and what we spend our time doing is a core reason communication still struggles for strategic recognition in many organisations.

Strategic capability doesn’t emerge from a title change or a job description update. It comes from consistent exposure to strategic issues, guided reflection, and the willingness to stretch into discomfort. It requires communication professionals to ask better questions, not just deliver faster answers.

AI and the human imperative

Unsurprisingly, AI and technology top the list of desired development topics. But respondents didn’t just want tools. They wanted to learn how to integrate AI meaningfully – without losing the human core of communication.

That’s a tension we must embrace. The future belongs to those who can marry machine and meaning. Data and discernment. Automation and authenticity.

The rise of generative AI is reshaping how we write, research, and even present ourselves. But it’s also revealing the limits of formulaic thinking. If we’re going to lead in this space – not just keep up – we need to understand the ethical, cultural, and emotional dimensions of AI-enabled communication. Because what we automate matters just as much as how we automate it.

Certification: A commitment to growth

This is why I remain a staunch advocate for the certification of communication professionals. Not because certification is a badge. But because it’s a commitment. A commitment to learning. To growing. To taking your role seriously enough to back yourself with evidence and education.

Certification – especially through a globally recognised, ISO-aligned body such as the Global Communication Certification Council – signals something deeper: that you are actively choosing development over complacency. That you are prepared to subject your skills to scrutiny — and that you’re invested not just in advancing your own career, but in lifting the standards and standing of the entire profession.

At the CSCE, we don’t believe in development for development’s sake. We believe in rigour, relevance, and reflection. Certification supports that. It challenges the assumption that time served equals capability gained. It provides a framework for professional maturity and a benchmark we can hold ourselves to.

What needs to change

We need to stop designing development based on assumptions. Instead, we must:

* Ground learning in feedback – Real growth starts with understanding what we don’t yet see in ourselves.

* Upskill managers – Leaders must be equipped to coach, not just critique.

* Balance tactical and strategic capability – Yes, we need to write. But we also need to read the room.

* Design learning for the modern context – Hybrid and remote models demand new ways of accessing and embedding development.

* Build self-awareness, not just skills – Because knowing yourself is as critical as knowing your audience.

* Encourage ongoing calibration – Without a consistent feedback loop, confidence will always outpace competence.

* Build courage into the curriculum – Strategic advisory requires conviction. Communication professionals need support to speak truth to power.

Professional, not just passionate

It’s time we take ourselves seriously – as professionals, not just practitioners. Passion is essential, but it’s not enough. If we want a seat at the table, we need to be able to speak the language of strategy, deliver with clarity, and lead with courage.

Professional development is not a checkbox. It’s a mindset. A discipline. And a promise – to ourselves, and to the people we serve.

The CSCE remains committed to that promise. Not just through our training programs, but through our research, our advocacy, and our belief that communication professionals deserve – and are capable of – so much more.

Signals and Shifts: Insights from the 2025 CSCE Professional Development Survey is available now – download it for free

Written by: Editor