Leaders Must Learn to Listen

The communication profession stands at a pivotal moment. Artificial intelligence is transforming how we create and distribute content. Trust in institutions continues to erode while employees demand authenticity and transparency. The hybrid workplace has permanently altered how we reach our audiences. And the pace of change shows no signs of slowing.

In this environment, what does it mean to be a communication professional? More specifically, what will it mean in 2026 and the years that follow?

The December Circle of Fellows panel tackled these questions head-on, bringing together four IABC Fellows to share their perspectives on where our profession is headed and what opportunities await those prepared to seize them.

The conversation explored several interconnected themes, including the evolving role of the communication professional as a trusted adviso,; the new capabilities and mindsets that will distinguish the communication leaders who thrive from those who struggle to keep pace, the skills the next generation of communicators should be developing now;  and how we can maintain professional standards and ethical practice when the tools and channels keep shifting beneath our feet.

About the panel:

Zora Artis, GAICD, SCMP, ACC, FAMI, CPM, is CEO of Artis Advisory and co-founder of The Alignment People. She helps leaders and teams tackle tough challenges, find clarity, and take action, particularly when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious. Her superpower is being comfortable with the uncomfortable: aligning people, solving problems, and navigating change so leaders can focus on what matters most and teams can do their best work.
With more than three decades of experience across consulting, executive leadership, and strategic communication, Zora has guided major brands, government, for-purpose and for-profit organisations in aligning purpose, culture, strategy, and performance. A leading thinker, researcher, and expert in strategic and team alignment, leadership, brand, and communication, she is co-authoring a global study on Strategic Alignment & Leadership. She is a Research Fellow with the Team Flow Institute.
Zora has served as Chair of the IABC Asia Pacific region, as a Director on the IABC International Executive Board, and on multiple committees and task forces. She holds multiple IABC Gold Quill Awards and Chairs the IABC SIG Change Management. Based in Melbourne, she works globally.

Bonnie Caver, SCMP, is the Founder and CEO of Reputation Lighthouse, a global change management and reputation consultancy with offices in Denver, Colorado, and Austin, Texas. The firm, which is 20 years old, focuses on leading companies to create, accelerate, and protect their corporate value. She has achieved the highest professional certification for a communication professional, the Strategic Communication Management Professional (SCMP), a distinction at the ANSI/ISO level. She is also a certified strategic change management professional (Kellogg School of Management), a certified crisis manager (Institute of Crisis Management). She holds an advanced certification for reputation through the Reputation Institute (now the RepTrak Company). She is a past chair of the global executive board for the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). She currently serves on the board of directors for the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, where she leads the North American Regional Council and is the New Technology Responsibility/AI Director. Caver is the Vice Chair for the Global Communication Certification Council (GCCC) and leads the IABC Change Management Special Interest Group, which has more than 1,300 members. In addition, she is heavily involved in the global conversation around ethical and responsible AI implementation and led the Global Alliance’s efforts in creating Ethical and Responsible AI Guidelines for the global profession.

Adrian Cropley is the founder and director of the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence, a global training and development organization. For over thirty years, Adrian has worked with clients worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies, on major change communication initiatives, internal communication reviews and strategies, professional development programs, and executive leadership and coaching. He is a non-executive director on several boards and advises some of the top CEOs and executives globally.

Adrian is a past global chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), where he implemented the IABC Career Road Map, kick-started a global ISO certification for the profession, and developed the IABC Academy. Adrian pioneered the Melcrum Internal Communication Black Belt program in Asia Pacific and is a sought-after facilitator, speaker, and thought leader. He has been a keynote speaker and workshop leader on strategic and change communication at international conferences in Canada, the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, China, India, Hong Kong, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. He has received numerous awards, including IABC Gold Quill Awards for communication excellence, and his Agency received Boutique Agency of the Year 6 years running.

Adrian is the Chair of the Industry Advisory Committee for the RMIT School of Media and Communication and a Fellow of the IABC and RSA. In 2017, he was awarded the Medal of Order of Australia for his contribution to the field of communication.

Mary Hills, ABC, IABC Fellow, Six Sigma, FCSCE serves as MBA Faculty in Benedictine University’s Goodwin College of Business. Her work in marketing, finance and organizational communication and management brings an interdisciplinary perspective to her students. Mary’s professional career includes serving large corporations such as First Wisconsin National Bank – Milwaukee, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Whiteco Advertising, NiSource, Northern Trust, Unilever and Zebra Technologies. She supported starts-ups through Purdue Technology Center and Research Park of NWI. As a member of senior management, her work includes research, risk analysis and strategic planning for product launches, market expansion, and change and crisis management. In 2009, she co-founded HeimannHills Marketing Group, Chicago and Phoenix, serving as business principal until 2021. Most recently, Mary’s work involves AI’s impact on the role of the communication professional. Her work has been recognized nationally and internationally.

Raw Transcript:

Circle of Fellows Episode 123: The Future of Communications in 2026 and Beyond

Shel Holtz: Hi everybody, and welcome to episode 123 of Circle of Fellows. I’m Shel Holtz, the Senior Director of Communications at Webcor, a commercial general contractor and builder headquartered here in the Bay Area. We have a great panel today to talk about a really fascinating topic: the future of communications in 2026 and beyond.

I want to emphasize that this is not one of those “lists of trends for next year” that you see flooding social media. I think that has gotten worse since AI made it easier for people to come up with these trends rather than thinking it through for themselves. We will explore where we think communication is headed based on everything going on in the world, including AI.

I’m going to ask the panel to introduce themselves, but before that, I want to take a moment to note the passing of one of our community of IABC Fellows. This happened on April 15th, but we all just learned about it yesterday. The Fellow who passed is Les Potter. Les was hugely influential to more than one generation of communicators. There are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of communicators out there practicing sound strategic communication because of what they learned from Les.

He was a great friend of mine; we spent time together socially, and he will be sorely missed. He was a past chair of IABC, and his passing is a tremendous loss to the community. After leaving the corporate world, he became a beloved professor of communication at Towson University in Maryland. I just wanted to share that for people who may not have heard. I hope he is resting in peace.

With that, let’s find out who is on the panel today. Adrian, starting with you.

Adrian Cropley: It’s great to be with everyone. Thank you, Shel. I am Adrian Cropley in Melbourne, Australia. It is hot today. I am an IABC Fellow and the co-founder of the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence.

Shel Holtz: Great to have you with us, Adrian. Bonnie, you’re up next.

Bonnie Caver: Hi, I’m Bonnie Caver. I’m in Austin, Texas, and I run a company called Reputation Lighthouse, where we do brand and reputation change management for mid-sized companies.

Shel Holtz: Thanks for joining us, Bonnie. Mary?

Mary Hills: Mary Hills in lovely Scottsdale, Arizona. Our temperature is perfect, as it always is in Scottsdale. I am graduate faculty for Benedictine University, teaching out of their business school, and also on the faculty at the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence. I am glad to dive into the topic.

Shel Holtz: I have to ask, is the weather going to be perfect in Scottsdale in August?

Mary Hills: It’ll be a little wet and a little hot.

Shel Holtz: Okay. And Zora.

Zora Artis: Hello, everyone. I’m coming to you from Melbourne, Australia, not too far from Adrian. I’m the CEO of Artis Advisory and co-founder of The Alignment People. I work with leaders and executives on tackling tough problems, finding clarity, and taking action. I’m really excited to be here today closing off the year.

Shel Holtz: Thanks, Zora. I also want to shout out Anna Wyllie, our executive producer behind the scenes. In the document she sent to prepare for this, she suggested a potential opening question: What is your one headline for the future of the communication profession in 2026? Let’s go in reverse order, starting with Zora.

Zora Artis: I think as we head into 2026, communication leadership is entering a much more pressured time. This isn’t just because of AI, but because the pace of change is relentless and outstripping people’s ability to make sense of everything. We need to help them move fast and bring them along with us, which is quite daunting, but it puts us in a position where we’re indispensable.

Mary Hills: I would say that so much of the future is not new; it involves things that are maturing and evolving. I don’t think there will be any grand flashes. We have made progress, and we are just going to keep going.

Bonnie Caver: Transformative. We must, as communication professionals, transform ourselves, and we must lead transformation within our organizations and with our stakeholders.

Adrian Cropley: I was scared Bonnie was going to be before me on this one because we think the same here. It’s absolutely about change and transition. But let me add that it will be an exciting time if communication professionals seize the opportunity to grow their value in organizations because the moment is now.

Shel Holtz: I will add mine: I think we are going to have to be laser-focused on building trust. Trust is eroding, and AI is contributing to this. I don’t know if you heard that The Washington Post created AI-generated podcasts that were loaded with factual inaccuracies. If that’s coming from The Washington Post, we’re in trouble. I don’t know who is going to want to be aligned with or engaged with an organization they don’t trust.

Let’s dive into it. What are the leaders of organizations looking for from communicators, and how prepared are we to deliver on those things?

Bonnie Caver: I’ve done quite a bit of research on what leaders are focused on. Profitable growth is on their mind, alongside transformation with AI technology, transforming talent, and the future of work. They also have to protect and govern. As communication professionals, we have to plug in there. We are part of growth, but we must also help lead transformation and address risk, trust, and sustainability. Stakeholders are going to have very different expectations of us going forward.

Adrian Cropley: Shel, you talked about the state of trust, and I think this is critical. Leaders have this opportunity to lead their organizations and employees to buy into what the organization stands for. The reality today, with the amount of misinformation and mal-information on steroids due to AI, is that people gravitate toward what is comfortable.

The role for a communication professional is to give leaders the information, insight, and advice they need. We have to be the “sense maker” more than ever before. There is also a morality role coming into play. When Bonnie and I were working on the Venice Pledge for the Global Alliance, a theme popped up that it is more than ethics; it is about how we engage our world. It’s about home and security.

Zora Artis: I’ve been talking to a lot of leaders this year, and while there is a lot of talk, things are happening in real-time. Strategic horizons have shrunk. We’re constantly trying to outmaneuver the competition to grow and win. Comms professionals need to look at how to make sense of that complexity. We need to look at the system overall—actions taken, decisions made, money invested—and ask: Is this going to reinforce trust or erode it?

There is often a gap between what leaders say and how they behave versus what employees and stakeholders see. Communication professionals have a role in making sense of that and bringing it back to leaders to help them make better decisions.

Mary Hills: I may have a few data points worth considering. Communication professionals must finally become interdisciplinary. They can’t stay in the silo of comms; they have to understand the business, economics, and the value and risk model of the organization.

In communication, we balance the vision and mission of the organization. We represent both the short term and the long term. We have to find that harmonious balance. We also need to apply a rigorous professionalism, including emotional intelligence and behavioral economics, to foster discussion within organizations. Use the PESTLE analysis and attach ethics right to it.

Shel Holtz: Shel, you’re working in-house now. What are you hearing from your organization regarding their expectations?

Shel Holtz: I think they are expecting me to tell them. We are not a massive organization, and most of the leadership team has a construction or engineering background. They expect me to help them figure this out. Even if they don’t articulate it, that is the expectation. Based on Adrian’s thoughts, the first thing that leaped to mind was that we had better get a lot better at listening.

Adrian Cropley: Absolutely. We don’t have the excuse not to listen or measure anymore. This is where I think AI has really helped us. We need to be better at listening and helping our leaders listen to get the insight that informs true connection. Listening has become critical.

Zora Artis: I wrote a piece about this last month. It became obvious that true listening was missing in organizations, as well as the capability among leaders to listen to understand rather than to respond.

I know a Chief Comms Officer in professional services who spends time listening on platforms like Fishbowl, where people talk outside the business. She gathers that information and takes it back to the executive team to explain why it matters. We’re often seeing people skip the listening. If we don’t listen, we can’t counter misinformation or AI bots controlling the narrative because we don’t actually know what our stakeholders believe.

Bonnie Caver: We have challenges today with fake surveys. If you think you’re going to survey your customer base to make critical decisions, but AI bots are participating, it changes your playing field. True listening—picking up the phone and talking to your customers and stakeholders—is more important than ever.

Mary Hills: The one caution I would throw out is that the stakeholder network is tired of irrelevant questions. If we are going to have a conversation, we better have our background research done. They are tired of giving feedback. We need to look at discursive leadership skills: open-ended discussions rather than closed-ended five-question surveys.

Bonnie Caver: The reason people are tired of us asking questions is that communication is not coming back to them regarding how we are acting upon it. We never close the loop.

Shel Holtz: Exactly. There is no such thing as survey fatigue, but there is certainly “bullshit fatigue.” If they see the survey leads to change, they will take surveys all day long.

We have a question from our live audience. Bill Spaniel asks: Regarding the emotional factor of communication and the need for listening, how can communication schools build those requirements into their curriculum?

Mary Hills: We have been doing that for a good eight to nine years. It requires active experience of learning in the classroom. It’s exhausting because you are “on” for three hours, but it reinforces that it’s not just about hearing what was said, but agreeing on the next action item.

Adrian Cropley: We’ve built relationship-building skills and emotional intelligence into the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence programs. You have to be able to build relationships with stakeholders, not just rely on data. You get data on where people navigate, but you must overlay it with the right context—that is the true listening stuff.

Shel Holtz: Years ago, I read a book called Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, and I learned the term “boundary spanning.” It’s almost like surveillance—lurking in the conversations stakeholders are having to glean intelligence. Listening isn’t just asking questions; sometimes it’s just listening.

Adrian Cropley: There is a social awareness aspect, too. If you can’t even connect with people as humans—like saying thank you in a shop—how are you supposed to get context? We need to go back to some of those old skills.

Zora Artis: It’s also about being observant. Observing the people in the room and observing what is left unsaid.

Shel Holtz: Listening strikes me as one of those uncomfortable truths we need to face if we are going to stay relevant. What other uncomfortable truths are there?

Zora Artis: We confuse activity with impact. We are good at producing stuff, but not always good at understanding if it changes behavior or decisions. We need to be relevant rather than busy.

Mary Hills: The Communication Value Circle came out around 2016. It helps us understand how to provide value and assess risk. We have to understand the value and risk model every organization is on. Marketing has a value circle, too. We need to understand where we bring present value and how we protect future value.

Adrian Cropley: Often, the perceived value from leaders drives the behavior of the communication professional—churning out content or tidying up PowerPoints. That value has disappeared because AI can do those things now. We have to educate organizations on what real value for communication is: providing insight and context.

Zora Artis: It comes back to the business side. I remember learning Net Present Value and risk calculations. Comms often skirts around the edges of finance. We need to talk about revenue, productivity, trust capital, and risk exposure in language that matters to the business.

Bonnie Caver: Reputation is huge right now. CEOs say it’s important, but they don’t know how to do it. We haven’t positioned ourselves as being in the business of building and protecting reputation; we often treat it as a byproduct of crisis management. It’s not reputation management anymore; it’s reputation design.

And let’s not forget, AI is now a stakeholder. AI controls the narrative and answers questions about your organization.

Shel Holtz: What else are communicators not focused on that they should be?

Adrian Cropley: Understanding and interacting with AI. I am surprised how many people have not dipped their feet into the water. If we aren’t exploring AI to make our roles more efficient and gain insight, we are missing a huge opportunity. We recently published a playbook for AI into 2026, and a key play is using AI to carve out time to do the higher-value work.

Mary Hills: We treat AI as an agent. You are the owner of what AI brings back to you. It is merely the agent acting for you to get information. We must manage what it gives us back.

Bonnie Caver: We shouldn’t look at AI just to solve problems, but for efficiencies. I was on a panel with an organization that saved almost a thousand hours using AI. They used that efficiency to free themselves up to do transformative things.

Zora Artis: AI creates incredible speed. The problem is alignment. People are moving at speed with decisions, but they aren’t creating clarity around what stays the same and what shifts. Communication professionals need to enable the alignment needed across the organization so they can work at pace sustainably.

Shel Holtz: We have talked about the need to be transformative. However, there are things like professional standards and ethical behavior we don’t want to transform. But now, the people doing the communicating are often not journalists or professionals—they are pastors, barbers, or WhatsApp moderators. How do we maintain professional standards when we have lost the traditional gatekeepers?

Adrian Cropley: We aren’t short of standards; we just don’t publish them well enough. The Global Standard for the Communication Profession is critical. We have to build those standards out to everyone communicating. The work Bonnie did with the Venice Pledge regarding AI usage is a great example. We need to work with governments and agencies to enforce requirements.

Mary Hills: The professional associations are the keepers of the standard. Academia builds the body of knowledge, but associations like IABC bring it to the marketplace through certification.

Zora Artis: I don’t think we ever had control; that’s an illusion. We had influence. We need to double down on the “Do, Say, Be” alignment—making sure that what we do, what we say, and the lived experience are true.

Shel Holtz: We are almost out of time. Let’s do a closing round. In one sentence, what is your boldest prediction for communication by 2030?

Adrian Cropley: Absolutely radical change. We are going to find out we are changing completely.

Bonnie Caver: We’re going to become advocates for ourselves, or we’re going to disappear.

Mary Hills: The natural inclination for communicators to bring human-centric abilities to the forefront will protect our space. We have to be the ones keeping our heads when everyone else is losing theirs.

Zora Artis: Communication should be the essential organizational infrastructure that creates shared understanding to keep strategy, trust, and performance from falling apart.

Shel Holtz: My thanks to all of you for a sparkling conversation. The next Circle of Fellows is scheduled for noon Eastern Time on Thursday, January 22nd. The subject is the impact of mentoring. Thank you all for your participation.

Panel: Thank you. Happy holidays.

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