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For CEOs, good communication skills and effective comms strategy are more than just nice-to-haves. A new study from Golin found that CEO communication is a measurable driver of business performance, delivering double or even triple the returns of less effective communicators.
Golin’s CEO Impact Index, conducted every six months, analyzes and scores CEOs from the top 250 companies of the Fortune 500 on eight areas of executive visibility, including earned media coverage, LinkedIn presence, business awards and rankings, employee engagement, presence at events, trade media engagement, visibility within megatrends (like artificial intelligence or economic policy), and sentiment towards the CEO.
What they found: there’s a real link between CEO visibility (from effective comms and comms strategy) and positive business performance. CEOs ranking in the Impact Index’s top 25 CEOs saw consistently superior annual share price performance, making 2-3x the returns of the Fortune Top 25 CEOs. These returns held across all three years studied.
But instead of leaning into executive visibility to drive their performance, CEOs seem to be leaning out. In 2025, as the stakes for speaking out seemed higher,CEOs pulled back dramatically, shedding nearly 3 trillion earned media impressions (from 8.9T impressions in 2024 to 6.5T impressions in 2025) and decreasing traditional media engagement.
But fewer Americans think brands should remain neutral – and more want to see companies taking public stances when it matters for business. The key: engage, but with a business lens.
If you want to bolster your communications with smart, data-driven insights, Seven Letter Insight can help.
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