In the era of intangibles, the value of the company is largely determined by concepts such as brand, purpose or reputation. We must understand that when we talk about reputation we are talking to a certain extent about an emotion, the emotion that a certain leader, brand, company, sector or individual awakens in others and on which this perception is built. Fortunately, data today allows us to quantify these emotions and turn them into tangible, measurable and monitorable assets. Assessing how much of a company’s reputation is due to the reputation of the leader, to what extent the latter improves when the leader clearly shows a purpose, or how well positioned the company is in terms of its reputation with respect to its sector, are some of the questions that we can now answer.

Study of the reputation of purpose-driven CEOs

We have put all this into practice in our latest study in which we analyzed the reputation of leaders with purpose of large IBEX 35 companies (the main benchmark stock market index of the Spanish stock market).

What we have analyzed

For this study we analyzed 20 leaders from different sectors (banking, commerce, energy, infrastructure, insurance, services, technology, telecommunications, transportation and tourism), and how having a purpose impacts their reputation, as well as the reach and impact of different communication channels and platforms on their Reputation of the Leader with Purpose (RLP) index.

To this end, we have studied the main levers that activate the reputation of IBEX 35 leaders, namely:

1. Leadership: it is associated with the ability to motivate, inspire, and represent the company’s values
2. Management: the leader with purpose works on long-term profitability and efficient resource management
3. Communication: ability to transmit clear and suggestive ideas with proximity
4. Transparency: ethical vision of business and governance
5. Citizen engagement: commitment to the environment and society.

This analysis has not only determined which dimensions are the best and worst valued, and consequently, which are the ones that the leader must take into account when managing its reputation, but has also identified to what extent this weighting varies between the different analyzed sectors. We also found out who is the most highly valued leader in the IBEX 35.

It is clear that communication and reputation management in 2021 will inevitably require tools and decision-making resources to understand how to make the most productive efforts in this area. This will allow us to make informed decisions based, not on intuition, but on quality information and data.

Want to know all the details and results? Download the study down below: