UnLeadership

66Crisis Leadership

Dave Fleet is head of global digital crisis at Edelman, where he helps companies around the globe navigate digitally driven crises, dynamics, and channels in order to safeguard their reputations. He has been featured in the NYT, WSJ, Fast Company, Forbes, and more, talking about how companies can navigate today's complex landscape.

(Highlights from our interview, recorded June 29, 2023.)

DIGITAL IS A THROUGH LINE for many big societal shifts we've faced over the last few years, and that is only accelerating. This isn't an optional perspective for communicators; people get their information online, and we have no choice but to think about that. Our world is simultaneously getting larger and smaller, making leadership harder—we can connect to more people than ever before, but our landscape is increasingly polarized. Bringing people together, galvanizing them around a vision, and motivating them can be harder when you work virtually. Effective leaders listen. They surround themselves with people who see things they don't.

Research is very much at the core of our firm. We've been doing the Edelman Trust Barometer for 23 years. That's a huge study: 32,000 people in dozens of markets worldwide. The Edelman Trust Institute oversees that study and constantly publishes new reports. We recently put one out around trust and brands and one around racial justice not long before that. Data-driven insights are always helpful but especially when there's a big gap between ...