The 7 Reputation Drivers Every Leader Should Know

In today’s world, PR leaders need to build and protect their brand’s reputation in an AI-shaped, polarized world, where owned media matters more than ever. 

Reputation is no longer a soft metric but an economic multiplier and an insurance policy. From the difference between brand and reputation to the growing tension between character and competence, this episode explains what actually moves corporate standing up or down in today’s environment.

We also share why owned media now plays a disproportionate role in shaping not just earned coverage, but AI-generated search results and stakeholder perception. 

Listen For

3:45 What Is the Real Difference Between Brand and Reputation?
5:07 What Are the Seven Drivers That Shape Reputation?
6:28 How Has AI Changed Third Party Advocacy and Media Influence?
9:58 Do Character Crises Damage Reputation More Than Competence Failures?
16:13 Why Is Reputation a Business Tool Rather Than Just an Image Strategy?

Guest: Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, RepTrak

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Doug

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Farzana

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Transcript

Solomon Ibeh (00:00):

Trust is built

(00:02):

Slowly, but can be lost quickly. If you waste your voice, people stop listening.

Farzana Baduel (00:14):

Most of us learned the story before we ever learned the word credibility. A boy, a hillside, a flock of sheep. The boy grows bored. He shouts wolf. The villages come running, no wolf, he laughs. He does it again and again. And then one day there is a wolf. This famous story is credited to asop or at least the collection we call AOPs fables. But here's the part most people forget. Asop may not have written them down at all. He was said to be a storyteller, a slave in ancient Greece, a man who survived, not by force but by wit. He stories traveled by voice, passed through mouth to ear long before they were ever ink on parchment. In other words, they were reputation. Before they were literature, the boy didn't lose the sheep because of the wolf. He lost them because he had trained his audience not to believe him.

(01:19):

The signal became noise, the warning became entertainment. And when the truth finally arrived, it sounded just like a lie. Now think about that. In a world of algorithms and amplified rage, in a world where every brand can shout wolf on every platform, credibility is not lost in the crisis, it's lost in the pattern. And once the villages stop running, it's very hard to get them back. Today on Stories and Strategies we ask in an AI shaped noise filled world, how do you build a reputation that still makes people run when it matters? And not just another voice crying wolf. My name is Farzana Baduel.

Doug Downs (02:21):

And my name is Doug Downs, our guest this week, Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, joining today from Boston. Hey Stephen,

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (02:28):

Great to see you both. Happy doing well.

Doug Downs (02:30):

Yeah. This is the time of year sports are just colliding, right? We got baseball, we got hockey going on, football ended Patriots had a great year. What's caught your eye in the sports world in Beantown?

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (02:41):

Well, I've got to reference the USA team winning the Olympic gold. I'm sorry,

Doug Downs (02:45):

Canadian in hockey. Yes, thank you. Hear

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (02:47):

Out loud. But there is a historic moment, but I tell you what we're especially excited about is the World Cups coming to North America in the summer, which is going to be a huge big deal. So we're very excited for all the teams that may come and looking forward to a great time and hopefully

Doug Downs (03:00):

Absolutely. Stephen, you're the chief reputation and strategy officer at the rep track company where you help global organizations understand, measure, and strengthen their reputation in a rapidly changing world. You also advise senior leaders on how trust is built, protected and amplified, especially as AI media fragmentation and stakeholder expectations reshaped the rules.

Farzana Baduel (03:24):

Now Stephen, we are so delighted to have the reputation guru here with us, and I've got a couple of questions for you. So first of all, what is reputation? What's the difference between reputation and brand? And I also want to know what are the drivers that actually shape reputation? So break it down for us.

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (03:45):

Yeah, sure. Let me start big picture.

(03:48):

Your reputation is the ultimate consequence of everything you do and say. So in history of time, everything you do is judged accordingly. What is held true in terms of word of mouth stakeholder interaction, your own pre held notions and conceptions and belief systems all constitute a reputation. And so therefore, the only way to truly measure it and assess it is through the either Beholders. So in other words, you have to look at stakeholders and their perspective of how they view your company to have an accurate representation of reputation. And in that regard, the difference between brand and reputation is really interesting because in many ways your brand is the promise you intend to keep. By definition, your reputation is your own self deduction as to whether that promise was fulfilled. So you make a lovely promise in platitudes through your advertising, your marketing communications program, your corporate communication strategy. And now I experienced your brand and you let me down. Well, that's the thing on your reputation, you created a empty promise you couldn't keep. So therefore

(04:47):

It's reputation and brand of two sides of the same coin. They're kind of interacted. So the promise versus promise kept is sort of the pendulum swing that happens in people's hearts and minds. But importantly, we can break it down by understanding there are seven drivers that constitute reputation, and I'll break them down for you. Number one, your products and services. Number two, how innovative you are as a company. Number three, perceptions of workplace. Number four, your conduct and your act of governance. Number five, citizenship, six, leadership and seven degree of ability to drive high performance, be it financial or business performance. So those things constitute 100% the weight of reputation. How do we know? We've written a white paper on this. We've measured reputation for 25 years and tell you QED for nearly every company. Those are the seven drivers that matter. What's important is that the difference between what's important to your company will rank order and change those seven drivers. So if you're in technology, maybe leadership and conduct might be more important. If you're in food and beverage, maybe it's more about products and services and potentially innovation. So not all drivers are quite equally, it depends on the industry in which you play, and importantly, the company that you are. All things constitute a change up in the rank order of the seven drivers and what matters to any given organization.

Doug Downs (06:02):

Stephen, it's always kind of been that the biggest factor for my reputation is what others say about me, right? Third party advocacy, that's kind of what we always called it. And it'ss an AI world. Now since November of 2022, you feel that's changed the dynamic here and that maybe it's not so much what we would call earned media so much as maybe owned media that's compelling.

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (06:28):

Yeah. If you look at it from the stakeholder journey standpoint, there's a chain of events, say chain of events that begins with company owned communications. You put your message out there, you obviously then invest in paid communications, and if you do a good job, you'll generate earned media impressions, right? So in that regard, that becomes sort of the point of reference. That third party advocacy you talked about is critically important because it's an endorsement of your message and your reputation. You can assess the difference between aggregate touchpoints and you talked specifically about own versus media. One of the most underrepresented opportunities for any given company is the power of leveraging own media to the success of driving media relationships and impacting positive search behavior When it comes to ai. In fact, I can note that across the world on average for any given company, only 28% of this given target market, and I'm going to refer to 'em as a general population, are aware of any company owned communications.

(07:25):

And of those 28%, it typically yields a seven to eight point reputation bounce on a scale to 100. That's a significant lift. So I would say many companies are underestimating the power of own media and there's still opportunity to win in the marketplace. And it could unto itself be the difference between an average to good reputation just by the merits of how do you choose to use own media and skillfully apply to again, focus on the stakeholders that matter the most to you. But in the context of ai, it's reshuffling the entire paradigm in many ways because of the advent of ai. Let me put it simply as I can. It's a new judgment day, new judgment day, because what's being said about you, those secret whispers behind the scenes, those conversations that used to happen, of course, the garden fence, those discussions that used to have in social media and are amplified by ai. So in many ways you have to look at AI as if it's unto itself its own stakeholders. AI is a stakeholder as a point of reference, allows you to take all the language learning models, all the unstructured data and apply it to understand in many ways what is the impact of AI on your company's reputation. It can be both an amplifier and an epione in many ways. I guess I characterize it as being like a canary in a coal mine.

(08:37):

If someone's saying bad things about you, the language learning models will amplify that. If you can read that and act accordingly, maybe you can fend off and reduce the negative impact of that ahead of the curve. But you need to be able to measure and as a stakeholder to do that, but align it with how people perceive you when it comes back to your standard reputation. So again, the y and the yang of perceptions versus narrative coexist in the AI world. What's different, Doug? Today is happening faster and more visibly, greater dexterity and greater levels of amplification. So it's not for the fainthearted, but be ready. Here comes the AI revolution,

Farzana Baduel (09:12):

Stephen, that leads me into crisis. So obviously reputation is an asset. It is a balance sheet asset. It needs to be protected. And in a crisis, you then see the outcome of how effectively the crisis was managed by the organization, depending upon, for instance, if it's a listed corporate, the stock prices is a great indicator. Now, do different type of crisis hit differently in terms of the value of an organization? So for instance, if it's a crisis that comes from a competence of an organization versus say character. So character of the CEO being caught doing something that wasn't considered legitimate in his personal life or her personal life. Talk to me about those different types of crisis.

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (09:58):

Yeah, for something you've right to point out that not all crises are created equally, and it depends on the industry and also depends on the root cause. And as you ly point out, there's a sort of balancing act between competence versus character. And earlier I walked you through the seven drives of reputation. So think about it this way, under competence, you have measures of products and services, innovation and performance. So how well you do as a company based on your delivery product, how fast you are, new products to market, and are you making a fair profit? And I'd argue 25, 30 years ago, that was enough to have a strong reputation because who cares about your conduct? You're making money as business and life is good, right? Well, how the world has changed because for the other seven drivers I talked about related to workplace citizenship conduct and leadership time, more directly back to character.

(10:48):

I can tell you empirically, and this is our most recent global retro study, which is just filled in 14 countries around the world, that 45% of the weight of importance and driving reputation is based on competence. 55% is based on character, based on those distributions of those seven drivers. So what does it tell you is character matters more than ever before. It's not just based on character alone. You can't be a good hearted, warm kind company and not make a fair profit and have a good business. It's a combination of the two. But in terms of a point of comparison, characters today is in aggregate more important than competence. So therefore, when it comes to managing your reputation and working through a crisis, if all you do is say, Hey, we are doing great, we're making a great product here and making a fair profit, that's not enough to win the argument in the court of public opinion. And I'm trying to think of one example. Maybe Facebook comes to mind.

(11:43):

So think about Facebook. You wouldn't argue that Facebook is lousy when it comes to its product delivery and good at innovation and has a profitable business, but you might argue against its character. So going back to the meddling of the Russian interference during the 2016 election, you think about Cambridge Analytica and the whole sort of scandal related to that. And even fast forward to current day, there's a big impending landmark lawsuit related to the use of teens access to social media content. And whether it's considered addictive or not, all those things come into question related to the character of Facebook. So over time, you've seen Facebook basically precipitate and forth from being one of the most repeatable companies in the world to not even being in the top 500 because of character, not because of confidence. So I guess the point here is good news travels fast, but bad news travels faster. And when it sticks around related to character, it's much harder to come back and reputation rebound when you've been through a crisis. Facebook being a point example, Tesla being another recent example was the point I could say,

Doug Downs (12:50):

Yeah, what goes into the character measurement? I'm asking that because today we live in a world of some people are square and some people around, right? Or I could say red and blue, but immediately you'd start drawing political connections. Someone's good character might be someone else's terrible character. Some Elon Musk, perfect example. There are those who love Elon for being out there creative and others sweet God they won't even sign up for they've canceled their ex account because of Elon.

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (13:26):

Well, let's unpack that because that's really intriguing. You've got a whole bundle of raw nerves and motions in that brief statement. So think about Tesla as an organization politically, where do you think it sits on a political spectrum? There's a divergence between Tesla as a company and potentially Ed Musk as the leader. They're potentially on opposite ends of the spectrum, right? In terms of his historical points of reference, electronic vehicles, the sort of more sustainable kind of manufacturing process that I musk created for Tesla, the very nature of what the cars do, again, we going back to competence, were more leftward dealing more democratic, you say in American can or related to the preservation environment. But although the same values of Elam Ma, the leader, you think of the whole Dodge phenomenon and some of the things he's publicly said and the way he runs what is now considered expert previously know is Twitter.

(14:17):

It's more right-leaning. So now you've got a major contradiction. You have the perspective of Elon Musk as a leader, judged based on his character. And if you measure him as a entity based on being a strong and appealing leader, you see a precipitous decline going back from 2023 to where it is today. And you see the same decline, highly correlate with the falling TE's reputation. And by the way, you've seen a falling decline in the number of cars sold. So there's a perfect example of how reputation has business consequences going back to the character of the leader, which is in many ways meant to be the tip of the sort of moral barometer, ethical point of reference for any given brand relationship. And it's in divergence with the integrity of what the cars represent. So really intriguing contradiction, I'm not sure how it's going to play out, but I'll be very closely watching the IPO of SpaceX to see how the Elon Musk factor plays into space exploration. And the whole Tesla phenomenon kind of kicks back in related to the world at large and how people relate to the organization today.

Farzana Baduel (15:15):

That's really fascinating, Stephen. There are some people, perhaps some people would argue it's old school of thought that if you do good work and you behave in a upright manner, then actually everything will be okay for your business, for your organization. But actually that's perhaps not the case anymore because you have misinformation and you have disinformation. So what would you say to the prs that are tuning in who perhaps work for organizations that don't really like to raise their head above the parapet, they don't really invest so much in monitoring and protecting reputation and they believe in that old school way of thinking. What kind of arguments would you give to our listeners and audience so that they can go and actually make the case for proactive reputation management?

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (16:13):

Yeah, it's complicated, but I'm going to try and break it down for you and simplify as much as I can. So there's obviously the parallels of having a good business and doing good, having a good business more related to profitability. Doing good is more related to goodwill, and goodwill is discounted by misinformation and lack of understanding and all the things that matter to people when they evaluate a brand reputation. So you could understand that dynamic. And in many ways those combination of things between character and competences to recurring theme directly go back and impact reputation. But reputation is not the end all. It's the means to the end and the end all is actually the business outcome. So what are you really solving for? You're solving for the opportunity to create license to operate and generate benefit of the doubt. If you look at it that way, you end up with a different conclusion.

(17:04):

And to accomplish that, you need to know how to actively manage your reputation. Like the seven drivers I talked about are like the levers of a compass where you know which ones to pull, which ones to navigate, which ones to amplify. So as a means end, you take your reputation and the money to the business outcomes. And if we can earn benefit of the doubt, what does that allow you to do? One, defend against any future crisis and any hostile reactions to your company and your brain, what you stand for. But two, when the moment of the crisis comes, give people the opportunity to think, well, maybe I've got to think twice about how this impacts the organization because over time we've earned such a wonderful benefit of the doubt in my hearts and minds, my recollection of the organization is very positive. So is it really that bad? Or do I really believe this negative news? Maybe you have a second or third chance when you have the benefit of the doubt. So I think sort of the fast answer to your question for Z is understanding reputation, how to navigate it, but most importantly, amplify and optimize it based on your desired business outcome.

(18:06):

And examples of that would be, is it your potential to generate sales or drive positive advocacy, create trust, benefit the doubt, attract the best talent, amplify market valuation. The outcome matters the most because reputation is the instrument to how you achieve that steady goal. So focus on the business outcome, not merely just a reputation and its implications.

Farzana Baduel (18:27):

And would you say, Stephen, that most business outcomes are really based upon having a friction-free relationship with your stakeholders, and that's what good reputation delivers?

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (18:37):

Yeah, sure. Because tension causes gnarly feelings in there, not always positive, right? So yes, I mean people often talk about winning the hearts and minds and the wallets of people, and that's important in how you do that. But at the same time, it can't just be based on empty latitudes of raw emotion.

Doug Downs (18:56):

I hear you on the friction free thing and what a perfect world. But the reality is sometimes we want friction. Sometimes I need to encourage people to change behavior or think about it differently.

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths (19:09):

Yeah, I'd rather use the word disruption versus friction because friction connotes a starting of a fire. And whereas disruption could also lead to positive change. And I'd preface it with the word positive disruption, because disruption for negativity sake is neither not a good thing either. So yes, I do believe that positive disruption is required occasionally to cause people to reset and reconsider. So if you're a company that's been through a reputation crisis and you want people to take a second look, what do you need? You need positive disruption. If you're in a highly commoditized, see a sameness where your reputation is average, same as everyone else, no point of difference. What do you need? You need positive disruption. So you need a point of proof, and you're not making noise for noise sake. You're making it with the context of winning your heart and mind with the perspective of forging a longer and more deep, meaningful relationship for the future. So if you speak to me in the right way, if you didn't say the right thing and you have the burden of proof to just back it out, there's a good chance you'll win my vote as a member of the court of public opinion. But if it's just about messaging for the sake of messaging, a new campaign, a new image, a new whatever, that's not sustainable enough and doesn't generate long-term reputational equity.

Farzana Baduel (20:20):

Great, thank you. Thank you so much, Stephen.

Doug Downs (20:22):

Alright, here are the top three things we got today from Stephen Hanh. Number one, character beats competence. 55% of reputation now hinges on character, not just how well a company performs. Number two, reputation is a business tool, not just an image. It exists to earn benefit of the doubt which protects you in a crisis and drives real outcomes like sales and talent. And number three, AI is a new judgment day. AI amplifies what people say about you making reputation monitoring faster, louder, and harder to ignore Farzana.

Farzana Baduel (20:59):

So Doug, where do you stand? Do you agree with Stephen where he talks about actually it's more character than competence that impacts your perception of an organization or an individual?

Doug Downs (21:09):

I think it is, sadly. Sadly. And I am thinking of some political figures that I shall not name that come to mind immediately. Do you agree or do you think it's,

Farzana Baduel (21:19):

I kind of agree. And maybe because the character goes to our emotional lens and maybe the competence goes to our rational lens. And as much as we like to believe that we're rational beings, we're actually just emotional animals. We are. And we just use I rational as a way to justify what we do and what we say and what we

Doug Downs (21:36):

Believe. And eventually it's all a leap of faith. I believe in climate change. I've read a little of the science, but I don't know. That's a leap of faith, right? And that's based on character.

Farzana Baduel (21:46):

Wow, you got to have faith. Now, if you'd like to send a message to our guest, Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, we've got his contact information in the show notes, Stories and Strategies is a co-production of Curzon Public Relations and Stories and Strategies podcasts. And if you'd like this episode, please leave a rating and possibly a review. And a big, big thank you to our producers, Emily Page and David Olajide. And here's a quote you might remember from Aesop's Fables, no act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted. I like that. If this episode gave you something useful, forward it to one person who would appreciate it and they'll remember you for it. Thank you for listening.