McKinsey recently released a guide for new CEOs on how to engage with stakeholders that will drive the business outcomes. But what they’re really describing is the infrastructure for becoming the default authoritative voice in your space. In short, they’re telling CEOs they need a thought leadership strategy.
I feel like they dance on the edge of saying this out loud — their EDGE framework (Expanded, Distinctive, Growth-oriented, Engaged) gets close. They’re right that leaders need to shift from private to public-facing roles, develop compelling narratives, and build teams of ambassadors. But they quite don’t connect the dots. And it’s a critical dot-connection to make, and very telling when it’s not made. Because it signals to me that the traditional playbooks and the emerging new practices are in a battle for relevance, all while we continue to live in a world where AI is fundamentally reshaping how authority is established and how information gets discovered.
The leaders who will define their industries over the next decade won’t just be the ones with the best media relationships or the most polished listening tours. They’ll be the ones who become the default answer to their industry’s most important questions in a way that is measurable, systematic, and scalable.
If you’re a CEO, founder, or communications leader, McKinsey is telling you stakeholder management matters. I’m here to break down what that actually means and what to do next.
McKinsey Says: “Stakeholder Engagement” What They Mean: “Build Your Ecosystem”
When McKinsey talks about stakeholder engagement, they’re circling around the opportunity to build a powerful ecosystem of voices, partners, and advocates who amplify your vision and make your company the default answer in your space.
They’re telling CEOs to do this work, but the real unlock is that this is exactly what a distributed thought leadership strategy delivers. Because the CEO isn’t the only voice that matters, and that’s a thought leadership program’s superpower.
The most sophisticated companies I work with have distributed their thought leadership throughout the organization, because their prospects are having conversations at every level of their organization, and they need to encounter your expertise at every level of theirs.
When a VP at a potential customer searches for solutions, they should find your VP of Product solving that problem publicly.
When a technical buyer evaluates options, your CTO’s insights should be the authoritative resource.
When an analyst writes a report, your CMO’s framework should be the one they reference.
This isn’t about everyone saying the same thing. It’s about creating an ecosystem of expertise where different voices reinforce a cohesive strategic narrative from multiple angles.
For founders & CEOs: this is how you scale yourself. You can’t be in every conversation, but your team can be if you build thought leadership muscle across your organization.
For CMOs and comms leaders: this is your unlock. Stop bottlenecking everything through the CEO. Build a bench of authoritative voices who can drive the conversation in their domains. Train them, equip them, measure them.
McKinsey Says: “Media Relationships” What They Mean: “Become the Primary Source”
McKinsey advises CEOs to “meet with stakeholders who wouldn’t expect to be met with (such as critical investors and journalists).” They’re onto something, but let me show you the full picture of what’s possible…
The leaders winning today understand that thought leadership isn’t about securing favorable media coverage—it’s about becoming the primary source of information for your audience.
When someone searches for solutions to the problems you solve, you can be the authoritative answer, not a journalist’s interpretation of what you said. This is where Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) fundamentally changes what’s possible.
Instead of focusing on traditional stakeholder meetings and listening tours, leaders should be asking: “When AI engines answer questions in my domain, am I the cited expert?”
This doesn’t replace our relationships with journalists, but it does change how we engage with each other, which I believe will be a good thing for both sides.
McKinsey Says: “Track KPIs” What They Mean: “Prove Commercial Impact”
McKinsey mentions one CEO who tracked KPIs like “share of voice” and “panels participated in.” That’s activity tracking, not impact measurement.
Activity is not achievement. This method leads you to being noisy with no substance.
The moment that GEO is having right now is based around the fact that thought leadership is finally, genuinely measurable. When you combine strategic content with intelligent distribution, you can track:
How often you’re cited as the authoritative source in AI-generated responses
Which of your insights are reshaping how your industry problem is understood
The direct correlation between your thought leadership and pipeline generation
How your searchability translates to commercial outcomes
Marketers and comms professionals are being released from our impression reporting shackles and can now start reporting on influence. This is massive, because your CEO wants to know how thought leadership moves the business forward. That means connecting dots between the content you create and the revenue it generates.
Sidebar, while we’re here: I want to stress that GEO is about reaching humans, not gaming algorithms
GEO is not keyword stuffing for ChatGPT or SEO tactics in new packaging. GEO done right brings us back to solving problems for humans.
Your customers are human. Your investors are human. Your employees are human. They have problems to solve, questions to answer, and decisions to make when no one else is around to help.
Searchability, authority, citations, and amplification aren’t about optimizing for machines. They’re about systematizing how you show up for people when they need answers. Your stakeholders are already asking AI systems questions like:
“Who’s leading innovation in this space?”
“What’s the best approach to this problem?”
“Who should I be paying attention to?”
If you’re the authoritative answer, you’ve made yourself indispensable to how humans now discover expertise. You do this by anchoring your communications strategy in solving real human problems. When you genuinely help people, the optimization takes care of itself. AI systems cite authoritative, useful content. Humans share insights that help them. Your amplification ecosystem becomes people who spread your ideas because those ideas improved their lives.
McKinsey Says: “Right Message”What They Mean: “Right Context at Right Time”
McKinsey talks about crafting distinctive narratives, but they completely gloss over the strategic timing and targeting that makes thought leadership actually work. Having a great message means nothing if you’re saying it to the wrong people at the wrong time. This is a science and an art, so I’m going to do my best to lay this out for you, but I totally get that there could be some nuances I’m missing.
The science part: Your content strategy needs to map to where your audience is in their decision journey. Are they in awareness mode, actively researching, or evaluating vendors? Each stage needs different insights.
Early stage: They’re trying to understand if they even have the problem you solve. Your thought leadership should name the problem they haven’t articulated yet and reframe how they think about it.
Mid stage: They’re evaluating approaches. Your content should establish why your methodology is superior without being a product pitch.
Late stage: They’re making decisions. Now your insights should reduce risk perception and reinforce why you’re the obvious choice.
The art part: Timing isn’t just about their journey, it’s about cultural moments, industry inflection points, and attention windows that align to why your company is solving problems around these moments.
When there’s a major industry event, regulation change, or competitive disruption, you have a 48-72 hour window where attention is concentrated and minds are open to new thinking. The leaders who win aren’t the ones with the best annual content calendar. They’re the ones who can move fast with substantive perspective when the moment matters.
For marketers: this means building response infrastructure. You need the ability to go from “something important just happened” to “we have an authoritative POV in the market”. Pre-develop frameworks. Build institutional knowledge. Create decision trees for rapid response.
For founders and CEOs: this means trusting your team to move when opportunities arise. If you need three approval layers to publish a perspective piece, you’ll miss every window that matters.
McKinsey Says: “Stakeholder Dialogue” What They Mean: “Build Direct Relationships at Scale”
McKinsey tells CEOs to be “stakeholder-backed” and create “two-way dialogue.” What they’re pointing toward is the opportunity of direct audience relationships.
LinkedIn becomes your newsroom. You don’t need a journalist to tell your story when you can publish directly to followers and know exactly who engaged, for how long, and what they did next. For comms professionals, this means rethinking how you measure reach. A post seen by 50 decision-makers in your ICP beats 50,000 impressions in a trade pub every single time.
Podcasts are your listening tour at scale. Instead of one-on-one stakeholder meetings, host conversations that thousands can learn from simultaneously. Your insights become content that works for you 24/7, and you’re building an audience that compounds over time.
Community platforms are your ambassador network. McKinsey talks about identifying ambassadors inside your organization. But what about the customers, partners, and industry experts who want to amplify your vision? When you build the platforms and systems that let them do it, you create an ecosystem that extends your reach exponentially.
The leaders I work with aren’t replacing traditional media, they’re making it optional while building something more valuable, like direct relationships with the people who actually matter to their business.
McKinsey Says: “Distinctive Narrative” What They Mean: “Discoverable Authority”
McKinsey’s “four W’s” framework (Who, Why, What, When) is solid for crafting your CEO narrative. But they’ve missed another W – for Where will people find it?
A powerful narrative that lives only in quarterly earnings calls and curated media interviews is a wasted asset. Your narrative needs to be architectured for discovery. Here’s how to do it:
Structured for semantic search: When someone asks an AI “who’s leading innovation in [your space]?”, your narrative should be the training data that informs the answer.
Optimized for problem-solving queries: Don’t just tell your story—solve problems publicly. When your ICP searches for solutions, your thought leadership should be the roadmap.
Amplified through ecosystem relationships: Partner with other authoritative voices who can reference and build upon your insights, creating a citation network that compounds your authority.
This is the difference between being distinctive and being discoverable and is the strategy that gets you found by people who can actually move your business forward.
McKinsey Says: “Maintain Consistent Rhythm”What They Mean: “Build a Compounding Asset”
McKinsey tells CEOs to “activate your campaign and maintain a consistent, sustainable rhythm.”
Let me reframe this into the real opportunity: Stop running campaigns. Start building audiences.
Campaigns end. Audiences compound.
A campaign is a sprint with a finish line. You launch it, measure it, and move on to the next one. But an audience? An audience is an asset that appreciates. Every piece of value you add multiplies through the network you’ve built.
The leaders winning right now have stopped thinking about stakeholder engagement as a series of campaigns. They’re building audience and amplification ecosystems instead. They create proprietary frameworks that actually solve problems, and are not based around catchy metaphors that sound good in keynotes but vanish from memory over the next few days. These frameworks become the language of their industry.
They publish with semantic intelligence, because when your insights feed the AI systems your stakeholders are asking questions to, you become visible in the next generation of decision-making.
They build real feedback loops that turn audience insights into product innovation, not just more content to publish.
They measure what matters like commercial outcomes tied directly to thought leadership investments. Not vanity metrics. Not “engagement.” Revenue. Pipeline. Talent acquisition cost reduction.
When you build an audience, your stakeholders don’t just know who you are. They’re actively watching what you do next. They’re invested in your success. They become advocates without you asking.
The Opportunity McKinsey Is Pointing Toward
McKinsey’s framework is right about everything they’re recommending. They’re just not seeing the full picture of how powerful it can be.
They’re right that:
New CEOs face unprecedented scrutiny and velocity
The shift from private to public leadership is jarring
Building a bench of storytellers multiplies your impact
Crisis readiness is non-negotiable
But I’m going to push you to go further on this…
Take their “listening tour” concept and make it public. Don’t just gather insights privately. Share what you’re learning in real-time so that your transparency becomes your brand.
Use their “ambassador” framework but extend it beyond your org. Your customers, partners, and industry peers can be more powerful amplifiers than your C-suite if you give them something worth amplifying.
Embrace their “storytelling muscle” advice but pair it with distribution science. It doesn’t matter how compelling your story is if the people who need to hear it never encounter it.
They traded gatekeepers for direct relationships. Campaigns for audience ecosystems. Share of voice for share of semantic search. And they’ve got the pipeline numbers to prove it works.
So yes, when McKinsey says you need better stakeholder engagement, what they’re really telling you is that you need a thought leadership strategy. You need to build an ecosystem where your expertise shows up everywhere your customers look for answers. You need to become discoverable, authoritative, and indispensable.
Nail your firsts as a new CEO. But nail them in the channels where your stakeholders actually spend time. With the conversations that solve their real problems. For the humans making decisions right now. In the formats that get found. With the measurement that connects to revenue. And build a team of voices who can carry your message further than you ever could alone.
The future of stakeholder engagement isn’t about better campaigns. It’s about building an ecosystem where you’re the obvious answer to every important question in your space.