Good stakeholder management, for a CEO, means knowing who needs which information and when, delivering it at a dependable rhythm and involving the key groups in decisions. Then information flows both ways. When it breaks down, trust goes first and morale follows.
Stakeholder management is the planned care of relationships with every group that influences a company or is affected by it: The board, employees, customers, suppliers and investors. In January 2023, Forbes asked 13 members of its Coaches Council how CEOs can keep these groups better informed. I was one of them, and here are the 13 ideas in my own words.
List every stakeholder with their degree of influence on you and the business, along with what they need to know and how they prefer to hear it. Where the “what” and the “how” are unclear, ask. Those answers help you build rapport and address what matters to each group in ways that are relevant to them.
Source: Claire Chandler, Talent Boost.
A good visual grounds everyone and makes the strategy easy to grasp. Communicate strategy and progress through a colour-coded status system and adjust where needed. Your direct reports get three to five major objectives, which cascade down to every employee as performance objectives.
Review the status regularly with employees, leaders, the board, customers and suppliers.
Source: Curtis L Jenkins, Jenkins & Associates.
Keeping people informed is only one part of an effective communication strategy. An up-to-date communication chart with a checklist makes sure your message reaches the right people. Add open meetings with each group where they can talk about what you've shared, so communication runs both ways.
Source: Lorna Weston-Smyth, LWS Coaching and Training.
Bring board members in one by one, as potential allies, while you're still building your point of view. Learn from them in earnest, assuming your board is well put together. Stakeholders are invested in your outcomes by the nature of their role, and large, complex systems move better as a whole when they get advance notice.
Source: Karyn Gallant, Gallant Consulting Group.
Use your senses for this. Who do you need to see regularly? What do you hear when people raise concerns, and how do you check the messages that stay unspoken? Whatever your sixth sense is, put it to work to keep the connection strong.
Source: David Yudis, Potential Selves.
Start an exchange in which stakeholders tell you themselves what's relevant to them, and keep adapting your communication to it. Since the pandemic, processes and needs have been shifting faster. That asks CEOs for communication that's more fluid and more collaborative.
Source: Tonya Echols, Vigere.
First define your stakeholder groups, then make predictability the priority. Each group gets a regular communications calendar, and some overlap between groups is fine. What counts is that everyone knows for certain: The update will come, and there's a dependable format for getting questions answered.
Source: Kathy Bernhard, KFB Leadership Solutions.
Build close relationships with your key stakeholders and understand their main issues and concerns. Some are happy with group updates from investor relations, while others expect personal contact. Know your audience, set priorities for the most important communication and make sure your top stakeholders stay engaged.
Source: Maureen Metcalf, Innovative Leadership Institute.
Companies have strategic business plans, and leaders need strategic relationship plans. Communicate with purpose and consistency, at a cadence that allows a real two-way dialogue with key groups. Sometimes the point is to share, and sometimes it's to listen and take information in.
Mixing formal and informal channels is fine, as long as the rhythm holds.
Source: Jodie Charlop, Exceleration Partners.
The best way for CEOs to keep stakeholders in the loop is to involve them in the decision-making process, with regular updates and by actively gathering their feedback. Communication then becomes a two-way exchange. That builds a climate of trust in which everyone feels heard and part of the bigger picture.
In executive boards, I usually see the difference at the execution stage: People who had a say back a decision even when it didn't go their way.
Source: Cristian Hofmann, Empowering Executives, SUPERGROUP AG. My contribution to the panel.
Effective communication sits at the heart of the CEO role. Build a system that keeps people informed weekly, every two weeks or at whatever rhythm your stakeholders prefer. The better you understand their needs, the better the system works.
Source: Adaora Ayoade, EZ37 Solutions.
In a monthly pulse meeting you celebrate your workplace culture and the people who make it happen every day. You also update everyone on what's going on in the business and keep their eyes on the strategy and the roadblocks ahead. And it doesn't take all day: 45 minutes, in person or online, will do.
Source: Elliott Blodgett, Flyway.
In a multi-loop feedback system, information circulates between several stakeholders before it goes out widely. Set up a confidential, high-trust and diverse group of advisers as your testing ground for what needs to be shared, with whom and when.
Source: Saba Hasanie, OSC Leadership Performance.
The 13 ideas fall roughly into two groups. One covers sending: Maps, calendars, formats, pulse meetings. The other covers receiving, meaning listening, feedback and involvement. For stakeholder management at executive board level, I find the second group does more, because it turns recipients into people who think along with you.
In my coaching work I often see CEOs put hours into the board presentation and very little into the conversations beforehand. If your stakeholder management brings the key people in early, the meeting itself holds fewer surprises. That's often where top management coaching starts.
This approach has a limit, though. Involvement takes time, and in a crisis you sometimes don't have it. Then it's more honest to decide fast and say openly who wasn't asked and why. Good stakeholder management can take that, as long as the exception stays an exception.
It's the planned care of relationships with every group that influences the company or is affected by it. For CEOs it mainly means informing people dependably and involving the key groups in decisions.
At a fixed rhythm per group, for example weekly or every two weeks for the inner circle and monthly for the wider workforce. What counts is dependability: People need to know when the next update is coming.
With a one-page stakeholder map. It shows who has which influence, what each person needs to know and how they want to be informed. It's quick to put together, and it usually shows straight away who's been left out so far.
Involvement means the key groups are heard before the decision and their feedback visibly shapes it. The decision itself stays with whoever carries the responsibility. Say that from the start, so expectations stay realistic.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: Making excellence visible as a top management team · C-level success in the top team · Newly promoted leader: 13 ways to handle shifting relationships
Note: This article is based on the expert panel “How CEOs Can Better Keep Stakeholders In The Loop” of the Forbes Coaches Council, published on 10.01.2023. The contributions are paraphrased, and the commentary dates from October 2026.
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
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