The Strategic Communicator Every Org Needs — and Algorithms Can’t Classify

As a career strategic communications director scrolling LinkedIn for growth opportunities on a rainy weekend, I noticed a funny thing about the roles I’m most drawn to: Director of Operations and Innovation, Strategic Engagement and Alignment, External Affairs, Modernization, Government Relations, and even Chief of Staff.

They aren’t different jobs — they’re wildly similar jobs with different business cards.

Each requires the same well-rounded professional who can move between strategy and execution: championing a bold idea, making decisions alongside other decision-makers, translating that into something actionable for the people implementing them, and communicating clearly with everyone affected by them — before the rollout, in the middle of change, and when things inevitably go sideways.

That can’t be captured in a singular role. That requires adaptability.

The problem is where the résumé meets the algorithms.

Recruiters have a word for comms people like me. Several, actually, and none meant as compliments. To them, I am a “cross-functional generalist who wears many hats.” Or something to that effect. And it must be pointed out that nobody who has ever “worn many hats” describes it that way. Versatility is just a hard-learned requirement of the internal and external strategic communications job.

In real-world practice, what twenty years of this work across both the public and private sectors actually builds isn’t a neat portfolio. It’s calibration with an exceptional vantage point.

You learn that a communications problem is almost never just a communications problem — it’s a policy problem, an operational problem, an alignment problem, or a trust problem nobody has named out loud yet.

You learn that the coder with the highest IQ in the room may have no business leading an AI integration or innovation project if they lack the essential people skills required for buy-in and implementation.

You learn that the best project manager isn’t always the one carefully color-coding the Venn diagram. It’s the one who first tests the integrity of the nails holding up the whiteboard.

And then you learn the part nobody puts in the job posting: someone has to actually do the thing.

Not design it. Not talk about it ad infinitum on a weekly basis. Do the thing.

That means first understanding the workplace culture, bringing the right people together while you’re building, making hard decisions, keeping standards high, and delivering something thoughtful, useful, and real — even when the conditions aren’t perfect.

That’s the work.

The communications director’s approach is fairly straightforward. The words “no” or “we can’t” should always be a last resort. I’ve always encouraged my teams to reframe any hard ask with: “What will it take to…?” And make sure we have a rock-solid answer for “why.” After all, we’re the ones trying to earn the big media win and accolades.

I firmly believe this approach is needed more than ever at this game-changing technological inflection point in global workforce operations. (No pressure.)

Government is modernizing — albeit imperfectly. But technology is not slowing down either. Private sector organizations, too, are navigating these new changes with stakeholders who have less patience, more information, and higher expectations than ever before.

This moment doesn’t call for someone who owns one function. It calls for someone who has already navigated multiple paths — strategy and execution, policy and people, innovation and institution, the forest and the trees — and won’t get lost in the weeds.

Aptly, communications leaders are becoming more interested in stepping back far enough to apply their unique perspective and skillsets where they can have the most impact — across teams, across functions, and at scale.

The org chart doesn’t yet have a clean box for that role.

But it should — before it’s too late.