During one of our Namibian PR House sessions on Clubhouse last year, seasoned Public Relations (PR) practitioner Usi Hoebeb said something that never left me. He said a PR practitioner’s role is to serve their CEO/ Managing Director and their institutions in the “shadows”.
PR practitioners are king makers, who are drivers of the organisation’s narrative and custodians of the brand and image. I believe the king-maker role he referred to is synonymous with the king’s cup-bearer. He further said most practitioners abscond from the role of being cup-bearers, because there is no glory in that role.
The Got questions site cites that historically “a cup-bearer was a high-ranking official in charge of serving the king. It was primarily the responsibility of a cup-bearer to serve the wine to the royal table. Since kings were concerned about plots to poison them, cup-bearers had to guard the cup carefully and would sometimes taste the drink before serving it to ensure it was safe. Due to the responsibilities of the position, a cup-bearer had to be trustworthy and loyal. A cup-bearer had the king’s confidence and because of his character was able to exert influence in the royal court”.
Nehemiah in the bible is one of the great examples of a noble cup-bearer. He was a cup-bearer to the Persian King Artaxerxes. Nehemiah was loyal to the king and worked with an excellent positive attitude. He was an excellent cup-bearer because he trusted and honoured God in all that he did, and he worked diligently.
I know there are CEOs that do not like being in the limelight. At times, they insist on having the PR practitioners take the leading role, out of fear of dealing with the media. However, both the PR practitioner and CEO play the cup-bearer role in an institution.
Both the PR and CEO have a fundamental purpose of acting as a watchman for an organisation. They are required to protect and selflessly serve the institution. Since they occupy positions of great trust and influence, similar to a cup-bearer.
Fitzpatrick and Gauthier (2001) say when an institution behaves irresponsibly, the PR practitioner shares the blame irrespective of his or her involvement in or knowledge of the alleged irresponsible conduct. I believe the same applies to a CEO. Hence, this ‘guilt by association’ has adverse ramifications not only to the institution, but also to the PR practitioner and CEO.
Therefore, I believe that if more PR practitioners knew that they are cup-bearer and king makers in the organisation, they would for example not focus most of their efforts on media strategies, but on things that would propel their CEOs and institutions to greater heights within their organisational ecosystems.
Morna Ikosa is a Senior Corporate Communications and Brand Reputation Strategist, CPRP, MA, AKA Fixer. To connect, send her a shout-out at micommunicationscc@gmail.com or find her on LinkedIn.
