Few Australians know Angus Taylor, the new Federal Liberal Party leader. So, what should he say, now that he leads the Party?
It’s hard for a leader to respond to situations predictably unless their behaviour is underpinned by a personal philosophy. Failure to do so leaves followers scratching their heads – ‘Why did she/he do that?”
In media training with our company clients, we talk about three sets of messages:
– The incident message – the crisis or issue we are dealing with
– The company message – the philosophy that guides the company
– The personal message – the set of beliefs/behaviours that defines the leaders for others to follow.
We advise new CEOs to take time to suss the environment before committing to details on a change in strategy or plan. You can wait a few months for that.
What you can talk about in your early tenure are personal beliefs and behaviours, and the company philosophy. If they are clear in your mind.
I think Angus Taylor must announce what values and principles he stands for – and what the Liberals represent – and hammer those messages from the beginning.
He came out early with a values-and-principles statement on his Facebook the day before the leadership vote in the Liberal party room, and admitted that the Liberal Party had ‘lost its way’. But was there enough detail?
In the current environment there are two underpinning philosophies that appear to be important for Australiana:
– A need for social harmony, and a mutual respect for our differences;
– Social equity, eg. enabling young Australians to buy a house.
Both of these issues play to traditional Liberal Party views. Allowing younger generations to grow into successful adults is a Liberal cornerstone and Taylor might have a better way to do this than taxing Baby Boomers.
Likewise, he has an opportunity to craft a social unity message that brings together Liberal values and his own personal philosophy – it could be more powerful than tying those ideas into a convoluted legislative process around ‘hate speech’ laws.
It is clear from his Facebook statement, however vague it was, that Taylor subscribes to the Menzies philosophies, also espoused by John Howard – liberty, the family, private enterprise, limited government. Howard repeated these values many times.
Sussan Ley supporters might argue she did all the above, including a headland speech at the National Press Club. Not sufficient, I say. Remember the messaging rule: repetition = penetration = impact.
Repetition is the foundation of all messaging – it’s a tactic we drill into our clients. If Sussan Ley didn’t do this enough, has Angus Taylor learnt the lesson?
His handicap is that almost every publication I read this morning had commentators predicting that he doesn’t have what it takes. That’s quite a communications challenge to overcome.
