When Weber Shandwick released its latest study on corporate reputation, the focus was on the estimate that 63% of a company’s market valuation is attributed to its reputation and that reputation today is omnidriven — everything matters! Global executives also handed up another critical finding that should not be ignored — on average, 58% of a company’s reputation is due to the reputation of the chief executive. This is considerably higher from when we investigated this phenomenon five years ago when global executives said that a CEO’s reputation contributes to 45% of a company’s reputation. Back in 2015, half of the executives surveyed also said they expected CEO reputation to matter even more in the coming years. They were sure right. CEOs set the tone, determine a company’s destiny and are the public face of the company. With the ubiquity and transparency of our tell-all social media today, CEOs must be more careful than ever. Their fingerprints are on everything and if something goes awry, they are to blame. It is a nearly impossible job which might explain the extraordinarily high turnover in corner offices.

What should a CEO be doing? One responsibility is communicating the company’s values. Eight in 10 global executives (79%) say it is important for the CEO to communicate the organization’s values in order to be highly regarded. CEOs better get on it right away and live it.