Watch: DPR Construction’s Beth Wilson on the skill you can’t teach
Plus, how she overcomes geographic distance with culture.
Ragan’s Council Career Conversations, a recurring video series from Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council, allows members to share the strategies that made them leaders and the lessons they’ve learned about their careers.
Beth Wilson, global communications leader at DPR Construction, told Ragan that comms leaders need to have a keen sense of what’s going on with the workforce in the years ahead.
“I do believe that comms skills are important for leaders — but I do also believe that you can teach someone to be a decent communicator, but you can’t teach empathy,” she said. “Having empathy in face-to-face interactions as well as written communications is such an important piece of leadership to build trust,”
Wilson also shared her methods for overcoming challenges. She said that her company’s emphasis on connectivity despite geographic separation helps bring the company together culturally.
“The work that we do within our communications group finds that there are a lot of unique challenges within each role and responsibility,” she said. “Being able to draw connections inside and outside work groups, even ones that do completely different work than I do helps show that we share some of the same challenges,” she said.
Check out more of our conversation with Hernandez.
Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.
Great and timely insights from Beth and DPR!