Answer: Over the course of several years, Greg was able to clearly examine his career options at significant turning points. The first was a major career move in communications and a promotion that involved relocating.
The lifestyle change was not a fit, nor was the nature of the work. Once it became clear that was the situation, Greg had sufficient support from family and confidence in his ability to develop a business plan and execute it. That led to his next major lifestyle change.

His most recent shift has been to take over management of a company he knows well and respects. He is on track to become its President.

Here are his observations and lessons learned. Based on Greg’s experience, he continues to emphasize leadership skills. He says they are the key as you move into senior roles. A PR background is incidental which means a major refocus about what is important to you and your career.

• “People gravitate to leaders
• “My top priority is to give my people the skills to grow as leaders.
• “My next priority is to build a cohesive senior leadership team and help them feel ownership of the results
• “There are different ways to lead; you can engage a group to focus on a direction.
• “When I was building my company, I found partners to take my lead, and to adopt my vision. I convinced them and showed them. That’s a form of leadership as well. I worked with a group of Executive Directors; I solved their problems on their terms.
• “We (in PR) short-change ourselves. When I say I do PR that’s too narrow. We can do more. When I was working with a client, a CEO, he said “Here are my needs. Can you do this for me?” He didn’t see me as only doing PR. He saw me as a partner helping him and that was what was important.”

This is the first profile in the Series, Life After PR. These posts will be assembled into an article and shared here as well as on the website. The next story is about the founder of a highly regarded niche PR firm and what she did with her business when she was “done.”