A distance learning student from Robert Gordon University has alerted me to her research into public relations ethics. I’ve enjoyed filling out her online questionnaire, and you may do too: particularly if you’re a current PR practitioner.
There’s one particularly tantalising question (not directly related to ethics) which asks you to rank a series of attributes for success in PR. I found it hard: is intelligence more or less important than organisational skills? Or is having good organisational skills a sign of intelligence? Anyway, it enabled me to bury that myth that you have to be a ‘people person’ to succeed in PR.
The link to ethics comes with the option to rank integrity. I’ll draw the researcher’s attention to the interview with PR practitioner (and PR graduate of this university) Justin McKeown in the current issue of Profile magazine from the CIPR. He places integrity as his top attribute for success in PR…
PR Studies 
This is an interesting area. Like Justin, I also list integrity (I always use credibility) as the number 1 asset you can have. I also think that rather than intelligence (because there are several types) I reckon a close second is common sense. Being a people person isn’t that big a deal. Wasn’t it Edward Bernays who actually didn’t like people all that much – at least according to his daughter?
Great link! Thank you for passing along…I can think of some who should see this…
Thanks for the heads up Richard. Hopefully a valuable survey. Intelligence, client-focus and integrity are crucial in my view – as is good grammar…shame this particular questionnaire had a blinding apostrophe blunder. Maybe proof-reading should be up there with the top skills!