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After some three years in the making, the Defamation Bill recently received Royal Assent, becoming the Defamation Act 2013. It is likely to come into force later this year.

The Act has been heralded by the Government and campaign groups alike as an "overhaul" of "antiquated" libel laws not suitable for the 21st century.  But what does the Act really achieve? It remains to be seen to what extent it will in practice mean real change.  The main provisions include:

●a "serious harm" threshold. Of course, a claimant already has to satisfy a "threshold of seriousness" test under the existing law.  It is not clear how this new test will differ, if at all, in practice.  However, one potentially significant development is that for bodies which "trade for profit", "serious harm" will mean harm which has caused, or is likely to cause, serious financial loss; 

● the existing common law defences of justification, fair/honest comment and the Reynolds defence have been codified into equivalent statutory defences of truth, honest opinion and publication on a matter of public interest; 

●  a new defence for website operators in respect of material published by a third party, but only if the website operator complies with a notice and takedown procedure (which is yet to be drafted);

●a "single publication rule" changing the current position where the 12 month limitation period for libel claims starts afresh each time the defamatory statement is published. This has caused problems with internet archives, because each occasion on which the material is viewed online constitutes a new publication. Under the Act, the limitation period will start running from the first (but not subsequent) publications of that material;

●the removal of the presumption in favour of trial by jury (in practice, jury trials have already become rare in libel cases in any event);

● empowering the Courts to order a defendant to publish a summary of its judgment; and

● allowing proceedings to take place in England only if that is "clearly the most appropriate" jurisdiction (although in practice, this principle is already applied by the Courts).

Only time will tell the extent to which the Act will, in practice, mean real change.  It is certainly not the great victory for freedom of expression that certain campaign groups would have us believe.  Indeed, in terms of the main defences, the provisions in the Act are a codification of the existing law and in that regard, could be said to be maintaining the status quo.  It would seem to suggest that our laws are not so antiquated after all.   

Certain of the provisions are to be welcomed.  Jury trials, for instance, increase costs enormously.  While they have been rare in the last few years, it is a positive development that the presumption will now be in favour of libel cases being heard by judge alone.  We also await with interest the regulations in relation to the new defence for website operators.  Increasingly, libel disputes are not against the traditional media but relate to user generated content on the internet.  The regulations are likely to assist claimants in having defamatory content taken down, as well as assisting them in identifying anonymous authors, which otherwise may not have been possible without obtaining a court order.

The Act does, however, introduce new grey areas. In particular, it remains to be seen how the requirement for a claimant company to show that it has suffered, or is likely to suffer, serious financial loss will be applied.  It is likely to be extremely difficult to prove that serious financial loss arises from a defamatory publication (as distinct from other causal factors, such as market conditions).  No doubt there will also be argument about what constitutes "serious" in the context of a particular case.  As noted above, the Act abolishes some of the existing common law, yet parties are bound to look to case law for guidance when interpreting the Act.  Whether the Act does indeed make things simpler, or whether an additional layer of complexity has been added to what was already a highly technical area of law, remains to be seen.

When I was recently asked to pull together an organisational chart for our team for a board meeting, my first reaction was to create a pyramid diagram, with the leader on top, followed by four successive layers of Senior management, Deputy management, Junior management, and Advisers.

While this is how most of us would describe the structure of an organisation - does it still reflect the reality of management today? Is it still fit for purpose? In my case, the team and I quickly realised that such a rigid hierarchy can hardly be considered as aspirational. 

It was only until after I left my job in the public sector that I discovered new models of working. These models see teams as being the sum of their parts. Emphasis is placed on having more fluid teams where individuals' duties are allocated to them based on their strengths, skills and personal interests, as opposed to what their titles are. In retrospect, as a fresh pair of eyes, I felt I had rightly captured the top down essence of my former team, and to some degree perhaps highlighted where our working model was failing us. 

We now find ourselves in an environment of co-creation, where we seek to work more collaboratively and effectively with our colleagues. Ideas and structures are no longer based on a hierarchy, but rather on skills, expertise and personalities. We now find ourselves in an environment where a teenager, namely the Summly app developer, Nick D'Aloisi, is working alongside the President and CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, to develop and create cutting edge technology. His age is left at the door. His ideas are not. 

This is illustrative of a shift towards the employees of a company being hailed as one its strongest assets when it comes to trust and reputation. 

There is an increasing need for leaders to communicate their vision, and collaborate with their team to collectively achieve this vision. Research has recently shown that influence is being redistributed from traditional authority figures such as CEOs and prime ministers towards employees, peers and people with credentials.

This gradually erodes the top down approach that is instilled in many organisations. We now have the opportunity to work within a culture which is beginning to resemble the true meritocracy which most organisations promise, but few deliver. This marks an age where leaders are seeking to empower their workforce, but what does this mean in practice? Here are three key ways leaders could seek to embrace this shift:

1.Ensure everyone's role is well-defined: According to Forbes magazine, most companies fail to unlock the full potential of their workforce because they fail to define what they want from their employees and how they want them to do it. This can make it difficult to lead each other to where you want to go. 

2.Don't pay lip service: If you want to change the way you work, then the change needs to become part of the companies DNA. Invest time and effort to listening to your employees and working together to achieve new ways of doing things. This also involves giving credit where it's due. 

3.Know your team: Learn about the strengths of your team and where you can put their skills into practice at work. This understanding forms the bedrock of a truly engaged, multidisciplinary and integrated team.

My 3½ year old son returned from crèche last Monday eagerly clutching a papier-mâché globe he'd made that day - with both the globe and my son painted in vibrant greens and blues.

Before I got a chance to enquire about his day and the significance of the hand-made globe, he volunteered the fact that last Monday was in fact Earth Day, and that he and his classmates had spent the day learning about the importance of protecting "the trees and the rivers" and "putting empty drinks cartons into the green bin".

Having advised clients for many years on devising and executing CSR strategies, I was slightly taken aback by his new found knowledge of international days of observance. In my defence, the sheer volume of international days means it's hard to keep track, however the importance of such dates for publicising the variety of causes they support is hard to underestimate.

The official blurb tells us that Earth Day, run by the Earth Day Network, was established in the US in 1970, and is now celebrated by more than one billion people in over 190 countries across the world. In Ireland the day was marked in various ways by a multitude of organisations - many using the occasion to emphasise  their own commitment to environmental sustainability and corporate citizenship.

While international days are a useful tool for organisations to deliver a message to various stakeholders, the proliferation of such dates means that it’s more important than ever for organisations to not just pay lip-service - but to ensure that support for various causes is in keeping with their overall sustainability agenda.

The days of issuing a press release to the media to mark Earth Day - outlining  your environmental achievements - are gone.  

Analysis undertaken by ReputationInc has shown that the difficult economic times of the last few years have fundamentally changed stakeholder expectations with regards to CSR.  Far from lessening in importance, companies now see CSR as the overarching tool to address the necessity of reputation building in uncertain times.

If the last number of years have taught us anything it's that corporate responsibility is no longer simply a "nice-to-have", but is in fact business critical, with more and more companies placing CSR and sustainability at the heart of their business.  Far from being a discrete, stand-alone part of the business, for many, it has become "the business" itself - determining the way the company operates.

Leading edge companies are addressing these changes by rethinking their CSR strategies in the context of sustainability - aligning societal goals with their business strategy, securing leadership buy-in and advocacy, matching activity to stakeholders' needs, carefully choosing when and how to communicate with stakeholders and measuring the impact of such activities.

CSR remains a core element of reputation management and the importance of a strategic approach coupled with effective, selective and targeted communications cannot be overstated.

If the result of this is the creation of advocates like the boys and girls in the Toddler Inn, then, as CSR strategists, we’ll have done a good job…

As the Leader of the Opposition quoted this week, in his tribute to Margaret Thatcher, "If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman." Too much of this week's coverage has focused on what Margaret Thatcher said, what was meant by what she said and what other people have said about what she said. Margaret Thatcher's reputation should rest instead on what she did. It is her actions that will frame her reputation in history. 

For politicians, just as for individuals and organisations, one's reputation defines the relationship between perception and reality. And that reputation is not fixed in time. There is a myth, widely perpetuated, that Mrs Thatcher was a Prime Minister ousted by a bunch of "political pygmies" at a time when she was at the height of her powers and had the backing of the people. 

By 1990 Mrs Thatcher had staked more on perception than reality; and more on her own perception of reality than that of her colleagues and the voters. How different from her early years as in power, when she was so frequently underestimated. She settled with the miners in 1981 to be prepared for the strikes to come. The Argentinean leader General Galtieri invaded the Falkland Islands because he sensed British weakness. 

Today Margaret Thatcher is remembered for the dramatic and colourful moments in her long leadership; for her strident and divisive tone; for her combative and dominant approach to those around her. It is telling that the most re-printed photographs of The Lady this week feature her standing, alone, looking to the future, the sole repository of the answer to the challenges she faced. 

This misses the reality both of her approach and her achievements. She won three General Elections and she transformed British politics - which required bringing millions of voters with her and building a team to follow her; she was not a voice crying in the wilderness, but an exemplar of leadership. So effective an evangelist was Mrs Thatcher, that the team which took her legacy into the 21st century was led by Tony Blair and New Labour. 

Margaret Thatcher built her reputation by acting decisively. 

With only 1 in 5 Executive MBA programmes teaching students to manage businesses' impact on society, are our leaders equipped to engage with the outside world? 

Having reviewed the most cutting media profile of CEOs over the last 18th months, I asked myself what do Stephen Hester, Tony Hayward and James Murdoch have in common? 

My conclusion? Bruises gained from off-guard confrontations with media or political inquests are never a good look when attempting to rescue a damaged corporate reputation. 

The instant information environment in which today's global businesses operate can be both unforgiving and intrusive.   At a time when trust in business is historically low, we've been working with companies to better understand how (or if!) modern MBA programmes are preparing leaders to manage the challenges that arise from 24-hour media spotlight, interventionist governments, impatient consumers, transparent supply chains, activist investors and powerfully vocal NGOs. 

Well, as a result of this work, we've done some digging, and found that while more than half of global CEOs say external affairs is one of their top three priorities, just under a fifth of the 50 leading global Executive MBA programmes offer any training in communications or related disciplines such as CSR, stakeholder engagement, government relations, leadership communications, or reputation management.

More worrying still, just two of the leading EMBA programmes offer a dedicated reputation module, and 80% offer no training at all on public affairs and external communications - the two core skills executives need to deliver on their business's reputation ambitions.  What's more, only two of these programmes train executives to manage investor relationships, and just three explore the interplay between reputation equity and business strategy.  

Key reputation discipline	Number of top 50 EMBA programmes offering this training
Governance / Ethics	26
Corporate responsibility/CSR	12
Public relations / Communications*	10
Risk management	10
Stakeholder / Relationship management	10
Sustainability	9
Corporate affairs**	7
Reputation management Strategy	3
Corporate reputation	2
Investor relations	2

Two women leaders have been figuring in the media rather frequently as of late. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's controversial ban on working from home and Facebook COO's Sheryl Sandberg's new book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead have sparked much discussion and debate around issues ranging from leadership styles to work-life balance, elitism and the role of women in the workplace.

The voices and viewpoints may be diverse, but one thing's for sure - we've come a long way from the world depicted in cult drama Mad Men, where discrimination against and condescension towards women in the workplace were rampant, and the lines of power and control had a clear gender dimension (see for example FX TV's ad promoting Mad Men which satirically captured the show's much talked about - and heavily debated - portrayal of misogyny in the workplace in 1960s New York).

Of course, a myriad of challenges still remain when it comes to women's representation and equality in the workplace. What's interesting however, is that in the past few years, the economic arguments supporting the promotion of gender diversity in the workplace and the facilitation of female leadership have become as prevalent as the moral and egalitarian arguments which have abounded for a much longer time (see, for example, McKinsey's series on Women Matter, Credit Suisse's Gender Diversity and Corporate Performance or the World Economic Forum’s examination of the relationship between gender parity and economic competitiveness).

While the exact formulations and foci of these arguments differ, most businesses have come to recognise and accept that there is a business case for promoting gender diversity in the workplace. Even if evidence pointing towards a direct correlation between more equitable opportunities and a better bottom line has not convinced everyone, there is increasing recognition that diversity (and its promotion) has a significant impact on more intangible factors such as trust and reputation, which in turn affects long term business sustainability. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that gender diversity will soon turn into the next CSR in the world of reputation management, and will become an increasingly important driver of corporate reputation. In this world, tick-box exercises on diversity will no longer suffice.

While it is becoming increasing clear that there is a business as well as moral case for promoting gender diversity, what is less clear is how to best address the significant challenges that still exist in this area, challenges which vary dramatically across businesses, sectors and geographies. What does best practice in promoting gender diversity look like? Companies looking to lead in this area are starting to come up with some innovative and truly transformational initiatives, but instead of delving into the details of their activities, here are some topline thoughts:

1.Diversity as both a principle and a practice should not be a sideline HR activity. It needs to be advocated for by top leadership and firmly embedded in the business strategy, with clear goals, well-planned initiatives and meaningful KPIs in place to move it forward. 

2.Understand what your specific diversity challenges are. Sounds obvious, but diversity challenges can range from unequal pay to unattractive work environments, and a tailored diversity programme which addresses actual existing barriers and underlying problems is going to have a greater impact than an approach which just focuses on, say, increasing the proportion of women in the workplace. And when coming up with solutions, apply the same rules for problem-solving and innovation that you would use for other core business activities. 

3.A diversity programme must catalyse cultural and behavioural changes in order to have any long term impact. It shouldn't be about encouraging women to ascend in a man's world, but about fundamentally rethinking the organisational structure and culture in order to create an inclusive and more efficient working environment for all current and future employees.

4.Quotas and other forms of positive discrimination are short-term fixes, not long-term solutions. While they may sometimes be necessary to redress significant imbalances, they don't address underlying issues and may only serve to reinforce the gender divide. Equal representation is not the same as equal opportunity.

We still have a long way to go in achieving gender equality in the workplace, but as this issue climbs higher up the reputation agenda, I'm optimistic we'll make even more progress in the next ten years than we have in the last 50.