Communication
San Francisco, CA
One of my latest work opportunities was a little different than the norm. Instead of public speaking I was tasked with facilitating Listening Circles at several of our locations across the country. It was a great opportunity to visit with team members from many different job functions. Although many expressed appreciation for what our company means to them, we focused attention on our areas of opportunity. Affordability, pay, and compensation are at the top of the list. What issue do you think came in second? It was communication.
Communication is one of the most important responsibilities of leadership because leadership happens through other people. A leader may have great ideas, strong values, and a clear vision, but if those things aren't communicated effectively, people are left to guess. And when communication is missing, people usually fill the silence with their own assumptions. Communication creates clarity.
People perform better when they understand what is expected of them, why something matters, and where the organization or team is headed. A leader shouldn't assume that because something is clear in their own mind, it's clear to everyone else.
Good communication answers questions such as: What are we trying to accomplish? Why are we doing it? What's most important right now? What does success look like? What do you need from me?
Clarity reduces confusion, duplicated effort, frustration, and unnecessary mistakes. People do not expect leaders to have every answer. But they generally want leaders to be honest with them. This becomes especially important during change and uncertainty. Silence from leadership can create anxiety because people begin filling in the missing information themselves.
Sometimes one of the most powerful things a leader can say is: "I don't know yet, but I'll tell you what I do know." That kind of transparency builds credibility.
There is an enormous difference between talking to people and communicating with people. Leadership communication is not simply giving instructions, sending emails, or holding meetings. It is creating a two-way exchange. That requires listening. In fact, some of the best leadership communication happens when the leader isn't speaking.
A leader who asks, "What do you think?" and then genuinely listens communicates something important: Your perspective matters.
People are more likely to speak openly about problems, mistakes, concerns, and ideas when they believe their leader will listen rather than immediately judge or dismiss them.
Communication provides the "why". A manager can tell someone what to do. A strong leader helps people understand why it matters. Suppose a leader says:
"I need everyone to improve their documentation." That's an instruction. But explaining that accurate documentation helps other team members understand what happened, protects data integrity, improves customer support, identifies trends, and allows leadership to make better decisions gives the request meaning.
In the early days of my career, after helping to load outbound aircraft each night, my assignment was to pick up FOD (Foreign Object Debris) outside. Imagine you're working at an airport, and I assign you the responsibility of walking the runway and picking up debris. You might think, "I'm just picking up trash. How important can that really be?"
I felt different about that assignment after my manager communicated to me the importance of which at first glance felt like a menial task. That small piece of metal, loose bolt, or broken piece of equipment lying on the runway might seem insignificant. But if an aircraft traveling at high-speed strikes that object, it could puncture a tire, damage landing gear, or be sucked into a jet engine, potentially causing catastrophic engine damage or worse yet, injuring another person with that projectile.
A manager who says, "Go pick up debris from the runway," has communicated a task. A leader who says, "Your attention to detail could prevent an aircraft accident and save hundreds of lives," has communicated a purpose. The assignment has not changed. The employee's understanding of its importance has. And that difference can transform how someone approaches their work.
This principle applies to almost every workplace, whether you're working in aviation, information technology, healthcare, transportation, or customer service.
So I was not simply picking up trash. I was protecting aircraft, preventing accidents and safeguarding lives. Think about that!
People are much more likely to take ownership when they understand the purpose behind the expectation.
Communication shapes culture. Culture isn't created primarily by posters, slogans, or corporate values displayed on a website. It's reinforced through everyday conversations. What leaders recognize communicates what matters. What they ignore communicates what matters. How they respond to mistakes communicates what matters. How they speak about customers and employees communicates what matters. Even how they disagree with someone communicates something about the culture they're creating.
Leadership communication becomes even more important when organizations are experiencing restructuring, staffing changes, new technology, changing priorities, or uncertainty. During those periods, employees aren't only asking:
"What's changing?" They're often wondering: "What does this mean for me?"
Leaders may not always be able to remove uncertainty, but they can prevent unnecessary uncertainty by communicating what they know, what they don't know, what's changing, what isn't changing, and what employees should focus on now.
Difficult conversations are part of good communication. Good leadership communication isn't always comfortable. Sometimes leaders must address poor performance, missed expectations, inappropriate behavior, conflict, or accountability. Avoiding those conversations may feel easier at the moment, but it often makes the situation worse.
Respectful candor says: "I respect you enough to tell you something you may not want to hear, and I care enough to help you improve." That's vastly different from criticism for the sake of criticism.
Communication also means repetition. Leaders sometimes think, "But I already told them." That's rarely enough. Important messages need reinforcement. People are busy. They hear information in different contexts and remember different pieces of it. Repetition isn't necessarily overcommunication. Sometimes it's leadership. If something is genuinely important, people should hear it more than once and probably in more than one way.
Your communication continues when you're not speaking. A leader communicates through behavior too. If you tell employees that work-life balance matters but routinely contact them unnecessarily during their personal time, you've communicated something. If you say questions are welcome but become irritated whenever someone challenges an idea, you've communicated something. If you tell people mistakes are opportunities to learn but embarrass someone when they make one, you've communicated something. Behavior can either reinforce our words or cancel them out.
And that leads to what I think is one of the most important principles of leadership communication: The message you intended to send isn't always the message someone received. Effective leaders pay attention to that gap. They ask questions. They listen. They clarify. They follow up. And occasionally, they have enough humility to say, "I didn't communicate that very well. Let me try again." Because ultimately, leadership isn't just about having something important to say. It's about creating enough clarity for people to understand, trust for people to believe, and connection for people to respond.
And perhaps the best leadership communicators understand one final paradox:
The better you become at communicating, the more you realize that communication isn't primarily about talking. It's about understanding—and being understood.
Take care of yourself and each other!
Chip
