The Brutal Truth About Leadership Communication Most Executives Get Wrong

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Nobody talks about this anymore, but leadership communication isn't about being articulate or having a fancy vocabulary. It's about getting people to actually listen when you're speaking. And after seventeen years of watching executives fumble through presentations, team meetings, and one-on-ones like they're reading from a teleprompter, I've got some opinions that'll probably ruffle a few feathers.

Here's what nobody wants to admit: 67% of senior leaders think they're excellent communicators, but their teams rate them as "adequate" at best. I made that statistic up, but honestly, it feels about right based on what I've seen across Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney boardrooms.

The first thing most leadership communication training gets wrong is teaching you to be perfect.

Perfect is boring. Perfect doesn't connect. Perfect makes your team think you're either lying or you've been replaced by a corporate robot. When Atlassian's leadership talks about their failures openly, their teams actually listen more intently during the successes. There's a lesson there that most traditional training programs completely miss.

I used to think communication was about having all the answers ready. Spent three years crafting responses for every possible scenario. Know what happened? My team stopped asking questions because they knew I'd launch into some rehearsed monologue that answered everything except what they actually wanted to know.

The best communicators I've worked with – and I'm talking about people running multi-million dollar operations – they pause. They say "I don't know" when they don't know. They ask their teams what they think before sharing their own opinions.

Why Most Leadership Communication Training Is Backwards

Traditional programs teach you to communicate at people. Real leadership communication is about creating space for others to communicate with you. Big difference.

Most training focuses on:

• Presentation skills (yawn)
• Public speaking techniques (useful but not the point)
• Email etiquette (important but not leadership)
• Meeting facilitation (again, useful but misses the mark)

What actually matters:

• Reading the room when someone disagrees but won't say it
• Knowing when to shut up and let uncomfortable silence do the work
• Managing difficult conversations without making them personal
• Adjusting your communication style based on who's in front of you

Here's an unpopular opinion: leaders who communicate too well can actually be dangerous. They're so persuasive that bad ideas sound brilliant, and teams stop pushing back. I've seen this kill innovation faster than budget cuts.

The best leaders I know are slightly awkward communicators. They stumble over words sometimes. They repeat themselves when they're thinking through complex problems. They ask "does that make sense?" not because they're insecure, but because they genuinely want to know if their message landed.

The Three Things Nobody Teaches You About Leadership Communication

Thing One: Your communication style should change based on context, not stay consistent.

I know, I know. Every leadership book tells you to "be authentic" and "maintain consistency." Rubbish.

When you're delivering quarterly results to stakeholders, you communicate differently than when you're coaching someone through a performance issue. When you're brainstorming with your innovation team, you use different language than when you're explaining budget cuts to middle management.

This isn't being fake – it's being effective.

Thing Two: The most important communication happens in hallways, not meeting rooms.

Formal communication structures are where information gets shared. Real communication – the kind that actually influences culture and drives results – happens in casual moments. The coffee machine conversations. The elevator rides. The five minutes before everyone joins the Zoom call.

Smart leaders spend more time thinking about these informal touchpoints than they do preparing PowerPoint presentations.

Thing Three: Sometimes the best communication is no communication.

Not every situation needs a leader's input. Not every team discussion requires your perspective. Not every problem needs your solution.

I learned this the hard way when I was running operations for a logistics company in Perth. Every time my team hit a roadblock, I'd swoop in with suggestions, alternatives, and "helpful" guidance. Team performance actually improved when I started biting my tongue and letting them figure things out.

What Actually Works (And What Doesn't)

What Doesn't Work:

• Over-explaining everything (people switch off)
• Using the same tone for every situation (tone-deaf)
• Waiting until you have perfect information (you never will)
• Assuming people understand without checking (they don't)

What Actually Works:

• Asking "what questions do you have?" instead of "do you have any questions?"
• Sharing your thinking process, not just your conclusions
• Acknowledging when you're changing your mind about something
• Being specific about what you need from people

I used to end team meetings with "any questions?" and get blank stares. Started asking "what questions do you have?" and suddenly everyone had three questions they'd been sitting on. Tiny change, massive difference.

The Communication Skills That Actually Matter for Leaders

Forget everything you learned about public speaking. Here's what you actually need:

Active Listening That Goes Beyond Nodding Most leaders think active listening means making eye contact and saying "mm-hmm" at regular intervals. Real active listening means catching the emotion behind the words, noticing what people aren't saying, and asking follow-up questions that show you're actually processing their input.

Conflict Navigation Without Drama Not conflict resolution – conflict navigation. Sometimes conflicts don't need resolving; they need managing. Sometimes the tension is productive. Sometimes pushing for resolution too quickly kills important conversations.

Influence Without Authority You'll spend more time communicating with people who don't report to you than people who do. Customers, suppliers, other department heads, board members. Your title doesn't matter to them. Your ability to understand their priorities and speak to their concerns does.

The Stuff They Don't Tell You in Communication Workshops

Most communication training assumes you're starting from scratch. But you're not – you already have communication habits, and some of them are probably working against you.

The Listening Trap You've probably been told you need to be a better listener. Maybe you do. But some leaders listen too much and never share their own perspective. Your team needs to know what you think, especially when you disagree with them.

The Feedback Paradox Everyone says leaders need to give more feedback. True. But they also need to get better at receiving it. When someone pushes back on your ideas, that's not insubordination – that's exactly the kind of feedback that prevents bad decisions.

The Clarity Myth Clear communication doesn't mean simple communication. Sometimes complex ideas require complex explanations. The goal isn't to dumb things down; it's to structure complexity in ways people can follow.

Making It Work in Australian Business Culture

We do things differently here, and your communication style needs to reflect that. Australian teams respond better to straight talk than corporate speak. They want to know the real story, not the polished version.

I've worked with American executives who moved to Melbourne offices and struggled because their communication style was too formal, too rehearsed. Australians can smell corporate BS from three suburbs away.

Here's what works better:

• Leading with the bottom line, then explaining the context
• Admitting when you're not sure about something
• Using actual examples instead of theoretical scenarios
• Checking in with people individually, not just in group settings

Companies like REA Group and Seek have built strong cultures partly because their leadership teams communicate like real people, not corporate mouthpieces.

The Reality Check Most Leaders Need

Your team isn't hanging on your every word. They're not waiting for your brilliant insights. They're trying to get their work done, hit their targets, and go home to their families.

This isn't depressing – it's liberating. It means you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be helpful.

Stop trying to inspire people through grand speeches. Start helping them understand how their work connects to something bigger. Stop trying to motivate everyone. Start removing the obstacles that demotivate them.

The best communication isn't about what you say – it's about what your team understands, believes, and acts on after you've finished talking. Everything else is just noise.

Most leadership communication training focuses on the wrong metrics. They'll teach you to speak with confidence, use powerful body language, and structure compelling narratives. All useful skills. None of them matter if your team doesn't trust you or if they think you're out of touch with their reality.

Trust builds through consistent small interactions, not through perfectly delivered big messages. Your team trusts you when you remember what they told you last week, when you follow through on commitments, when you admit mistakes quickly and fix them quietly.

That's the kind of communication that actually changes things.