Our Favorite Managements Tips on Communicating Like a Leader
Practice Gracious Communication
Most of us want to communicate with kindness, but it can be challenging to convey warmth and compassion under frustrating, stressful, or maddening circumstances. Three practices can help you in your day-to-day interactions, as well as big, difficult conversations. First, meet confrontation with grace. This means wearing a smile and exuding patience and courtesy when an employee brings you difficult news or challenges your decision-making. An open-minded tone will signal that you're there to listen, process, and problem-solve—not to reprimand or enforce your own authority. Next, give credit whenever you can. Recognizing your employees and showing them gratitude will engender their enthusiasm, hard work, trust, and loyalty. Finally, give people space and clarity so you don't catch them off guard. Schedule conversations in advance or ask them if it's a good time to talk—and give them a quick preview of what you'd like to talk about. These kind, simple gestures will give your counterpart an opportunity to prepare, and make it clear that you're interested in listening to their response.
This tip is adapted from ' The Simple Power of Communicating with Kindness,' by Sally Susman.
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Communicating with Your Team When Times Are Tough
When business challenges mount, your team doesn't need spin—they need clarity. Here's how to be transparent, steady, and constructive, even when you don't have all the answers.
Acknowledge what's working. As you address uncertainty, point to areas of progress. Use a 'yes, and' approach: Yes, things are messy—and we're doing good work. Be honest about challenges without slipping into blame or false optimism.
Make space for real questions. Don't redirect or minimize concerns. Ask your team what's weighing on them and how it's showing up in their day-to-day work lives. If no one speaks up, check in with trusted team members behind the scenes to get a fuller picture.
Respond with care. When you don't have answers, explain what could influence the outcome. Share details only if they affect the team's reality; disclosing what's irrelevant or uncertain creates confusion.
Stick to the facts. Avoid speculation. Use data and observable progress to ground your message. Reinforce how the team's work supports key business goals like revenue or efficiency.
Model resilience. Show up with calm and clarity. In tough moments, consistency builds trust—and helps your team focus on what they can control.
This tip is adapted from ' How to Communicate with Your Team When Business Is Bad,' by Rebecca Knight.
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Deliver a Message That Sticks
Whether you're giving a presentation, writing an email, or leading a meeting, it's important to communicate your message in a way that's memorable. By mastering a few strategies based in memory science, you can create messages that linger in the minds of your audience, leaving a lasting impact. Here's how.
Chunk it up. Your audience can only handle three to four pieces of information at once. Organizing your key points under one central idea will help them retain details and connect the dots.
Make it concrete. Abstract ideas are tough to remember. Use vivid, relatable examples that evoke sensory details to create a mental image your audience won't forget.
Provide callbacks. Revisit earlier points to strengthen your audience's recall. Subtle reminders of previous content help reinforce memory and tie new information to existing knowledge.
Spark curiosity. Don't just deliver answers—pose intriguing questions that highlight knowledge gaps. Curiosity fuels memory, making your message stick.
This tip is adapted from ' How to Craft a Memorable Message, According to Science,' by Charan Ranganath.
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Communicate Directly—Not Rudely
Direct communication is an important work skill—especially for a manager. Being clear about what you want and need from people (and why) makes everything more efficient. But if you're too harsh, you can end up doing more harm than good. Here's how to toe the line between being direct and veering into rudeness.
When delivering feedback, focus on facts. Remove your emotions from the conversation, and instead give the person honest, concrete evidence about their performance. Your goal is to help them grow, not to vent.
When expressing an opinion, use 'I' statements. Avoid making accusations or casting blame, which will put your employee on the defensive. Instead of calling them out and pointing fingers, call them in by expressing your experience of their behavior.
Turn a hard 'no' into a soft 'no.' As a direct person, your instinct may be to unambiguously reject an inessential work request that comes in when you just don't have the bandwidth to take it on. But if you're too blunt, you risk being perceived as someone who doesn't want to collaborate or help out. Instead, find the compassion to offer an alternative that works better for you and your schedule, or kindly explain why it's impossible for you to take on.
When making a request, be considerate, not commanding. There's nothing wrong with giving clear, direct instructions and assignments. Just remember to be reasonable, express gratitude, and offer support if your employee needs it.
This tip is adapted from ' How to Be Direct Without Being Rude,' by Yasmina Khelifi and Irina Cozma.
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Communicating Difficult Decisions When You Can't Be Fully Transparent
When you have to communicate a difficult organizational decision, it's hard to know how much information to provide, particularly when you can't be fully transparent yet. Saying nothing can undermine people's trust, and saying too much can leave people feeling overwhelmed. You can strike the balance by being candid—up to a point.
Frame the situation's context clearly so people understand why the organization is considering big changes. Explain that you'll be as transparent as possible, use plain language (not corporate-speak), and respond to questions. People appreciate honesty, even if the message is incomplete or not what they want to hear. Be precise about what you can say now and when you'll say more, providing an overall timeline for the process. But avoid giving people running commentary as developments unfold; it can lead to unhelpful distractions and take up considerable management time.
If possible, let employees in on the options you're considering, showing the logic behind your coming actions. This builds trust and helps mitigate the anxiety they may be feeling as they consider every combination of eventualities (including catastrophic ones). It also prevents them from feeling caught by surprise when you announce the final set of changes.
This tip is adapted from ' Talking About a Difficult Decision—When You Can't Share All the Details,' by David Lancefield.
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Sharpen Your Writing Skills
Regardless of your job, rank, or industry, written communication is a skill that can set you apart from your peers. Here's a three-step framework to help you level up as a writer—whether you're writing an email, a formal document, a social post, or something else.
First, determine the purpose of what you're writing. What result do you want to achieve? Are you looking to inform, persuade, or make a request? Let that purpose inform the substance and style of your communication from beginning to end.
Then, identify exactly who your audience is and speak directly to them. This means using language that they understand and a voice that resonates with them. It also means anticipating and answering their questions—before they need to ask.
Finally, what's your point? This is the essential substance of your writing. To locate the message you're aiming to deliver, ask yourself how you would explain it to your audience in 15 seconds or less. Then, get to the point early in your document, within the first 40 to 50 words.
This tip is adapted from ' How to Take Your Business Writing From 'Average' to 'Great,'' by Elizabeth Danziger.
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Great Leadership Is About Great Communication
To be an effective leader, you need to become an exceptional communicator. Here are four strategies to help you motivate and inspire your team with your words.
Use simple language to write about complex things. Long, complicated sentences make written ideas hard to understand because they demand more concentration. You'll win more supporters if you replace long words and sentences with shorter, more straightforward ones.
Choose sticky metaphors. When you introduce a new or abstract idea, your audience will search for something they recognize to help them make sense of it. A metaphor is a powerful tool that compares or equates a new, abstract idea to a familiar image or concept.
Humanize data. Slide decks with statistics and charts are helpful, but limited. The trick to making any data point interesting is to humanize it by placing the number in perspective. Any time you introduce numbers, take the extra step to make them engaging, memorable, and, ultimately, persuasive.
Emphasize your mission. Shine a spotlight on your company's purpose across communication channels: meetings, memos, emails, presentations, social media, and marketing material. If your mission stands for something, then stand up for it.
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