The urge to “not say anything” is powerful. Especially when:
• We don’t know what to say
• The situation is messy or difficult
• We anticipate that people will be upset
• We don’t have a perfect answer
When leaders don’t communicate it says:
• “I’m afraid.”
• “I’m hiding from the hard reality.”
• “I don’t know.”
• “The reality it too difficult to talk about.”
• “I don’t trust your ability to handle difficult news.”’
Those are just the times in which leaders do need to say SOMETHING. Even if it is:
• “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
• “I know this is hard, but we need to talk about it.”
• “I don’t like the situation either, but it IS our current reality and we need to deal with it.”
• “I don’t have a solution, but trust that together, we can figure it out.
It is far better to have these discussions, that to choose NOT to say anything, because not communicating speaks volumes on its own.
