One of the biggest challenges of being a leader, besides listening to and understanding your team, is communicating clearly and making sure others understand you.

Many times, when I start explaining something to my team or other colleagues at work, I stop and ask myself if what I’m saying makes sense. If they’re understanding me. If the way I’m speaking is the best way to communicate and convey the message I have in mind. I’m always questioning myself while I speak, wondering:

  • If I write a very long message, will it be read?
  • If I write a very technical message, will it be understood?
  • If I write a message about something business-related where only I understand the context, will they ask for help or for me to explain it again?
  • Is the content I’m writing and saying really what I want to communicate?
  • Am I using the right words?
  • Am I being too informal? Or too formal?
  • Am I talking too much?
  • Am I speaking too fast?
  • Is my text grammatically correct?
  • Does it have a beginning, middle, and end?
  • Can I summarize what I wrote to make it not only shorter to read but also to remove any extra noise from my original message?
  • Am I beating around the bush too much before getting to the main topic?
  • Did I really need to say all of this?

I always find myself thinking about these things when I start explaining something to someone.

I understand that there’s no ideal communication format or one-size-fits-all recipe for this. At the end of the day, I just want to convey my message clearly to the people involved.

A leader’s role, besides listening well to their peers, is also to know how to communicate effectively. They need to be firm and clear about what they want. And they need to know how to be direct in various situations.

If I can’t be clear in my communication and the team can’t understand what I want, how will they be able to work? How will they have enough autonomy? Why would they come to me to ask questions or discuss something if I can’t communicate properly?

Personal thoughts

Even though much of this post reflects my perspective on one of the challenges I face in leadership, I must say the same happens in my personal life.

Sometimes my wife says something to me, and I think I’ve responded to her, but in reality, I only thought about it. Or she asks me something, and instead of saying “I’ll think about it…” or “Interesting, I’m thinking…” I just stay silent and think, without communicating that I’m thinking. This makes her assume I’m ignoring her, which isn’t true.

My wife was just an example, but it happens a lot with people from my inner circle.

Communicating is hard, and for better or worse, it always needs to be done clearly. From the messenger’s perspective, it’s important to remember that the receiver isn’t always ready to receive the message or interpret it correctly. It’s crucial that we are clear enough in our intent to communicate. From the receiver’s perspective, it’s important to question the messenger when the message wasn’t clear enough. What’s the point of speaking the same language or understanding a language if we can’t reach the same conclusion or interpretation?

What are your thoughts on this topic?