Why leadership communication needs more courage
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
Why honest, human leadership communication matters most when messages are difficult.
Difficult leadership messages often go through a lot of people before employees ever see them. Facts are checked, risks are considered and language is carefully adjusted. All of that has a purpose. But somewhere in that process, a message can become so safe that it stops sounding true to what people are actually experiencing.
This is where leadership communication can lose trust. Not because leaders are deliberately withholding information, but because difficult messages are often edited until they become broader, less specific and further removed from reality.
During organisational change or uncertainty, that instinct is understandable. It’s also exactly when leaders need more courage.
In leadership communication, courage doesn’t mean saying everything or abandoning care. It means being prepared to acknowledge difficult realities, being clear about uncertainty and giving employees meaningful context rather than communicating around what’s happening.
Courage doesn’t mean saying everything
Being honest with employees doesn’t mean sharing every detail or communicating before decisions are ready. It means resisting the temptation to fill uncertainty with vague reassurance.
A clear “we don’t know yet” can be more credible than language that sounds confident but tells people very little. When leaders cannot provide the full answer, they can still explain what’s known, what’s being worked through and when people can expect to hear more. That context matters. Without it, people are left to fill in the gaps themselves. That becomes particularly difficult when decisions affect jobs, teams, workloads or working conditions.
Strong internal communications therefore depend as much on judgement as information. The question is not simply, “What can we say?” It’s, “What do people reasonably need from us at this point?”. Strategic people and culture communication can help leaders work through that judgement, deciding what employees need to understand now and how to communicate uncertainty honestly.
Sounding professional isn’t the same as sounding credible
Leadership communication can also become less believable when too much effort goes into making it sound like leadership communication.
Employees can tell when language feels written for approval rather than understanding. Phrases that look perfectly acceptable on a slide or in a leadership briefing can feel strangely distant when someone is worried about their role or struggling with change. That doesn’t mean every message needs to be conversational or emotional. It means the language should fit the moment. Sometimes that involves acknowledging that a decision will be difficult for people. Sometimes it means explaining the trade-offs behind it. Sometimes it simply means using words that a leader would actually say out loud.
These are leadership communication skills that cannot be reduced to tone of voice guidelines. They require an understanding of the organisation, the audience and the context in which the message will land. The right communication support can help leaders find language that feels natural and specific to the moment, without losing the consistency the organisation needs.
Give leaders the message, not a script
During organisational change, managers and leaders often need to communicate the same core messages across different teams. Consistency matters, as employees shouldn’t hear completely different explanations depending on who they ask. But consistency can easily turn into scripting.
Give ten leaders the same paragraph and employees will hear the paragraph. Give those leaders a clear explanation of the decision, the essential facts, the questions people are likely to ask and the key messages they should communicate, and they can have a real conversation.
Good manager communication depends on that room for judgement. Managers need enough structure to stay aligned, but enough understanding and confidence to respond to the people in front of them.
Strategic people and culture communication should support that balance. It can create shared messages, talking points and principles without removing the judgement of the people delivering them. Managers need to understand what they are communicating, not simply repeat it.
Difficult communication cannot be templated away
Templates are useful. So are message frameworks, FAQs and talking points. But they cannot decide what needs to be acknowledged, where tone needs care or whether a message about areas such as wellbeing, inclusion or workplace culture acknowledges what employees are actually experiencing.
The same applies to AI communication tools. AI can help organise a first draft, simplify language or generate options. But it doesn’t know the history or consequences behind a sensitive decision. It cannot take responsibility for judging what needs to be acknowledged or how a message is likely to land in a particular organisation. That is where human judgement and courage still matter. Leaders and communicators need to make the call on what should be said plainly and where greater care is needed.
As AI makes it easier to produce polished workplace communication quickly, that human judgement matters even more. A message can be consistent and perfectly structured while still being wrong for the moment.
That is why AI communication should support the people making those judgements, rather than become a substitute for them.
The organisations that communicate well through change won’t necessarily be the ones with the best templates or the smoothest language. They will be the ones whose leaders are prepared to deal with what is actually happening, give people meaningful context and communicate in a way they can believe.
That takes more than good wording. It takes courage.
Need your leaders to communicate with more honesty, confidence and care? Speak to us about our Leadership Communication That Builds Trust workshop, built to help leaders and communicators handle complex workplace messages in a way employees can believe.
Employee Networks Not Working? 4 Ways to Rethink Your ERG Strategy
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
How clear purpose and better support can help employee resource groups work more effectively.
Employee resource groups (ERGs) can be an important part of how organisations give employees a stronger voice and help people feel more connected at work, but without the right structure and support, pressure can quickly build. When expectations become unclear, volunteers carry too much responsibility or leadership support doesn’t lead to action, networks can lose momentum.
Over time, the same small group may end up organising every event. Meetings become updates rather than decisions. Employees raise issues, but nobody is clear about what happens next. Senior sponsors attend occasionally, yet the issues raised rarely result in action.
When a network reaches this point, it may need a more clearly defined remit, better support and a more honest conversation about what the organisation expects it to achieve.
Here are four ways organisations can give employee networks the structure and support they need to work more effectively.
1. Start by getting clear on purpose
Many employee resource groups are expected to support workplace belonging, educate colleagues, advise the business and influence culture at the same time. Those aims can all be valid, but they require different activities and different routes for getting decisions made.
Without clarity, a network can end up taking on too much. Members may get pulled into issues that sit outside the network’s role, while other concerns go unresolved because it is not clear who should deal with them.
A useful ERG strategy should set out what the network is there to do, what it can influence and where its responsibility ends.
In a recent project, we helped a global organisation create a practical playbook for its employee networks. With input from existing network leads and co-leads, it covered the key stages of starting, running and growing a network, with guidance and templates people could use. This gave employees a clearer structure to work from, while still leaving room for different needs across the organisation.
2. Give volunteers proper support
Employee networks often depend on people fitting the work around already demanding roles. That might mean preparing an event after hours, answering messages between meetings or becoming the unofficial contact for colleagues who need support.
Over time, a handful of committed volunteers can end up carrying the network. Others may step back because they cannot make the same time commitment, while those doing the most can feel their contribution is valued, but not properly supported.
Volunteers need clear roles and practical help. That could mean agreed time for network activity, simple planning tools or access to communication support when a campaign needs specialist input.
3. Make leadership support practical
A named executive sponsor can give an ERG visibility, but visibility alone does not move anything forward. Sponsors need to understand what members need from them, whether that means listening to difficult feedback, removing a barrier or helping an issue reach the right decision-maker.
Clear, practical sponsor guidance can help leaders understand that role. There also needs to be a reliable communication route between sponsors and network leaders so that important issues do not have to wait for the next scheduled meeting.
If network leaders only speak to sponsors once a quarter, concerns can stall. Over time, members may see little connection between speaking up and what happens next.
4. Don’t put too much responsibility on the network
Employee resource groups can surface issues that senior teams might otherwise miss. They can bring employee voice into decisions, test ideas and help organisations understand how communication or workplace experiences are landing with different groups.
But there are limits to what an ERG can address on its own, particularly when wider organisational issues also need attention. If underrepresented employees are expected to identify problems and then help fix them, too much of the responsibility can end up falling on the people most affected.
Responsibility for addressing those issues needs to sit with the organisation. Inclusion communication can support that work by helping people understand how inclusion shows up in day-to-day behaviour, why it matters and what that means for how people work together. Wider culture and communication work can support that responsibility by helping employees understand expected behaviours, giving leaders a consistent way to talk about sensitive issues and turning concerns raised through networks into action across the organisation.
If your employee networks are losing momentum or relying too heavily on volunteers, speak to us about creating the structure, communication and leadership support they need to help them work more effectively.
Reimagining flexibility means changing the conversation
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
Conversation #8 - Reimagining flexibility
Part of our 10 BIG workplace conversations series. Here, we explore how communication can help organisations find an approach that works for both people and performance.
Flexible working has become one of the most sensitive workplace conversations of recent years.
For leaders, the focus is often on performance, collaboration, culture and making better use of office space. For employees, it’s about autonomy, trust, balance and being able to do good work in a way that fits their personal lives.
When those views are not brought together through careful, considered communication, flexibility can quickly become a source of tension. The return-to-office debate has shown how easily this happens.
Flexibility is not just a policy issue
A flexible working policy might set out the rules, but communication helps determine whether people understand, trust and accept them. Flexibility is not only about where people work. It also includes fairness, belonging, performance, wellbeing, trust in leadership and the everyday relationship between managers and their teams.
Handled well, communication helps people understand why decisions have been made and what they mean in practice. Handled badly, it can create confusion, resentment and a sense that the business says one thing but does another.
That means people need more than the detail of the policy. They need the story behind the decision:
- Why are we taking this approach?
- What are we trying to protect or improve?
- How will this help the business perform?
- How will it support people to do their best work?
- What will stay flexible, and where do we need more consistency?
A clear narrative creates a more balanced conversation about how flexibility can support performance, connection and inclusion in a way that works for the organisation and its people.
Getting the conversation wrong carries real business risk
When communication around flexibility is vague or inconsistent, organisations risk more than a few difficult questions. They risk losing talent, weakening employee engagement, damaging their employer brand and even creating a culture gap.
This is where well-designed communications help people feel listened to and cared for. Difficult decisions do not have to be damaging. As strategic people and culture communicators, we help frame the conversation in the right way so people understand the steps taken to reach a challenging decision – and respond positively.
If they can see how their views have been considered and feel the organisation has been honest about any trade-offs, employees are more likely to accept the decision.
Language choice is crucial. Because in sensitive workplace conversations, words carry weight. A message designed around “getting people back to the office” is likely to land very differently to one designed around connection, performance and the moments where being together really matter.
Flexibility will not mean the same thing for everyone
One of the biggest communication mistakes organisations make is talking about flexibility as if everyone experiences it in the same way. For an office-based employee, flexibility might mean hybrid working. For a frontline colleague, it might mean more control over shifts, better notice of working patterns or a manager who understands personal commitments. For a leader, it could mean knowing when teams need to come together and when they can work independently, and for managers, it often means making fair decisions in real-life situations.
Good communication makes these differences visible. That might involve showing real examples of flexibility across different roles, creating manager guides that help leaders explain decisions or launching an internal communications campaign that reinforces flexibility is about trust, fairness and performance, not just working from home.
Where strategic communication makes the difference
We help communications teams define the conversation about working flexibly from the start. We identify what people need to hear, where the sensitive points are and how to turn policy detail into honest, practical messages people understand and trust.
That can mean:
- Developing a core narrative for a new flexible working approach
- Creating leader and manager messaging guides for difficult conversations
- Explaining the “why” to employees, not just the policy
- Creating role-specific communication so flexibility feels relevant across the workforce
- Shaping employee voice activity so people feel listened to before decisions are made
- Turning complex HR language into clear, practical messages that people recognise
The opportunity for organisations right now isn’t to keep debating whether flexibility should exist, but to have a better conversation about how it works.
Need help communicating flexible working?
If you are reviewing flexible working or struggling to build trust around your approach, we can help turn policy into a conversation people understand.
As strategic people and culture communications experts, we work with organisations to develop the narrative, manager communication and employee campaigns that explain why decisions are being made, what they mean in practice and how flexibility can work across different roles.
Get in touch to discuss how we could support your approach to flexible working.