“If you’re not using your voice, the question is—why?” – Rachel Leigh
Brief Summary/Overview:
Communication goes far beyond the words you speak.
Tone, timing, and how your message lands with others can either strengthen or weaken your impact as a leader. In this episode of The Leadership RaDar, we break down the art (and science) of clean communication, why assumptions are killing your leadership credibility, and how to develop the confidence to say what needs to be said without sugar coating or steamrolling.
We talk about body language (yes, even on Zoom), listening without jumping in, and the importance of using “I” statements to avoid triggering defense mode in others. Plus, we explore what it means to truly “find your voice” as a leader—and how to get out of your own way if fear is keeping you silent.
If you’re ready to ditch the confusion, own your energy, and communicate like the leader your team actually wants to follow—this one’s for you.
Take 5:
- Clean Communication – Stop muddying your message with emotions and judgments
- Body Language Truth – What you’re really saying without opening your mouth
- Finding Your Voice – Why you’re not speaking up (and how to start)
- Message vs. Reception – Why they never hear what you think you said
- Safety Through Clarity – How direct communication builds trust, not fear
Timestamps:
- 0:00 – Welcome + what this episode is all about
- 2:10 – Dad jokes and tone-setting
- 4:55 – Why communication is one of the hardest leadership skills
- 6:30 – Clean communication: facts > assumptions
- 11:05 – Energy, tone, and “you made me feel…”
- 14:40 – How assumptions damage communication
- 18:20 – “Break up with yourself” and rewrite your internal habits
- 23:10 – Body language: what you’re missing if you’re not watching
- 27:00 – Leadership is coaching: asking instead of telling
- 31:30 – Spotting shifts: calling out energy in the moment
- 35:50 – Practicing observation and attuned listening
- 39:40 – Finding (and using) your voice
- 45:10 – Why leaders struggle to speak up or push back
- 51:00 – Delegation clarity: “What do you understand this to mean?”
- 55:30 – Message vs. reception and how confusion drains productivity
- 1:00:05 – Closing thoughts + the invitation to join the Accelerator
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Transcript:
Rachel
We’re in a really good mood today, everyone. All right. Welcome everyone to The Leadership RaDar. I’m Rachel Leigh, COO and executive coach. And we have Darren Kanthal, our founder. We’re back here talking about something that’s very important right now—leadership. Especially with new and emerging leaders, because we know that there is a substantial gap in the industry, specifically with industries in STEM and financial institutions.
And we are here to solve that problem for some companies and individuals. So before we get started, I want everybody to know about our Leadership Accelerator Program. It’s six months, specifically designed for new leaders. Think managers, directors, senior directors. This could even include founders that are now moving from operator and contributor to leader to grow their business.
And this program is specifically designed to teach you the foundational skills as a leader. Number one—that starts with you, and then building everything around it. These are the skills, philosophies, styles, and information we’ve gathered from executive leaders over the course of however many years.
And we’re bringing them down to you to distill them and make them easy and implementable. It’s everything that executives say they wish they would have known 10 years earlier in their career. So if it’s you, if it’s your company, if you know somebody—please share this episode with them. Especially this one, which is communication. If you’re like anybody else walking this earth, communication is one of the most difficult skills. And yes, it’s a skill to master.
So we’re going to break it all down here, leave you with very tangible, actionable items that you can use in your leadership journey. And then not next week, but two weeks from now, we’ll be back talking about—what are we talking about next week? We’ll get back to you on that one. I’ll let you know.
Darren
The journey.
Rachel
This whole month is dedicated to breaking down the Leadership Accelerator Program, giving you a sneak peek into what we’re going to be doing with you as a participant in our program. So before we dive in—Darren, joke.
Darren
I think this one’s better. What did one hat say to the other on a coat rack?
Darren
You hang here, I’m gonna go on ahead.
Rachel
That’s pretty good. Appropriate.
Darren
Trying. I told the joke the other day at my board meeting and this other dude, Carter—Carter, what’s up if you’re watching—he had two jokes, so next week or two weeks from now will be his other joke.
Rachel
Ooh, and I haven’t heard these. These are new to me too, so. I like that one.
Darren
I know, you can’t know them beforehand.
Rachel
I know, I know. It’s always a surprise, which usually works out in our favor.
All right. Let’s talk about communication. This is interesting because Darren and I just this morning, as we’re getting ready for this live, were talking about how we even have miscommunication. Like, what did you mean by this email? You didn’t give me any context. Why were you—I’m using your tone, your New York tone—why are you assuming that I wanted you to do something? Because communication is very difficult.
There’s a multitude of platforms and ways that you can deliver communication. So it’s not just singular, it’s multifaceted. So why don’t you take it, lead us in, and then we’ll start to dive into the five, the five bogies that we can watch for.
Darren
Yeah, I mean, this is a broad topic, isn’t it? There’s tone, there’s cadence, there’s the words we use. There’s the saying that I think many of us know, which is, “It’s not what I say, but how I say it.” You have a great saying, which is, “There’s what I say and what I mean. There’s what you hear and what you make it mean.” And I think that saying has a lot of weight—or carries a lot of weight—for what I see in today’s world. Mostly when I say today’s world…
Rachel
Mm-hmm.
Darren
I’m speaking mostly through the eyes of our clients. You and I are classic examples in terms of different communication styles. I get excited, I raise my voice. We had an episode in our house the other day where I raised my voice. I didn’t even know I raised my voice. I wasn’t upset or angry—it was more in jest—and it upset our household. In my house growing up, that was like nothing.
You know, it wouldn’t even have been on anybody’s radar or any bogey. So communication is very broad. We’re building upon in our program, the Leadership Accelerator, upon first knowing who you are as a leader through values. The next step in everything is about self-awareness—knowing triggers, knowing automatic triggers, knowing default emotions. I default to anger, irritation, impatience.
And when I communicate from those places, it’s usually pointed, pursed lips. Usually curse a lot. So that’s a communication style. But the last thing I’ll say at this point is, our good friend Ben Baker has this saying—it’s not his, but he always shows it to me. And I forgot whose quote it is, but it’s something like, “The biggest folly about communication is to think it even happened.”
Rachel
That’s great.
Darren
Which is kind of what we were talking about before we pressed record here today.
Rachel
You know, one of the things that you didn’t touch on—which we’re going to touch on—is body language. As coaches, well, we’ll get into that later, but body language is huge and it’s very nuanced. But it will tell you a lot about how the conversation is going and how the individual is receiving the information. I think that it is like next-level leadership if you can really grab that and…
Darren
Mm-hmm.
Rachel
…work with it and address it immediately. It’s like ninja leadership. So let’s talk about clean communication. I’m not sure that that’s necessarily your word, but it’s what I talk about. And you do too. I think you just use different language. But clean communication means that you’re focusing on the facts.
So let’s talk about clean communication. I’m not sure that that’s necessarily your word, but it’s what I talk about. And you do too. I think you just use different language. But clean communication means that you’re focusing on the facts—not your thoughts, your feelings, or your judgments about the person’s character or the person across from you. Maybe even their character.
I think this is really important as a leader—to be able to deliver constructive, candid, direct, useful information that is grounded in facts. And then all of your stuff that’s happening is your responsibility to take care of as a leader. It’s your responsibility to understand the emotions that are coming up for you. It’s your responsibility to be aware of the thoughts you have about that person.
It’s your responsibility—mandatory, I would say as a good leader—to deliver the information and watch your body language, watch your tone, watch your cadence as you’ve spoken about, and your energy. Because the energy is like—right? The energy is people are picking up on something, and they have no idea what it is, but your energy can make or break a conversation.
You call me out all the time. I will be saying nothing, just going about doing my thing, and you’ll be like, “Hold on. What is going on?” And I’ll be like, “Yeah, okay.” Right? Because I was just in my head processing, but you felt my energy and you recognized something was off.
How do you work or speak to—or coach to—clean communication?
Darren
All right, so very tangibly—there’s a lot of I-statements. A lot of leaders I’ve encountered—when I was an employee of the corporation and certainly plenty of clients now—will talk about “you.” You did this. You didn’t do that. You spoke to me in this way. You always do this thing.
And what happens when we speak about “you” is we typically put you on the defensive. And what typically happens when you get defensive is—we’re not debating about the material issue or the challenge anymore. We’re now debating the approach, my attack on you, etc.
So one thing is I. “I asked it to be done by this date. It is not.” To your point, that’s a fact. Right? Clean communication is factual.
But it’s I-statements. “I experienced this. I felt that.” And it’s not, “I felt this because you did this other thing,” or “you made me feel this thing.” The I-statement is about a personal experience. So that’s a big piece of things too, from the factual standpoint.
And I’m going to be a little bit wandering here, and hopefully I’ll make sense—keep me honest. I was talking to a client yesterday who has a belief or assumption that her team is lazy. Exact words. Well, the exact word was “lazy.” “They’re lazy,” whatever it was.
Part of that assumption is they’re not bought in. That they don’t want to do enough work. They don’t want to complete the assignment or the project or the initiative within the timeframe that this leader had given. When I asked how she holds them accountable, there was a little bit of a blank stare.
So one was: you set the deadline. You expect it to be done. There was an assumption they’re lazy and not going to do it. They didn’t do it. And then what? “You could just do it next week.”
So there really was no circling back.
In clean communication, it’s: “There is a deadline to have this thing done by Friday.” “On Wednesday, please provide an update.” And dates are important.
Part of clean communication is day and date—or just the date. Sometimes we say “Thursday.” Well, which Thursday? Sometimes we say “next Thursday”—well, if today is Tuesday, “next Thursday” is in two days. Did you mean Thursday coming up, or the Thursday next week? So that gets confusing.
And I told you I was going to wander a little bit.
Time zones are important, right? We’re in Mountain Time. I talked to someone today who’s in Germany, and I don’t even know—is that UST or UCT? I don’t even know what the heck that is. I had a client yesterday—or two days ago—say, “Can you speak at 3 o’clock?” Which time zone?
So—being clear. Clean. Facts.
Coming back to my story with my client about the lazy employees—the deadline is Friday. On Wednesday, please provide an update. In the update: What are you experiencing? Is there any risk or issue of you not meeting this deadline? If there is a risk or issue, what are you going to do to mitigate it?
So—being as clear as possible. I-statements. Using facts. Using specific details.
Rachel
Something you said was assumptions. And bottom line—assumptions are not facts.So right there, you are not practicing clean communication. You are practicing dirty communication. It’s dirty with assumptions.
Assumptions never work out in somebody’s favor. Well—I shouldn’t say never. Rarely.
So this is where I say it to my clients: you need to be on to yourself, which requires a great deal of self-awareness, self-reflection, honesty with yourself, and the ability to pivot, shift.
Adopt a new model. I always say: break the habit of being yourself so you can learn a new habit of a new self.
So if you’re a leader who operates on assumptions—you need to break that habit and learn to operate on facts. Not feelings. Not thoughts. Not judgments.
That’s your responsibility. Clean communication. Clean leadership.
Darren
I want to comment on that. Sorry—did I cut you off? I just want to mention the “break up with yourself” because you know that landed for me.
Without going through Rachel, mine, or my whole history—she was my nutritionist back in 2016. And around that time, I learned I had some dietary issues—gluten and dairy.
During that time, like, it had to be at least once a quarter, I would order from Domino’s or Pizza Hut—whichever one had the sale.
Rachel
Any? No—is there anything else on that?
Darren
A full pizza, whatever dessert they gave me, and breadsticks. And I would eat almost the whole damn thing. Then I would complain about my GI. I’d say, “I don’t feel good,” and all the stuff that I obviously created for myself by eating stuff that I knew would affect me.
And you spoke to me in a rather stern way—which works for me. Communication. Know your audience, right? I do well when people curse at me and are very direct with me.
And you just said, “You need to break up with yourself. I was like, “What do you mean?” And you’re like, “You need to break up with the self that says it’s okay to eat those foods, or in that quantity, or whatever it was that you said.” And it totally worked. Totally worked.
Rachel
Yeah. Break up with it, divorce it—whatever language you need that tells yourself you are no longer participating in that relationship.
That is a sign of a good leader though. When you’re willing to look at yourself—and some leaders are not. And look, I’m not exempt. I’m not perfect. I’ve led my team within my business for years, and I’ve practiced all different types of leadership until I found my place.
Now, could I have gotten there faster had I done a program like ours—like the Accelerator? Of course. But it’s so focused on driving the business.
So when we talk about being a clean leader, having clean communication, operating in a certain way—it’s not from judgment. Nobody comes out of the womb raising their hand as a little baby saying, “I’m going to be a leader, and I know exactly how to do it,” right? This is something that takes time and the ability to practice over and over and over—and, as you say, run experiments until you figure out your own style.
But if you have the good foundation—like what we’re going to teach you—it just makes it so much easier.
Anything else on clean communication?
Okay, let’s talk about body language. As coaches, we are taught to watch body language—how to become aware of more than the words being said. So, subtle shifts in people, tone changes, movement, eyes directing somewhere else—watch.
That shift is like an opening, I believe. Very specifically, one of my clients a couple of months ago said, “I have an employee. I was giving her feedback, and I physically saw her shift—her words—I watched it happen.” And I said, “Did you ask what was going on for her?”
She said, “No, I didn’t. I let it go.”
And what happens is—that’s a missed opportunity to go a layer deeper. Like, what’s really going on? Because then her employee gave her lip service: “Everything’s fine. Nothing’s wrong. Okay, I hear what you’re saying. I’ll correct it.” Lip service, lip service, lip service.
But really, this client knew—this leader knew—something was wrong, and it festered between both of them.
Darren
It’s a system.
Rachel
And it actually didn’t end up well. Hate to say it. We don’t know what would’ve happened if she had addressed it right in the moment—we can’t predict that. But in this particular situation, it festered to the point where it was irreparable. And most likely because it had been happening over and over and over again.
It’s not a one-time event.
What about you? What do you look for with body language—or what do you address or coach to?
Darren
I’m going to answer that question—and another one too about leading as a coach, asking questions.
I notice—we do a lot of work virtually, so body language is more from the chest up. It’s more facial expressions. A look away. A smile based on a comment that was made. A look down. Seemingly fidgeting with something. Change of breath.
Any sort of movement, really. I mean, yes, any sort of movement within some sort of reasonability.
The thing I find interesting about what we do is—we were trained to look for those things. And when we see them—not that we do it every time—but sometimes, we ask questions about it.
Interestingly enough, I had a coach a couple of years ago that if I gave an answer like your example—“I’m fine. Everything’s fine”—he would say to me, “I don’t believe you.” And I used to hate that f*cking question, but it was so effective.
So coming to the leader—as a coach—this is one of the, I don’t know… It’s not fair to say the biggest evolution in leadership that I’ve seen, although I think it’s close. In the sense that a lot of leaders, from the most senior ranks all the way down, have this belief that they need to know all of the answers. It’s not okay to say, “I don’t know.” And to some extent, it’s not even okay to say, “I need help.”
But that’s a little bit of an outsider point.
Leading as a coach is asking questions, right? An employee comes to you and says, “Hey boss, how do I solve this?” And a lot of us love to solve problems. “Here’s what you should do.” “I have all of the experience.” “I’ve been doing it for a thousand years.” “This is exactly what you do.”
The better leaders say, “Well, Rachel, how would you like to approach this problem?” “How would you solve it?” “Let’s talk it through.”
The other part of this, which is pretty fun for us as coaches—and for you leaders watching—this is a little more pro-tip-ish in my opinion. In the example you gave where she watched it happen, right? Number one is to call it out: “I just noticed this shift. What’s going on?”
So that’s number one—calling out the things we see. “Your tone changed.” “Your eyes changed.” “I just watched a shift in you.” Whatever it is—call it out.
Darren
Not like you’re making fun of them. Not like you’re screaming at the top of your lungs. You’re just identifying or acknowledging that you saw the shift.
Now, let’s be honest—most people know something happened with them. So—you know, and they know, and they know that you know.
The second part of it, specifically to your example—if they say, “There’s nothing wrong,” I think it’s perfectly okay—and in fact, I’d even encourage people—to say, “Are you sure?” And even say the words, “I don’t believe you.”
Now, I don’t think you can ask that a million times or say that a million times—but I think you can say it at least once. And I don’t know a lot of leaders that do it.
Rachel
I think tying it to body language—you could take it a layer deeper: “Are you okay?” “Yeah, everything’s fine.” “Okay, well, I’m not really believing that because I noticed this, this, and this,” right?
So you’re showing the person you’re leading—your direct report, whoever—that as a leader, you are more aware than just the words being said.
Darren
Yes.
Rachel
You’re in tune. You’re observant. You’re not afraid to address physical shifts. You don’t shy away from it. You’re showing that everything’s an opportunity.
Here’s where I think mastering that can be very beneficial outside of leadership: if you are a leader that works with clients and also leads a team, you can now teach this to your team to then recognize it within your clients. So it starts to ripple out.
Beyond just your immediate leadership and team dynamic, you can now use this when watching clients. Like, “I was talking to my client about moving their money from here to here, and I noticed they stiffened up a little bit and leaned back and crossed their arms.”
That is such a good way to look at your client and say, “Oh, hold on—I’m sensing something’s not right here. What’s going on?” “What questions do you have?” “What is this feeling like for you?”
This becomes greater than just your leadership abilities within your microcosm of your team. It has major impact outside—with your client base, potentially your sales—and 100% within your nuclear family unit, right?
Because like you said, “I’m noticing something in you. What’s going on?” “I can see it.”
It’s an opportunity to address what’s going on and make communication—not taboo—but less uncomfortable. Because I think some people think it’s uncomfortable to ask. “It’s not my business.” “I don’t want to pry.” “I can’t ask that.”
We know, very closely, an individual who teaches people that you don’t ask. You don’t ask questions.
Darren
Thanks.
Rachel
And body language is personal, so you definitely do not ask personal questions. Missed opportunity, in my mind.
Darren
Yeah, when I was saying “call it out,” that’s what you just described better than I did—it’s identifying the shift that we’ve seen.
And when you said “client”—some companies have “customers”—same thing, right? You could be in a meeting with a number of clients and/or customers and your direct reports, and watching the dynamic of nonverbal communication among everybody.
Rachel
I think it would be so fun for anybody listening—this week—if they just started to become observers. Don’t do anything with it, okay? Just start observing people’s body language, facial shifts. Just become a watcher—almost stalker-ish—and start writing things down.
See what you observe. See what you notice.
And you will see that communication—the words—are a small percent of what is actually happening in communication. You will start to become more in tune.
It’s fascinating. It’s absolutely fascinating. So I actually challenge everybody who watches this to run that experiment. See what happens. See what comes up for you. And then start to apply it—should you choose.
Darren
You know, we haven’t said it yet, and what I think also goes really nicely with this experiment—because I do this as well—is listening.
For a lot of the A-type personalities, a lot of people who are a D on the DISC—we like to talk. And we like to talk first. And we want to be heard.
For those people—my clients who fall into that category, almost all of them—I ask at some point to run an experiment, which is: you talk last the next time you’re in a meeting.
You talk last.
As a tip, I say: sit on your hands. For whatever reason, it works. I used this on myself many years ago. Literally sit on your hands until it’s your turn to talk.
It’s almost like a talking stick in a way.
But when you’re not talking, you can observe more. And to your point—it’s watching the nonverbal communication. I even like listening for people’s tone of voice.
Some people have a distinct uptick at the end of every sentence—or a down tick.
Some people say “um” a lot.
Some people say “like” a lot.
Noticing those things is also attuned communication. Attuned listening.
Rachel
Yeah, there’s a lot going on in communication, and you may not master all of it. Start to practice with the different ones. Because if you only know the auditory side of communication—like the talking, talking, talking—if you only know that, how do you know that you’re not really good at watching body language, or being a listener so you can formulate curious questions, or picking up on energy, right?
You don’t even know. You don’t know what you don’t know. And so, you could be really, really good in one of these other communication pathways, and you just haven’t practiced with it enough.
Listening is another one. Like, that’s a whole communication method on its own. Communication—honest to God—could be six months alone, I think.
So take all of these, practice, pick what works for you. Try them all out and see what you come up with. Then, you have to speak it—or you have to learn how to communicate what you’ve found.
Okay, so you’re doing these communication pathways. You’re learning how to recognize your emotional involvement, your judgments, your thoughts—being aware of what needs to shift. Now you have to send it out into the world, or within your team or your organization.
We call it finding your voice—which is so interesting because we all have a voice. It’s more like using your voice, I guess, would be better.
In my personal experience—and you know this because we’ve been together a long time—I was taught that you don’t use your voice. Using your voice is scary. It’s dangerous. There’s going to be retaliation. It’s just not what we do. It’s not nice. You should be nice. So rather than speak up and communicate, we’re just going to ignore, buffer, or avoid.
I had to learn through trial and error, many different ways to communicate what I needed, what I wanted, what I was thinking. I had to practice in different circumstances until I figured out what worked for me.
Trial and error—especially if you’re really good at using your voice, you have no problem talking to anybody about anything. I’m not that way. I’m more the listener. So I had to learn that in a leadership role, I had to figure out how to speak clearly, use my voice, communicate clearly.
I didn’t say that very succinctly, so I’m going to turn that one over to you. I just don’t feel very connected with this one, to be honest with you. What does that tell you right there? I don’t want to use my voice to talk about finding my voice. I know. But Jesus, okay, take it.
Darren
Tangibly, for the linear thinker—communication at its core, at least at work—is: How do we communicate up? How do we delegate down? And how do we collaborate sideways?
Part of that is: How do we share a dissenting thought? How do we disagree? How do we debate? How do we say no? How do we say, “I don’t like that idea”?
That’s part of finding our voice—using our voice.
Now, a lot of people say, “Well, I don’t want to hurt Rachel’s feelings.” Telling someone no or saying you disagree is a perfectly logical, reasonable thing to say when you don’t agree.
Now, if Rachel’s feelings get hurt because I disagreed, then the first thing to look at is: How did I communicate it? If I was mean, curt, testy, pointed, if I raised my voice—then surely I influenced, to a greater degree, how she feels.
As a sidebar—Rachel and I feel very strongly that nobody makes you feel a certain way. You choose the way you feel. Yes, I might influence it, but you feel the way you feel.
That being said, a lot of leaders of all sizes don’t do a great job of using their voice to say, “You know boss, I don’t think this is a great idea.”
A lot of leaders don’t say, “You know what, direct report—I need you to do this thing. And even though I know you’ve got a busy plate, I need it in two hours.” That’s using your voice.
All too often, what we hear is, “My team is too busy. I don’t want them to think I’m giving them the shit work. I want my team to know that I’ll do anything I ask them to do.” Which is great in theory—until you, the leader, your plate is overflowing with a whole heaping of mashed potatoes because you didn’t want to share it with anybody or ask them to do stuff.
And the same goes up. Every senior leader I speak to is craving constructive criticism on where they can improve. They can’t get it because lower-level employees—or lower-level leaders—think they’ll get reprimanded. There’s going to be some sort of retaliation if they say, “You know what, Rachel, you’re my boss, and I don’t like this idea.”
So using your voice is being able to be mindful of your emotional state. It’s recognizing tone, cadence, timbre—the very words. It’s having some guide or how-tos—we call them talk tracks.
Talk tracks are plentiful. Everyone’s got their own.
“I’m curious to know…”
“I wonder if…”
“Have you thought about…”
“Hey, I’ve got a different opinion. Can I share it?”
These are all talk tracks—tactical, strategic things anyone can use.
A lot of times when I’m coaching my clients, they don’t know what to say in the moment—so they decide to say nothing. So what they’re using is silence—but not to their benefit. It’s to their detriment. They’re choosing not to speak up.
Rachel
I should’ve just let you lead with that because…
Darren
You—
Rachel
Everything I just said prior to what you said—we could just cut that out of this whole LinkedIn Live.
Darren
This was a big part of my own growth, right? I was described as enthusiastic and compassionate—and that was a nice way of saying I was an asshole.
My word. No one ever called me an asshole. Well, maybe they did. And I call it “my New York.” Anyone who has a stereotypical opinion about a New Yorker—I fall into a lot of them.
Rachel
Yeah. And yours is that—your growth and my growth are very different.
My growth was actually speaking up. So when I was writing these notes, the ultimate ending of that “finding your voice” for me was—if you’re not using your voice, the question is: why?
Because you can—this is true with everything. If you don’t understand the root cause, then you’re just putting Band-Aids on symptoms.
And I’m not saying those Band-Aids won’t stop some of the bleeding—there are definitely tools you can use. But the tools will only take you so far if you don’t address the root cause.
In my world, it was more fear of speaking up. Fear of retaliation. Trying to budge in. I worked in an all-male industry for years, just trying to be heard. And after a while, I just gave up.
I had to understand where that was coming from and why I was doing it—and then choose the discomfort of breaking that habit versus the discomfort of not being heard.
Which then—you know—I had to overcompensate and fight my way through. And that’s not good either. It’s just a waste of energy. So there’s a reason why you do what you do. Figure it out. Get to the root.
Darren
Here’s a real-world scenario. This happened last week with a client of mine. She’s working on finding her voice—or really, using it. I like that terminology better.
She had just gotten back from vacation. There was some sort of employee relations issue. She walked in after the fact, playing a bit of catch-up. She had an inbox full of emails, initiatives that weren’t being worked on while she was gone—all the things.
The situation included the employment attorney of the firm. The attorney gave a direction that he thought was best. Now, my client said that in her gut—she didn’t agree. She didn’t think it was a good outcome. But she didn’t speak up.
She deferred to the title. “He’s the attorney, he must know best.” Even though she didn’t agree.
There was a time aspect too. It wasn’t her fight. She had a million things to do. She just wanted to cross it off her list. The feel-good of literally crossing it off. She was like, “Yeah, whatever.”
And then sure enough, when she told her boss, her boss was like, “Why did you do that? You knew that wasn’t the right decision.”
For a couple of weeks, she’s been beating herself up. She knew better and didn’t act better. What she kept saying in our last meeting—well, a couple times—was, “I need to be more aware of when this happens. How do I get more aware?”
And I said to her, “You are aware. You knew you disagreed.”
So the awareness wasn’t the issue. It was actually speaking up—amongst all the things going on, all the emotions. Whatever may have happened with mom and dad growing up that led you not to speak up. Getting to the root cause, like you like to say.
There’s a lot going on in that story—and that was a real one for her. Not using her voice.
Rachel
Yeah. And you said, don’t beat yourself up.
Spend whatever time you need to process it—but then learn from it and move on.
I don’t say that in a callous way—but make sure you’re not stuck in the feelings of having done the “wrong thing.” Like you said the other day—we have our little things we say to each other that land—and you said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
I was like, f*ck yes.
Darren
Yes!
Rachel
So now I’m always like—we didn’t work out with our outbound sales team that we’re severing ties with. And I know it’s very sensitive for you. But I’m like, “All right, let’s not let this go to waste. Let’s figure it out. Let’s move on. Let’s lick our wounds and get busy learning from it.”
So don’t get stuck. And we know someone who does this—gets stuck in the circumstance.
Get out. Move on. Take action.
So—we’re limited in time. I’m going to squish message versus reception and safety through clarity together, because they go hand in hand.
What I mean by this is: message versus reception—exactly what we said in the beginning. What I say and what it means to me, and then what you hear and what you make it mean. There’s always a chasm between the two. Always.
Unless you clarify what happened—what you heard, what the other person heard, what they made it mean—you’re having a one-way conversation. You think it’s a two-way conversation, but it’s not. Because you don’t have clarity.
As the receiver, when you don’t have clarity, you’ll be confused. You’ll feel uncertain. And when you’re left to your own device, living in uncertainty, you formulate hypotheses—which are almost always worse than the actual situation.
We catastrophize. It’s just our human brain.
And when we do that—especially as a leader—it wears your team out. That person will be worn down, stressed out, and wasting valuable energy trying to figure out what the hell you said instead of doing their job. You get little to no return on that communication.
Darren
Did you just put your pen down like you were dropping the mic?
There’s a lot of assumption that happens when we don’t bridge the chasm. We see it all the time.
Leader gives a direction. Direct report says, “Gotcha.” Goes and does the thing. It’s not on par with what the leader wanted. Leader gets annoyed—“I told you to do this thing.” Employee says, “Well, I thought you meant this other thing.”
No—root cause? There was no agreement of full understanding on both sides.
Rachel
And I would say, Darren—it’s more than just agreement. It’s a deeper understanding of, “Okay, what are you making that mean?” “How does that feel?” “What led you to interpret it that way?” There are more questions that can be asked.
Darren
Yeah. I’m talking about the time of delivery. Like, if I’m your boss and I say, “Rachel, go do this thing,” the missing piece is:
“Hey, to ensure we’re on the same page, what do you understand this direction to be?”
That’s not about feelings and reflection—that’s for after. Like a post-mortem.
But in the moment of delegation—most leaders don’t ask.
Rachel
Tell us more.
Darren
“Hey, to ensure we’re on the same page, what do you understand this direction to be?”
Another pro tip—we talked about tactics earlier. This is something to incorporate 100% when delegating.
Rachel
And this goes for verbal communication as well as email and text. You and I just talked about this this morning.
You were like, “I didn’t need you to respond to that email. I wasn’t saying we’re going to do this thing.”
I’m like, “Well, you didn’t give me any direction. You just sent me a link. How was I supposed to know?”
So this clarity—message and reception—applies to all forms of communication, however it’s happening.
Darren
Yes.
Rachel
Any parting words before I close this up?
Darren
You like to close it up, don’t you? Give us the parting words.
Rachel
What does that mean then? Is there more to “I like to close it up”?
Darren
Are you kidding? How much more clear could that have been?
Rachel
No, I’m being a smart ass. Just kidding.
Okay, so we’re gonna close it up. Like I said, the next three LinkedIn Lives—we’re going to continue to dive into the main foundational leadership teachings and coachings.
We like to say it’s tactical and transformative. Because leadership is internal. You can’t just check a box on a training module and call it done.
We’re going to go into each of the months we’ll be teaching inside the Accelerator program. So check back in two weeks, okay? I don’t know the date. You can help me with the date. Please help me with that one.
Hold on, I got it.
I don’t know either.
We’ll get back to you on that one.
Anyway—all I have to say: listen, if you’re an emerging leader, a newer leader, or a founder stepping into leadership and want to join our Accelerator—you’ve got to give us a call.
Or if you know someone who would benefit from this program—please share this.
If you’re responsible for leadership development within your team, organization, or company—and you don’t have the resources, energy, or desire to put your future leaders through a program like this—we can bring it in-house.
There are lots of different ways we can support you—individually or as an organization—and we highly encourage you to reach out to us or forward this to someone you think would benefit.
All right, everybody—we’ll see you next Tuesday-ish. Bye.
Darren
Bye.
