101 Leadership Landmines. Section Two: Communication Mistakes
Todd Cotton
Synopsis "101 Leadership Landmines. Section Two: Communication Mistakes"
Section Two: Communication Mistakes If leadership had a single fatal flaw that outranked all others, communication would win the vote. Not because the other mistakes do not matter. They do. But because nearly every other mistake on this list is either caused by poor communication, made worse by it, or impossible to recover from without fixing it first.
And yet, most leaders believe they are better communicators than they actually are. Studies on this are remarkably consistent. Leaders rate their communication skills highly. Their teams rate them significantly lower. Somebody is wrong, and it is rarely the team.
The gap is almost never about intelligence or vocabulary. It is about the habits leaders fall into once they reach a position of authority. They start talking more and listening less. They share information selectively, sometimes out of strategy and sometimes out of habit. They avoid the conversations that need to happen because those conversations are uncomfortable. They assume that because they said something, it was heard. They assume because it was heard, it was understood. They assume because it was understood, it was believed. Every one of those assumptions is a trap.
The ten mistakes in this chapter cover the full spectrum, from the leader who dominates every meeting to the one who goes quiet when the team needs to hear from them most. From the one who weaponizes fear to the one who buries their team in updates that have nothing to do with the actual work.
Communication is not just what you say. It is what you do not say. It is when you speak, when you stay silent, and whether the people around you feel safe enough to tell you the truth.