Don't Pass Confusion Downhill

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

George Bernard Shaw

You get a message from your director / VP. It's vague, filled with org-speak, and short on context. You're already behind schedule. So, you relay it to your team as-is, quickly, matter-of-factly.

And then you watch the confusion multiply.

That's not a communication breakdown. That's a poor leadership decision.

You Are the Translation Layer

Frontline leaders aren't just information messengers. They're also translators.

Organizational decisions get made at levels where the daily work looks alot different from the way life is on the floor. By the time a directive travels from senior leadership to your team, it's usually compressed, jargon-heavy, and short on context. Your job isn't to forward it intact. Your job is to make it usable.

Karl Weick's foundational work on sensemaking (Sensemaking in Organizations, 1995) explains why this matters structurally. People don't receive new  information and process it directly and well.  They interpret it through their existing knowledge. When that interpretation is shaky, behavior becomes inconsistent. A team that receives a confusing message doesn't usually ask for clarification. They guess and they fill in blanks, then guesses compound.

Dennis Gioia and Kumar Chittipeddi's research on sense-giving (Strategic Management Journal, 1991) tells us even more. They point out that frontline supervisors are not just making sense of information for themselves, their presentation shapes how their team interprets it. That provides a structural influence over how work actually happens, whether you choose to exercise it deliberately or not.

A Moment from the Field

While working at Ft. Rucker as the intermediary between the government contractors and the military aviation assets I was consistently placed in a position to deliver bad news. I joked that they paid me to say “no” and referee arguments. I recall an event in which the neighbor of a high-ranking officer made a comment at a personal function that “the maintainers are taking part off static displays to fix working helicopters.” Anyone that works in the aviation maintenance world knows that this would be shear lunacy.

The officer spoke to other high-ranking folks and presented the information as truth, not coming from a backyard BBQ, and the word came from my command that we would physically check every serial numbered part on the 2 static displays and all flying helicopters. Angry and frustrated, I briefed my team, telling them what had been said (again as if it were factual) and what we would do to fix it. 

My team was beside themselves and as they complained I told them what our directions were and why, and to just go do it. Two days later, we confirmed that the acquisition was false, maintenance was done by the book, and we went on about our lives. That afternoon, my team called me in and asked directly why the command accused them of endangering others by allowing such a crazy idea to occur. That is when it hit me…I had just regurgitated messages, and in doing so, radically offended some very experienced professionals. It was not a communication issue; it was poor leadership on my part that hurt the integrity of my team.

Diagnose Before You Pass It On

Before your next team briefing, ask three questions on any info you plan to relay.

Plain language test: Can you explain it without using the same words it came in? If not, you don't have it yet.

The "why" test: If someone asks you why, do you have an honest answer? "I don't know yet, or I don't have the full picture yet" counts, but "Because they said so or that’s what I was told" doesn't.

Conflict check: Does this message create competing priorities for your team? If you can spot the friction point before the briefing, you can address it before it becomes an execution problem.

The goal isn't to filter every message through your own interpretation. It's to close the gaps before they reach people who have no way to close them from where they sit, and who’s uncertain actions can negatively impact outcomes.

Honest Beats Confident

When you don't fully understand information or directions, the impulse is to project confidence anyway. To avoid looking uninformed and to project certainty you don't have.

That impulse is understandable, but it's also one of the fastest ways to lose credibility.

Your team reads the gap between what you're saying and what you know. When they catch the mismatch, that erodes is trust in you as the leader.

The fix is simpler than it feels in the moment. Just tell them what you know. Tell them what you don't have yet. Tell them how you're going to get them the rest. That transparency isn't weakness. It's credibility built in real time.

Vulnerability with your team doesn't require you to have all the answers all the time. However, it requires you to be honest about which ones you're still working on.

Weekly Leadership Challenge

Before your next team briefing, review every message you plan to pass down. Note anything that felt unclear when you received it and ask yourself: have you resolved the confusion, or are you about to pass it on intact?

If you find something unresolved, make the call or send the message before that briefing. Ask the clarifying question up the chain. Your team can't do that from where they sit. It is your job.

You can't translate what you haven't decoded yourself.

What message have you received recently that you passed on without fully understanding it?

What would it have taken to stop and ask the question first?

What does your team experience when you're honest about what you don't know yet?

Lace up your Boots and Go Lead

You've Got This.

Suggested Reading

Weick, Karl E. Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage Publications, 1995. The foundational text on how people construct meaning from ambiguous organizational information, and why inconsistent interpretation follows unclear direction.

Gioia, Dennis A., and Kumar Chittipeddi. "Sensemaking and Sensegiving in Strategic Change Initiation." Strategic Management Journal, vol. 12, no. 6, 1991, pp. 433-448. Essential reading on how leaders actively shape the way their teams interpret organizational direction.

Edmondson, Amy C. The Fearless Organization. Wiley, 2018. Relevant for understanding why teams absorb confusion rather than surface it, and what conditions change that dynamic. Great book with great examples of where leadership failed due to lack of psychological safety.

Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Harvard Business Review Press, 1996. Chapter 5 on communicating vision applies directly to the work of translating organizational direction into language your team can use.