1. Put ‘why bother?’ to bed

Let’s start with the big question: why even bother? Communication is an essential part of your leadership toolkit. Without it, you don’t set direction, people don’t understand the strategy, and your team doesn’t feel connected to you as their leader. Don’t believe me? Read How Great Leaders Communicate — HBR.

2. Build the Routine

So, let’s have a look at the practical steps you can take to enshrine communication into your leadership cadence.

The first is to understand your personal leadership brand. This about how you want to lead-what kind of leader you aspire to be, and your communication should reflect that.

Are you a visionary? Or an empath, always approachable and focused on connection? The decisive one, cutting through with clarity and confidence? Or perhaps a collaborator, elevating your team’s voices alongside your own?

Your tone, values, and style are what make your leadership distinctive and memorable. And that can only come from you-because you’re the leader, and that’s what you’re paid the big bucks for.

The second is to define the media (plural) best suited for your communication — a mix of digital and in person, formal & informal. This has to be shaped by what your people respond to best. In this day and age, they’re unlikely to want to wade through a long, dense email update. In digital, think in posts. Video is becoming much more accessible, easy to consume, and especially mobile-friendly. You don’t need to say everything in one go. Same goes for in person — you build fullness by aggregation and repetition.

I know it’s tedious for some of us who are obsessed with detail, but short and snappy is the way forward. All you have to do is look at your kids’ attention spans on platforms like TikTok or YouTube Shorts to see the direction things are heading.

Third, you need to decide the frequency with which you’ll communicate. There’s lots in the HBR article about over-communicating — I’m a fan . Professor John Kotter found that most leaders under-communicate their vision by a factor of 10. Yup, A FACTOR OF TEN! The corollary is that it’s hard to maintain. It’s important that your communication is consistent and sustainable. This isn’t like a failed gym habit that lasts four sessions while the expensive annual subscription goes unused for the rest of the year.

3. Be Authentic, Not Perfect

I think one of the biggest risks with artificial intelligence and generative AI is that it can strip away authenticity, replacing it with an impression of artificial polish, couched in obvious buzzwords. The fact is, we’re all human, we’re not perfect, and it’s our quirks that make us who we are.

I often notice that leaders let the desire for perfection get in the way of actually communicating. Nothing feels good enough, and that almost becomes an excuse to keep quiet. But that serves no one well. The best thing you can do is actually start. It might be a little rough around the edges at first, but you’ll get better over time-and maintaining a consistent cadence is far more important than trying to perfect every single message.

That’s why you need to communicate in a way that feels natural and authentic to you . If you’re not the classic showman who loves the jazz hands on video, don’t force it-choose a different medium. It could be short, snappy text updates, a picture with a caption, or even a quick text or even voice note. The truth is, there are many ways and media to communicate, and you should play to your strengths.

4. Use the tools wisely

As I touched upon earlier, I would counsel a little caution around the overuse of generative AI. It can be helpful to use AI to structure your thoughts or produce a first draft. And of course, you can lean on real human colleagues to help with this as well. But the final version has to have your own stamp on it. Only you can ensure it communicates in your voice and tone, and with your quirks.

Tools like Teams and Slack have become staples in the work environment and their smooth operation. But in-person communication plays a vital role at all levels-whether it’s mass town halls, team meetings, or even one-to-ones.

Don’t rely on digital delivery as your sole method of communication. It’s through a rich tapestry of media, registers of formality, and group sizes, that your communication-and your message-really starts to stick.

And don’t get me started on Powerpoint slides. I’ll spare you that for another edition…

5. Find a Sparring Partner

Enlist a trusted advisor to hold you accountable. This could be your assistant, a chief of staff, or someone else-it doesn’t really matter who, as long as it’s someone you trust. If this is important, you want someone around you who’s going to keep you honest.

If you’re stuck, this person can coach you by interviewing you. They can ask you the right questions to prompt your thoughts, which helps clarify what you want to say. Don’t forget to turn on voice dictation on your computer or notetaker while you’re speaking-this way, whatever you say is captured and can easily form the basis of your draft. It’s a simple but highly effective way to get words down.

6. Sustain the Habit With Feedback

As you’ll have heard me say many times before, communication isn’t just about broadcasting or speaking-it’s as much, if not more, about listening. You have to create a two-way dialogue where you gather opinions and views from your team and colleagues, gauge the temperature of what they’re feeling, and react to it.

The same applies to your communication rhythm. Ask for feedback on how it’s working for them. Are they finding your messages clear, relevant, and helpful?

A couple of examples: schedule regular Q&A or ‘ask me anything’ sessions to open up a direct line of dialogue. Or try quick, one-question interactive surveys-simple but effective ways to take the pulse of your team. Just a word here: be transparent about the results. Share what you’ve heard and show people how their feedback influences how you operate. Transparency is key-it reinforces trust and demonstrates the real impact and influence your team can have.

7. Make it stick

There are plenty of books about the importance of habits. Here are some: Atomic Habits by James Clear, Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard.

The stand-out point in Brendon Burchard’s book is prioritisation. For communication to become a habit, you have to make it important to you. What use is a mission statement at the bottom of a drawer? If you’re doing something worthwhile, stand up for it. Every day.

As with any habit, your leadership communication habit, once formed, can become a real bedrock for you.

The beauty of the leadership communication habit is that it should persist and prevail no matter what’s going on in your business. Your organisation will constantly be working on different things, tackling challenges, and celebrating successes, which means there will always be something to talk about. Tough times, good times-it all belongs in your communication cadence.

And just like breaking through that initial month at the gym to make the habit stick, you’ll find that once you’ve got it, you’ll want to communicate every week. When you stop, you’ll notice the gap-and so will your people. But you don’t have to have been brought up in a newsroom to be a senior leader who communicates effectively.

I wish you luck with your communication journey. I’m always keen to hear what works-or doesn’t-for you, and I’m sure other readers will be too. So, put your thoughts in the comments below. And of course, if you do need any help, you know who to ask.