Tell Your Team How To Communicate With You

Every week, someone asks me the same question in a different font.

“How do I bring this up to my manager?”
“What’s the best way to say this without messing it up?”
“How do I communicate this so it lands right?”

It’s almost always rooted in good intentions. They care about their work, they are hungry to grow, and they don’t want to fumble the bag by saying the right thing the wrong way.

This week, it was a woman preparing for her first meeting with her new manager.

She was ambitious, good at her job and unmistakably clear that she wanted to explore an adjacent role in the company. And instead of asking whether she should say something, she was asking how to say it.

I told her not to make “I want to be promoted” her opening line.

Instead, I suggested she ask what her manager looks for in that role. The skills. The traits. The gaps someone would need to close in order to be considered when the opportunity opens up. It was solid advice.

But the thing that stuck with me after that conversation wasn’t the tactic.

It was the pattern.

When capable, motivated people are spending energy figuring out how to talk to you, it’s rarely about communication skills. It’s about safety. 

People don’t rehearse conversations when they feel secure. And they don’t ask for permission to be honest when honesty is already welcome.

When someone asks, “What’s the best way to bring this up?” what they’re really saying is, I don’t know how this will be received.

As leaders, it’s tempting to focus on teaching people how to communicate better. To offer tips, frameworks, and language to use.

But the more important question is harder and far less comfortable:

Have I built a leadership presence where people feel they can just tell me the truth?

Or have I unknowingly trained them to manage me?

If your team is careful with wording, timing, and tone, or seeks advice on how to approach you…

That doesn’t mean they lack confidence. It usually means they’ve learned to be cautious.

If you want people to stop guessing how to talk to you, you have to tell them. Explicitly. Not once, but repeatedly.

Tell them what you want brought to you.

Tell them how direct they can be.

Tell them what won’t get them in trouble.

Tell them what will.

And then do the part most people skip.

Respond the same way every time.

People don’t trust words. They trust patterns.

They’re watching what happens when someone disagrees with you. They’re watching how you react to bad news and observing to see whether honesty gets rewarded… or quietly punished.

Consistency is what earns trust and openness over time.

When people know how to communicate with you—and they know the response will be predictable—they stop managing you and start partnering with you.

And none of that comes from better “conversation scripts.” 

It comes from leaders who are clear, consistent, and safe enough to tell the truth to.