Most leaders think tension, eye-rolls or “off” attitudes are personality problems, but they’re usually communication breakdowns in disguise. The pokey tones, repeated ideas, blame-shifting comments and subtle gaslighting moments seem small, but they change how a team survives the day.

Because when communication slips, people stop being open because they don’t feel safe, work happens but not together, tasks fall through cracks, and misunderstandings turn into delays and rework. And the biggest culprit behind all of this is silence - not the peaceful kind, but the kind that lets behaviours go unchallenged until they become the culture.

The team isn’t broken; they simply haven’t learned how to name the behaviour before it spirals. When leaders recognise these early signs, everything shifts. You stop reacting to attitudes and start understanding the behaviour underneath them. You stop assuming someone is “difficult” and start seeing what they’re protecting themselves from.

That’s what strong leadership communication really is seeing the story beneath the reaction and guiding the team back to clarity instead of conflict. These patterns show up everywhere, and the difference between a struggling team and a high-performing one isn’t the presence of conflict, but the leader’s ability to name it, frame it and navigate it early.

If this feels familiar, you’re not alone. And that’s exactly what our next session is designed to explore

Join us on 10th December at 9am - “Gaslighting, Pokey Conversations & The Chaos of Bad Communication.” Let’s talk honestly about the issues everyone feels but rarely names, and what you as a leader can do before things unravel. Grab your spot, you don’t have to navigate this alone.