Before You Open Your Mouth

Lots of writers (including yours truly) advise leaders on how to communicate. Be clear. Be transparent. Be authentic. Bring people along. Easy peasy (sarcasm intended).

What I rarely hear discussed (and what took me an embarrassing number of flop sweat moments to learn) is the equal importance of deciding what not to say. Not in a brazen rejection of transparency, but as an act of organizational care. Knowing the topics you are not yet ready to raise is one of the most underrated skills a leader can develop.

I think of it as populating and tending to a "not yet" list.

When I Got This Wrong

Like many aspects of communication, I learned by sharing ideas I would later regret:

• Board meetings where I came off as not fully in command of an issue

• Unsettling of the team because I was “thinking out loud” during a staff meeting

• The quizzical look from a donor who couldn’t square my random ideas

Everyone filled in gaps with their own interpretations of what I might (or must) mean. I introduced confusion needlessly. I set the rumor mill in motion and caused alarm over what was likely a transient comment.

What Was Actually Happening

It took me time, lots of reading, and good coaching to understand what had gone wrong in these situations and what I could do differently in the future.

I read Ronald Heifetz’s work on adaptive leadership with new eyes, reminded that leaders are responsible for regulating the pace of difficult conversations and change. My unformed thoughts were raising the temperature for everyone. I turned up the heat and cornered myself in the kitchen.

Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety resonated in a new way too. When leaders share unresolved thinking (especially about direction, strategy, or organizational health) they can inadvertently threaten the very safety they are trying to build. People look to their leaders to calibrate how worried they should be. If the leader seems uncertain, the team matches that level of uncertainty.

These explorations and deep dives with my coach helped me identify the difference between sharing and oversharing.

Healthy transparency means sharing your thinking when it is formed enough to be useful. Oversharing is processing thoughts live.

When we choose to share, we should be able to hear pushback without unraveling, acknowledge what we know and don’t know, and hold ourselves accountable tomorrow for what we shared today.

Why We Do It Anyway

If the failure to hold back can be so self-defeating, why do so many struggle to do it? Maybe my top three list has some relevance here for you too.

• Overexplaining. We have shared all we have to share … and then keep going. We add context, qualifiers, or color (telling ourselves that we owe the audience more). All we do is blur our message in a failed attempt to calm our nerves. Ironically, the extra information raises more questions than it answers.

• Perfectionism. Some find it impossible to say, "I don't know yet" or "I'm still working through that." I get it. Leaders are supposed to have all the answers, even though that’s just impossible. We wouldn’t expect it from our teams, and we shouldn’t expect it from ourselves.

• Misplaced caring. When our team is anxious or our board is disrupted, we want to help. Offering reassurance we do not have to offer does not make anyone feel better, no matter how well-intended. Instead, it erodes our credibility and reduces trust in our leadership. Healthy care is about helping people through the uncertainty rather than offer them a false resolution.

Recognizing which of these patterns pulls at you most is key to interrupting the pattern.

My "Not Yet" List

The shift in my practice came when I started preparing for important conversations (board meetings, staff meetings, one-on-ones with donors or community partners) not just by clarifying what I wanted to say, but by intentionally identifying what I was not going to raise – topics that were off limits.

Before high-stakes meetings, I would bullet point out what I wanted to say. 

But I wouldn’t stop there. 

I would then bullet point topics that were off limits:

• Issues I was still working through and uncertain about.

• Questions I did not yet have enough information to answer or that would raise other issues I was not ready to address.

• Ideas that were exciting to me but not yet ready for the reactions they might generate.

That list became one of the most useful tools in my leadership practice.

It reminded me that not every one of my very special ideas needed to be released into the atmosphere. It gave me a tool for distinguishing between the conversations I was ready to lead and the ones I needed more time to develop or that would take the intended conversation off course.

Even better, this list often provided the impetus for calling board members, donors, community members, or the team for counsel and advice on these nascent or unresolved topics. The list was an invitation to explore the ambiguity and to frame the conversation for the recipient that way.  

This practice is not about withholding information as an antidote to being uncomfortable sharing it. It is about timing your messages. A topic that sits on the "not yet" list too long can grow into an anxiety-producing "not ever." It is not intended to support you in avoiding difficult conversations or to allow ambiguity to fester unnecessarily.

The "not yet" list can help you achieve transparency without unnecessary upset.

What to Say When Someone Asks

Of course, all of this is easier said than done if someone asks you a direct question. A board member asks, “What’s going on with XXX?” A staff member wants to know what decision you’ve arrived at. A donor wants to know where things stand on a strategic issue that is far from worked out.

This was often my invitation to overshare. Caught off guard with a question on a topic I had decided to avoid, I might fumble for an answer.

I learned (a little too slowly) that I could acknowledge the question without fabricating an answer. I could use the moment to show that the question was on my mind and that I was considering it seriously. A few approaches that have worked for me:

• The honest redirect. "That is something I am still working through. I want to give it the thought it deserves before I bring it to you properly."

• The timeline offer. "I am not ready to discuss that yet, but I expect to be in the next few weeks. Can we put some time on the calendar?"

• The acknowledgment without the content. "I know that is on people's minds. I do not have anything useful to share yet, but when I do, you will hear it from me directly."

• The invitation for them to talk. “I am noodling on that very question. Can you share your thinking? It will help me as I consider it.”

What each of these statements has in common is transparency about your process rather than a trip down a rabbit hole of useless information. Being honest about where you are in your thinking, not what you think, is often more trust-building than the alternative.

Three Questions Worth Asking

So, how do you stop yourself? How exactly do you build your “not yet” list? Start with these three questions:

• Am I clear enough on my own thinking to receive feedback productively? If the first challenge will send you scrambling, you are not ready.

• Is this audience ready for this conversation? Even a well-formed idea can land badly if the relationship or the moment is not right.

• What happens to this relationship or group if I raise this now and cannot fully see it through? If the answer is "nothing good," zip it.

Great communicators are not just people who know what to say. They are people who know what not to say. That discipline, which requires personal reflection, keeps us from becoming the source of added confusion.

I am often on the receiving end of unformed thoughts and that confuses me as to why I am being told something. Wishing that I had developed the “not yet” list sooner in my career, I sometimes find myself gently offering, “Would you like to think this question through more before we discuss it?” I am more often greeted with a look of relief than not.

Your "not yet" list is a living document. Review it regularly. Move items off when the time is right to share and you are ready to welcome feedback. Your team, your board, and your communities will benefit from the rigor and from trusting that when you do speak, you mean it.

If you have your own list of lessons you wish you had learned earlier on this one, I would love to compare notes. And if you find yourself regularly saying things you were not quite ready to say, it might be worth exploring why. That is exactly the kind of pattern executive coaching is built for. Feel free to reach out gary@garybagley.com or connect with me on LinkedIn.