A common mantra in business is that “information is power”. This may encourage managers to hoard information for the benefit of their career, but research from Stanford highlights how harmful this can be.

The researchers analyzed a few thousand 360-degree assessments of leaders and found that a common complaint about leaders is that their communication is insufficient.

“More than just about any other leadership skill, people are fiercely criticized for poor communication,” the researchers explain. “The higher up you get, the more brutal that criticism becomes.”

Getting communication right

The researchers explore something they refer to as “communication calibration”, which is the general understanding among managers about the appropriate level of communication. They suggest that often managers get this wrong and communicate too little, and very rarely overcommunicate.

This misreads what employees actually want, as the general consensus is that it’s better to overcommunicate than under-communicate. After all, at least leaders who communicate too much are trying to meet the needs of employees, whereas those that don’t communicate at all are most definitely not.

“Overcommunication may be seen as annoying and a nuisance, but it’s not seen as a damning flaw for a leader, partly because a leader’s overcommunication is seen as an attempt to benefit you, even if it is misguided, as opposed to an attempt to undermine you or simply ignore you,” the researchers explain.

Communication preferences

The best approach, the researchers suggest, is to actually ask employees what their personal preferences are. If you’re in any doubt, however, then it appears that overcommunicating is usually better than under-communicating. It’s also important to actively question whether you’re communicating the right amount.

“It might be that what they need at the start of their relationship with a direct report or any kind of project management role is to suss out the preferences that others have,” the researchers explain. “Figuring that out upfront is going to serve them well down the line to make sure that others’ silence isn’t misinterpreted as a sign of success, when in fact, it’s a sign of struggle.”

These findings may seem hard to swallow, especially if managers are of the opinion that employees should be given a high degree of independence, but that may not actually be what employees want or need. Instead, it seems to be important that managers are able to show empathy to their team and provide guidance where appropriate.

“You might suffer in terms of being perceived as a leader who engages in tough love, but if that ultimately helps your employees’ development, that might be a trade-off a manager has to make for the benefit of the people who work with them,” the authors conclude.