Short Bursts:
The 7th Principle - Explaining Events and Decisions in the Social Media Age

by Lieutenant-Colonel Marc Kieley

The Canadian Army recognizes twelve principles of leadership. The seventh principle states: “Keep subordinates informed; explain events and decisions.” A-PA-005-000/AP-003, Leadership in the Canadian Forces: Doctrine, offers further guidance:

“The routine and prompt passage of information contributes to subordinates’ situational awareness and their ability to respond appropriately to a changing situation. Candidly explaining events and decisions often reduces tensions created by uncertainty, and is critical to maintaining the trust relationship between leaders and led.”

While the Canadian Armed Forces has an entire trade trained and focussed on explaining events and decisions to the Canadian public, the critical requirement to explain these things plainly, openly, and effectively to members of our own force is left to leaders without any formal communications training. Those leaders rely on instinct, mentorship, or modelling, for better or, too often, for worse. Leaders at all levels are often conflicted when faced with communicating difficult choices or challenging circumstances. Formal and informal leadership training frequently emphasizes the importance of maintaining a positive attitude and guarding against cynicism and sarcasm, which often forces leaders to try to put a ‘positive spin’ on bad news.

Attempts to spin bad news as good news is rarely interpreted positively by subordinates. Rather, it has the opposite effect of feeding the collective tendency to lean on cynicism, sarcasm, and defeatism. In other cases, leaders do want to communicate openly and honestly, but lack the fundamental understanding of what is causing frictions and frustrations. For example, unit level leaders are often challenged to explain the delays in procurement of equipment and materiel. In the absence of the actual explanation, those leaders are often forced to either whitewash legitimate complaints of unsatisfactory equipment as ‘good enough,’ or simply cave to pessimism and join the mob of complainants against the infamous and faceless ‘they’ in Ottawa who have yet again failed to equip the common soldier.

What followers ultimately need from their leaders is clear and candid communication. When things are bad, they need that to be acknowledged and to be provided with some rational explanation as to why, beyond cheap cynicism. It is momentarily comforting to write off a significant organizational problem or institutional failing with a sarcastic quip about the failures of the big green machine, but the lack of real answers or understanding ultimately does significant moral damage to our subordinates when they face legitimate challenges. This leads them to be skeptical that the Canadian Army or broader CAF is working to help them or improve their conditions of service.

For some leaders, authentic communication with their superiors, peers, and subordinates comes easily. For others, it requires deliberate preparation and practice. No matter what kind of communicator you are, consider the following four principles of effective military communication to guide your approach to communicating as a leader:

1. Communicate clearly and simply, while respecting the knowledge of your subordinates. Leaders should be careful not to communicate solely in doctrine or conceptual language, but they must also respect the professional knowledge of their subordinates and not ‘dumb down’ their message through clumsy analogies. A key role of leaders is to test and adjust the content, tone, and delivery of their message to find a means to communicate effectively with their subordinates, and to find the terminology that transcends the significant gaps in military experience across the spectrum of ranks and trades in the average army unit.
2. Candid assessments are not inherently cynical, it is your approach to coping with a challenge that reflects a negative or positive outlook. Leaders must be able to acknowledge when a situation or an outcome is bad. We must resist the urge to spin bad news as good. It does not change how subordinates view the negative outcome, but it will certainly change how they feel about the credibility of their leaders. It is alright to acknowledge when things are bad. What leaders owe their subordinates in these situations is a coherent explanation so that subordinates understand the factors that have caused the situation, and a positive attitude to advocate for change or to develop a plan to overcome the challenge.
3. If you don’t know the answer, find someone who does. If you do know the answer, push it down the chain of command so that others can also explain. Truth is the simplest method to counter a rumour, and yet leaders frequently perpetuate anecdotes, innuendos, and hearsay, rather than make the effort to seek out explanations for events and decisions. Explaining the challenges of procurement, or the reasons behind unpopular benefit changes, is difficult, but leaders must make the effort to learn and pass that knowledge on to their subordinates. Knowing why procurement is slow won’t make subordinates happier, but at the very least they will understand that their frustrations are not the result of simple indifference, or worse, incompetence.
4. If you don’t explain events and decisions, someone else will. Communication is a competition for ideas. When leaders cannot provide a sufficiently coherent explanation, or fail to communicate information in a timely manner, there is always another party ready to fill the gap with a different message. From influential members within their unit, to voices from inside and outside of the military on social media, leaders who do not communicate effectively will discover that less legitimate or informed voices will readily take their place. Communication favours the attacker, and the defender can rarely overcome the advantage offered to the first salvo of ideas, whether they are true or not.

The imperatives for action and communication in the military are similar. When leading in combat, it is often better to do anything quickly rather than to dwell on formulating the perfect course of action. The need to communicate with our subordinates is equally as urgent. It is always better to communicate well, but ultimately, it is more important that we simply communicate – that we explain events and decisions – as simply, candidly, and quickly as possible, lest we cede our key terrain to a competing message.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lieutenant-Colonel Marc Kieley is an Infantry Officer in the Royal Canadian Regiment. He has served in command and staff roles within the Canadian Army, the Army Reserve, and CANSOFCOM. At National Defence Headquarters he has been employed as the Military Assistant to the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, as a strategic planner within the Strategic Joint Staff, and is currently serving as the G35 for the Canadian Army.

This article first appeared online in the Short Bursts section of the Canadian Army Journal (October 2024).