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It started with a Slack message at 6:47pm on a Tuesday.

Our Product Manager had sent a two-line decision to the team: “We’re pivoting the roadmap. New priorities attached.”

No context.

No reasoning.

No space for questions.

Within minutes, our Head of Design had replied with a terse “Thanks for the heads-up” (which, if you know Design, means I’m furious). Our Operations person had gone quiet. And our most junior engineer had asked me directly, “Is everything okay?”

That was the moment I realised something was broken.

Over the next few weeks, I started noticing the pattern more clearly. Meetings felt tense. People weren’t speaking up. When they did, conversations would escalate quickly - someone would take a comment personally, someone else would shut down, and I’d find myself playing referee. Our Slack channels had become a minefield of misinterpreted tone. Decisions that should have taken an hour were taking days because people weren’t trusting each other’s intent.

I knew my team were smart, capable people. So why did it feel like we were constantly talking past each other?

The moment I realised I was part of the problem

I started doing what any self-aware leader does: I blamed the tools. “We need better processes.” “We need clearer documentation.” “We need more meetings.” I threw solutions at the wall, hoping something would stick.

Then one of my peers (who’d been quietly watching this unfold) pulled me aside and said something I didn’t want to hear: “The problem isn’t your processes. It’s how you’re all communicating. And mate, you might want to look at yourself first.”

That stung. But she was right.

I’m a “get it done” person. Fast decisions, clear direction, move on. In a crisis, that’s brilliant. In a team where people are trying to understand the why behind decisions, or where they need space to think things through, or where they want to feel heard before committing - my speed reads as dismissal. My directness reads as impatience. My “let’s not overthink this” reads as “your concerns don’t matter.”

I wasn’t trying to be any of those things. But intent and impact are different things. And I’d been so focused on the impact I wanted to have (decisive leadership) that I wasn’t seeing the impact I was actually having (people feeling unheard and undervalued).

Looking for a tool that would actually work

I started searching for something that could help us have a different conversation.

...Not a personality test that would make people feel labelled.

...Not a team-building exercise that would feel forced.

...Something practical, fast, and honest - that could give us a shared language without turning the office into a therapy session.

That’s when a trainer I’d worked with before mentioned What’s My Communication Style.

She described it simply: a 24-item inventory based on solid psychology (Jung and Marston), that identifies four communication styles using two dimensions - assertiveness and expressiveness. Four styles: Direct, Spirited, Considerate, Systematic. No “good” or “bad.” Just different ways of showing up.

I was sceptical. But I took the inventory myself first.

And there it was: Direct. High assertiveness, low expressiveness. Exactly what my peer had been trying to tell me. The report showed me not just my style, but how it might land on people wired differently.

• A Considerate person (someone who prioritises relationships and impact on others) would experience my directness as cold.
• A Systematic person (who needs process and clarity) would experience my speed as reckless.
• A Spirited person (who wants energy and possibilities) might feel shut down by my “let’s decide and move on” approach.

For the first time, I wasn’t being told I was “wrong.” I was being shown the gap between how I intended to lead and how my team was experiencing me.

Rolling it out with the team

I brought in an experienced trainer to facilitate a half-day session with the full team. I made a point of going first - sharing my style, my risks under pressure, and (this was the hard bit) asking them what they’d experienced from me that matched the report.

The room went quiet. Then our Head of Design said, “You make decisions so fast that we don’t feel like we’ve been heard. We’re not disagreeing with the decision - we just want to know you’ve thought about the impact.”

Our Operations person added, “I need to understand the process. When you just announce things, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it.”

Our engineer said, “I just want to know you care about what I think.”

None of it was a surprise by then. But hearing it said out loud, in a structured way, with a model that explained why they were experiencing me that way - that changed something.

Then everyone took the inventory. And suddenly, the Slack incident made sense. Our Product Manager was also Direct (like me), but with even higher expressiveness - he got excited and moved fast without checking in. Our Head of Design was Considerate - she needed the human context and felt blindsided. Our Operations person was Systematic - she needed process and clarity. Our engineer was Spirited - he needed to feel included in the energy and possibility.

We weren’t a dysfunctional team. We were a team of people with different communication wiring, all interpreting each other through our own default lens.

What changed

We spent the rest of the session doing something practical: we agreed on how we’d work together given our different styles.

• Before big decisions, we’d give Systematics a pre-read and clarity on the process.
• We’d lead with the headline and decision for the Directs, then pause for questions.
• We’d name the human impact and invite concerns from the Considerates.
• We’d create space for ideation and energy from the Spiriteds.

We also built individual development plans. Mine was simple: “Before I announce a decision, I will pause and ask: ‘What do you need to understand this?’ and actually listen to the answer.”

It wasn’t magic. We still have tense moments. We still misunderstand each other sometimes. But something shifted.

People started naming their own style in conversations. “I’m being very Systematic right now - can we slow down?” or “I need some Spirited energy here - let’s brainstorm.” Instead of conflict being personal, it became a communication mismatch we could actually fix.

Decisions got faster and people felt more heard. Slack became less of a minefield. Meetings became shorter because we weren’t rehashing things people didn’t understand the first time.

Most importantly, people started taking ownership of their own communication. They weren’t waiting for me to change. They were asking themselves: “How do I flex my style to land better with this person?” That’s the shift from “the boss needs to fix this” to “we all own how we show up.”

The real win

Six months in, we’re not perfect. But we’re different. People are proactively working on their communication in ways they weren’t before. When conflict shows up (and it does), we have a language for it that doesn’t feel like blame.

And me? I’m still Direct. But I’m a Direct person who now pauses. Who asks questions. Who understands that speed without clarity isn’t leadership - it’s just noise.

That’s worth more than any process change I could have implemented.