Clarity Is a Leadership Obligation: Why Vague Communication Costs You the Room

A father is driving home with his 14-year-old daughter when his boss calls. The boss talks for almost twenty minutes on speakerphone and says nothing. When the call ends, the daughter looks at her dad and says, “That was the most inefficient conversation I’ve ever heard.” Then she asks, “When are you going to quit?”

The man behind the wheel is Justin Atherton, a 20-year law enforcement veteran, former SWAT operator, training lieutenant, and now author of How to Get to the Damn Point. The chief on the other end of that call held a high-ranking position. He had authority on paper. What he did not have, by the end of those twenty minutes, was respect from a teenager listening in the passenger seat.

Most leaders lose the room the same way. Not in a single failure of vision, but in a long erosion of clarity.

Vague Language Is Rarely an Accident

The instinct in most teams is to assume that unclear communication is a skill problem. People just need to learn to be more articulate. Justin pushes back on that.

“When you can’t give clear, concise communication, sometimes it’s on purpose. It’s because I don’t want to be held accountable for what I say.”

That is the part most leaders will not say out loud. Vague language is often a defense mechanism. If the words have no edges, the speaker cannot be measured against them. “We’ll see.” “I’ll circle back.” “Let me look into it.” Each phrase keeps the door propped open, which means nothing has actually been promised.

The cost is trust. The team learns that what was said in the meeting is not what will happen after the meeting. They stop asking. They stop expecting. They start filling in the gaps with their own assumptions.

Abstract Words Are Where Performance Reviews Die

Justin makes a sharp distinction between concrete and abstract language. A leader can use either. Most use the wrong one and create confusion they never intended.

Imagine a performance review that reads, “Sean has demonstrated a bad attitude this quarter.”

What does attitude mean? What does bad look like? The employee receiving that review has no behavior to change because no behavior has been named. The leader feels like clarity has been delivered. The employee walks out with a vague accusation and no path forward.

Compare that with: “We need you to engage in team meetings instead of staying silent. We need you to stop interrupting other presenters mid-sentence.” Same conversation. Now there is something to act on.

Justin’s rule is simple. If a word can be misinterpreted, it probably will be. Determined. Engaged. Better. These are conceptual words. They feel meaningful. They produce no action. Replace them with something a video camera could record.

The WAVE Method

Justin teaches a four-part framework for self-auditing communication. He calls it WAVE.

Words. Watch for three categories. Absolutes (always, never, every) that almost never line up with reality. Equivocations (maybe, sort of, we’ll see) that signal a refusal to commit. Stop-action verbs (try, plan to, want to, need to) that announce failure before the work begins.

Awareness. Catch it in the moment. The subconscious is always listening. A leader who tells himself “I’ll try to make it to the gym today” is rehearsing his own out. “I will go to the gym today” rewires the same sentence into a commitment.

Verify. Audit written communication harder than spoken. Email, text messages, proposals, marketing. The recipient reads in their own mood, with no facial expression to lean on. Re-read every important email until vague language has been removed.

Engage. Bring an accountability partner into the process. A spouse, a coworker, a teammate who is willing to say, “You just said ‘try.'” Real change requires friction from the outside.

Say the Point First

If the WAVE method is the audit, the daily habit is even simpler. Say the point first.

Most people bury the point. They open with backstory, context, a polite warm-up, a few qualifiers, and finally arrive at what they meant to say five minutes earlier. The room is already lost.

Justin teaches a Point > Why > Context formula. Lead with the point. Add the reason. Provide context only if context is needed. The polite sandwich, where correction is sandwiched between two slices of compliment, fools no one. The team member knows the hammer is coming. He just has to sit through three minutes of nervous warm-up to get to it.

Be human at the end of the conversation, not the front. Direct does not mean cold. It means the person across from you knows what is being said.

Clarity Is the Cost of Leading

Vision without clarity does not move anyone. The team that does not understand the order does not execute the order. The family that hears “we’ll see” learns that Dad’s word is a placeholder. The marriage that runs on assumed definitions runs into the same fight every month.

Clarity is not a personality trait. It is a discipline. It can be trained, audited, and sharpened. It also has to be chosen, every conversation, by the person who is responsible for the outcome.

For the men called to lead families, teams, businesses, and ministries, that responsibility does not get delegated. Say what needs to be said. Say it clearly. Then stand on it.

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