You know that saying:
“No good deed goes unpunished”?
I find it rings true when leaders try to explain their way out of confusion and misalignment.
Last week, I spoke with a client who was struggling to get one of her direct reports on board with an idea.
She told me that her teammate was frequently confused, and she was frustrated because all of her attempts to help seemed to backfire.
When I asked what all of her attempts were, she said:
“I guess I just try to explain it to him in different ways.”
Raise your hand if you tend to respond to confusion the same way. When a team member hesitates, asks a follow-up question, or says they’re unclear, we immediately assume the problem is insufficient information. So we start talking. We restate the logic. We add background. We try our best to explain ourselves, and start spraying the person with a firehose of information.
Explaining away confusion feels responsible, seems supportive, and looks like leadership, but in practice, it often deepens the confusion and makes matters worse.
We’ve all experienced this and be honest. Have you ever nodded your head in agreement or pretended to understand something so you didn’t look or feel stupid?
I see this pattern constantly in leadership conversations. A leader shares a plan or decision, someone pushes back with uncertainty, and the leader responds by filling the space with more words. Their team sits there drinking from a firehose and ends up more confused.
So confusion is rarely caused by a lack of explanation.
More often, it’s caused by too much information.
As conversations unfold and explanations pile up, people struggle to orient themselves. They’re no longer sure what’s fixed and what’s flexible, what’s decided and what’s still open for discussion, or what they’re actually being asked to own. The additional context doesn’t clarify the situation; it waters it down and creates more uncertainty.
This is why explaining more feels productive but fails to create clarity.
When people are confused, they don’t need more information.
They need orientation.
They want to know where to stand, understand what matters, and see how it all fits into the bigger picture.
Now I don’t know about you, but I find that clarity rarely comes from listening to someone’s monologue.
More often, it comes from a powerful dialogue.
So what can you do in these situations?
Instead of talking more, effective leaders open up that dialogue. They ask great questions, listen more, and hold space so others can catch up.
They pause and ask things like: What part feels unclear to you? or What do you think the decision is here? or What are you assuming I expect from you right now? They ask questions that help others see where the meaning has drifted. And usually, when others express their own thoughts, they see where they have drifted and reorient themselves.
What’s easy to overlook in moments like this is that the leader doesn’t actually clarify anything. They don’t sharpen the message or improve the explanation. They simply stop adding to the noise and allow the real source of confusion to come into view.
That’s the subtle shift we often miss.
Confusion isn’t always a sign that something was poorly communicated. More often, it’s a sign that too much meaning has accumulated too quickly, and people have lost their bearings.
Leadership isn’t about saying it better. It’s about knowing when to stop explaining and let others find their way.
That kind of restraint might not feel like leadership at first. But stepping back, asking orienting questions, and letting people clarify their own position is often what creates clarity that actually lasts.
So here is the subtle shift:
Stop explaining and help others find their footing.
