Let’s start with a public service announcement…
Your managers are not internal comms channels with legs.
They are humans, leading and managing other humans, often while trying to work out what on earth is going on themselves.
And yet, in change-heavy organisations, we regularly ask managers to:
- Deliver messages they’ve just seen
- Answer questions they don’t have answers to
- Absorb the emotional fallout of decisions they didn’t make
All while keeping productivity up and morale intact. No pressure…
Why managers matter more than your intranet ever will
When trust in senior leadership is fragile (which, let’s be honest, it often is during change), managers become the make-or-break layer.
People don’t judge an organisation’s honesty by:
- The CEO’s town hall message
- The FAQ document
- The perfectly worded email
They judge it by:
- Did my manager seem blindsided?
- Could they explain what’s happening?
- Did they acknowledge how this feels?
If managers look confused, defensive or caught off guard, trust leaks fast.
The fastest way to damage manager credibility
Here are three classics:
- Telling managers at the same time as their teams
- Expecting them to cascade information without context
- Making them explain changes to the plan when they’ve had no warning
Nothing erodes confidence quite like a team asking questions while their manager silently thinks, ‘This is news to me too’.
What managers actually need (and rarely get)
Good change comms doesn’t turn managers into messengers. It turns them into sense-makers.
That means equipping them with:
- A proper heads-up (24 hours can make a huge difference)
- Clear lines between what’s decided and what’s still fluid
- Language they can use when emotions run high
- Permission to say “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you as soon as I do”
It also means protecting them.
If a decision reverses or the messaging completely changes? Comms and leadership should own the U-turn. Not the manager.
The moments that really matter
In most organisations, trust is won or lost in a few key moments:
- The first visible impact (especially job losses)
- A delay or significant change of plan
- Union or media escalation
These moments need:
- Presence, not just broadcasting information
- Clarity without false certainty
- Acknowledgement of frustration, not a rush past it
Silence or over-polishing in these moments doesn’t calm people. It creates stories…and rarely good ones.
The real role of comms in all this
At its best, comms:
- Holds up the mirror for leaders to see what’s really going on as a result of the change
- Creates rhythm when everything feels chaotic
- Connects multiple changes into one coherent story
- Helps to support managers from bearing the brunt of delivering messages
It’s not about controlling the narrative, rather it’s about making sure people aren’t left to fill in the gaps themselves.
Because when communication stops making sense, people will make their own sense of it, and it might not always be good.
Thank you to our guest blogger. Keren McCarron is the founder of KJM Comms. She works with organisations to bring clarity and structure to how they communicate, so people feel informed, leaders communicate with confidence and messages land properly in practice.
