One Move at a Time

In leadership, most communication issues aren’t caused by a lack of information. They’re caused by too much of it, delivered too quickly, packed too tightly, and without enough thought for how it will be received.

A simple analogy comes from chess. You’d never reveal your next seven moves at once. Not because you’re hiding anything, but because strategy only works when it unfolds in manageable steps. Too much too soon creates confusion, resistance, and unnecessary pressure. One good move at a time is how progress is made, and how trust is built.

This matters even more in schools, where communication shapes almost everything: clarity, culture, confidence, and the emotional climate staff and students work within. Leaders often feel the pressure to cover everything in one message, to reassure, to explain, to anticipate questions, to show thinking, and to give direction. But when complexity is delivered in bulk, it doesn’t create clarity. It creates defensiveness. It turns communication into a subtle form of debate.

This is where Plato’s warning is useful.

Plato wasn’t opposed to discussion. But he understood how easily communication can become performance. In his dialogues, he criticised the sophists, skilled debaters whose goal was not understanding, but winning. They used tactics, tone, and verbal sharpness to impress an audience rather than explore the truth. The problem, Plato said, is that once communication becomes a competition, people confuse the winner with the person who is right.

The same risk exists in leadership. When communication becomes about defending positions or outmanoeuvring objections, the purpose shifts. People stop listening to understand and start listening to react. Dialogue becomes a contest of words rather than a search for clarity.

Good leadership demands a different approach. It requires slowing the pace, separating what needs to be said now from what can come later, and resisting the instinct to pack everything into one message. Leaders who communicate well make careful decisions, explain them cleanly, and give people the space to think.

It also requires reducing the volume. A single email carrying multiple priorities, several updates, and a long list of justifications rarely lands as intended. People skim it, misinterpret it, or fixate on one sentence and miss the rest. Clarity is created not by saying more, but by structuring communication well and delivering it at the right moment.

Above all, effective communication is intentional. Every message must have a clear purpose, to inform, to invite feedback, to give direction, or to clarify. When one message tries to do all of these things at once, it loses impact. When it does one thing well, it creates alignment.

Schools are high-cognitive, high-emotional environments. Teachers and leaders work at pace, with constant demands on their attention. In this context, clarity is not a luxury, it’s an act of care. Thoughtful, paced communication helps people think more clearly, work more purposefully, and stay aligned. Rushed communication does the opposite. It raises anxiety, fuels assumption, and introduces noise where calm is needed.

Culture doesn’t fail because people disagree.

Culture fails when people stop understanding each other.

The best leaders don’t try to say everything. They say the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. They resist the pressure to over-explain or over-justify. They avoid turning communication into debate. They focus on building a shared understanding that endures.

In the end, communication isn’t just a tool of leadership. It is the culture. Every message teaches people how they should receive the next, calmly or defensively, collaboratively or competitively.

And in schools, with all their urgency, pace, and complexity, the goal is not to win the conversation. It’s to build an environment where people feel informed, aligned, and involved.

One move at a time.