Verified by 
Key points
- Open and honest communication is essential for organizational success and employee well-being.
- Barriers to leadership communication involve attitudes toward power and how much information leaders share.
- Barriers to employee communication involve attitudes toward leadership and perceived psychological safety.
When I began my business journey, I naturally gravitated toward understanding the business world through collecting information. Being an academic researcher, I dissected both scientific and experiential accounts of what contributes to business success, and they all reiterated the importance of clear communication in organizations.
More specifically, I learned that clear communication and transparency from the leadership to their teams create trust, security, and engagement. Honesty and openness from team members to their leaders improve operations and prevent errors. And sincere communication between colleagues creates confidence and camaraderie.
Communicating with openness, empathy, and clarity is foundational to organizational success (Bucata & Rizescu, 2017), and failing companies often cite poor communication as a top reason for their demise (Rana, 2013). And yet I have noticed that this type of communication is not the standard in most workplaces. So why is clear communication at work so difficult?
Understanding Communication
Communication is not the same as talking or writing. When talking or writing, we use language to express our ideas, experiences, or queries. Our goal is to put our thoughts out into the world. Communication, on the other hand, is an intentional act of trying to ensure that the audience understands the meaning behind our message. Think about how we talk to someone who is learning our language; most people use strategies such as repetition, clarification, giving examples, using simple language, etc. to ensure that their message has been understood.
Such tactical purposefulness, resourcefulness, and patience are seldom applied at work. Yet those who can pride themselves on being effective communicators understand that we need to be just as strategic when communicating with our teams.
Psychological Barriers to Communication in the Workplace
Harmonious collaboration is a key ingredient in organizational productivity and success, which makes communication an essential skill. So why is it that in many workplaces, respectful, direct, and honest communication is so difficult?
Most of the challenges to effective communication at work are related to two types of psychological barriers: barriers to clearly convey a message on the leader’s end, and barriers to active listening on the employee’s end (Teng et al., 2020).
Leadership Barriers. According to Shaw (2011), one of the biggest obstacles to communication from the leaders’ end, is the illusion that communication has been accomplished. In other words, leaders often equate talking with communication. What is missing are the very things that differentiate talking from communication: clarifying, addressing queries, and ensuring understanding.
This barrier to communication can substantially disadvantage employees, who are often unclear about their roles and responsibilities. And when their performance demonstrates this lack of clarity, they are perceived by management as unable to follow instructions or complete tasks.
Another barrier to communication involves leaders’ attitudes toward power and status (Rani, 2016). For example, if a manager believes that their role is more that of a ruler than a mentor, they will expect to be respected and obeyed undisputedly. As a result, they are less likely to provide rationales and explanations for their demands, actions, or decision-making.
Lastly, a third barrier involves sharing too much information (Sapungan et al., 2019). Too much information can take many forms: excessive content, too many meetings, or frequent policy or procedural changes. The common thread among all these experiences is that employees face a cognitive overload of information to sort through, which blocks the messages from being properly processed.
So when it comes to communication, too little, or too much, is unfavourable.
Employee Barriers. Although most studies and organizational change programs focus on the barriers to leaders’ communication, the receivers (i.e., employees) also play an important part in the breakdown of communication.
One important barrier to communication on the employees’ end is their attitude toward authority figures (Rani, 2016). Employees who have psychological resistance to authority in general, or to specific authority figures (e.g., women leaders), will not be open to actively listen, follow instructions, or share their perspective. Their defiance therefore becomes a notable obstacle to professional communication.
Finally, no discussion on communication is complete without touching on psychological safety at work. Psychological safety refers to the perceived costs of sharing information, expressing ideas, and taking risks in the workplace (Edmondson & Bransby, 2023).
A lack of psychological safety, therefore, makes employees reluctant to communicate about experiencing difficulties, making mistakes, or needing help. Employees believe that such admissions may be too costly in terms of possible damage to their status, reputation, or salary. In other words, admitting such vulnerabilities does not feel safe.
To conclude, the psychological barriers to clear communication at work are multifaceted and complex, but not impossible to overcome. What I learned is that creating a safe, open, and respectful communication culture can make the difference between surviving and thriving, for both the organization and the individuals within in.
