This is episode 281, and we’re gonna talk about when leaders should and shouldn’t justify themselves.

Here are the two questions. This podcast answers. One, how do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role? And two, how do you keep climbing that leadership ladder and continuously get promoted, 

although the competition and the expectations get bigger. This show with The Manager Track podcast will provide the answers. I’m your host, Ramona Shaw. 

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Welcome to this episode of The Manager Track podcast.

You know how I like to bring things that happen, or I see themes that happen in our coaching calls with either a group of leaders in our programs or in executive coaching engagements and looking at what are some of the things that I think the audience of The Manager Track podcast would find useful.

To think about as well, something to foresee or something that they realize like, oh, I’m not alone with this. This is somewhat common among leaders and we don’t often talk about it, but this is what’s happening. In our heads and you know, if we have someone like a coach to talk about, that is when we let it out.

But for most of us, it’s just an internal dialogue. And I hope that you come back to The Manager Track podcast because this is the place where some of these internal conversations, you hear them now. Reflect the back to you from someone else and that that is helpful.

Today is one of those specifically, I wanna bring back a conversation. And this is actually an example from a while back, but I was talking to an executive who was telling me about a situation where she was talking to her team about how a project that they’ve worked on for over two months was getting shelved and she fully expected this to be a difficult conversation. And so later that week we spoke and she wanted to debrief that meeting.

She said, you know, I spoke, what? I don’t know. 10, 15 minutes explaining from the, like the very beginning of why we initiated this project. And then I went on to explain how far we’ve come. I tried to celebrate the achievements and the lessons learned from this project. And then I also provided this whole rationale.

Of why this project is now getting shelved. And at the end of it, I looked in the room and I saw a bunch of people kind of staring at me with a bit of a confused look and I asked what kind of questions that they have and what else I can, you know, explain to them and what I’d like to know. And then someone said, Hey, can you just like say what will happen next?

I feel I’m a bit confused of what you’re actually trying to tell us. She had one of those aha moments right then and there where she realized she spent so much time explaining this decision, this situation, she actually create more confusion than anything else.

And so explaining the market conditions, explaining the budget constraint, the strategic pivots, the concerns overall, the, the whole backstory of it, and even apologizing for the timing of this decision. That all seemed nice.

But in the midst of this, I was not clear of what will happen next and what the actual impacts are of the decision to stop this project. So this situation is an example of what happens when we overexplain ourselves, and it’s something that I see in myself and I see it in leaders across all levels from new managers who feel like they need to justify a lot of their boundaries or decisions to make sure that they come across as competent.

All the way up to executives who dilute their strategic communications with unnecessary backstories, which is too much detail. So in this episode, we’re gonna talk about when you owe people an explanation and when you don’t, and more importantly, we’re going to explore sort of the difference between explaining with purpose and explaining from a place of insecurity.

Because what we really need to call out is that your authority may actually grow in the silence after the period, not in the paragraph that follows. So if you’ve ever found yourself over justifying your decisions, apologizing for setting boundaries, or loading up your communications with more context than anyone asked for, than this episode is for you,

okay, so setting settings out this context, let’s start by defining what I actually mean with over explaining, because it’s not just about giving a lot of detail. Although that is absolutely one part of it, but overexplaining also includes providing excessive justification, the unnecessary detail given where the other person is coming from or what you want them to do.

It could also be that. Over explanation and clarification of boundaries that is unnecessary, so in essence, it’s anything where you continue to talk after your message was already clear. And for many of us, what makes this particularly challenging is that our role as leaders literally requires us to explain things, right?

So your boss may expect you to justify your decisions and your strategy. You team needs you to clarify expectations. Your peers want to understand your decisions, and so we’re constantly. Communicating and explaining and providing context and rationale and all that seems like exactly the right thing to do as leaders.

But there is a line between the healthy transparency and this insecure justification. And so if you’re just listening to this right now I encourage you to quickly pause and really think about when is it that you feel you are really doing the right thing by explaining and when is it that you notice?

You have this feeling come up where you feel like, oh, I’m kind of justifying I’m overexplaining. Think about a recent situation in a meeting. My gosh, think about the emails you write and if you had to strip out all the unnecessary stuff. You remember when you maybe have to say why you’re rescheduling a meeting, and then how much did you explain for why you had to do that when you had to change priorities or you had to give an answer to someone, and then what is all this additional fluff that you added to your messaging that actually wasn’t needed?

You know, when someone says to me, Hey, I can’t make that meeting next week. I have, uh, travel in the morning and then I have to pick up my daughter from preschool and I’m just worried that it’s too much, all that, although, sort of as a friend, that’s nice information, but in the professional setting, it’s unnecessary justification.

Hey, I can’t make that meeting next week. Can we find a different time? Is totally sufficient, so the two different types feel different, but they also come from different intentions.

This healthy explanation really serves clarity while over-explaining typically serves our insecurity. So let me give you some more examples. Let’s say when you say no to a request, do you then find yourself giving three different reasons why you can’t do it? That is over explaining when you set a boundary with your team, like, hey.

I’m no longer checking emails after eight o’clock. If something is urgent, please call me. Do you then spend 10 minutes explaining your family situation and apologizing for it? That’s over explaining. When you delegate a task, you might be providing so much backstory and context that your direct report is more confused than when you started, and your intention might be to make sure that they feel that you’re competent or that nothing, no ball will ever drop, but you’re overloading them because of this insecurity.

Versus being really mindful and just providing clarity and leaving it at that, or when you give someone feedback, but you wrap it in so much like praise and disclaimers and context that the core message gets lost or worse, and this definitely does happen, they walk away unsure if there even was a problem.

Right. That’s Overexplaining too. And I often see this happen when leaders are triggered by a few specific fears. So it’s the fear of being misunderstood and therefore looking incompetent. The fear of conflict, and that is then the fear of not being liked, the desire to appear fair and inclusive.

Again, wanting to be liked. And then underneath all of that and we can bundle it. Are these people plea pleasing tendencies. Another thing that I notice is that the leaders who explain or overexplain the most are actually the ones who thought through.

All the angles and considered all the stakeholders and have legitimate reason for their decisions. But instead of trusting that their judgment is enough, they feel compelled to download all of their thinking onto everyone else. It’s like the very analytical people who cannot leave out a detail because without you knowing that detail.

You may not follow the argument, or you may have a reason to poke holes into their decision. So they need to provide you the full thing. And then again, that leads to this overexplaining over sharing of details and background context and all of that

So as you can see, we’re starting to peel the onion a bit of what does over-explaining out of insecurity actually look like? Where are we finding ourselves in situations where that does show up?

And then what is underneath, what is actually going on when we do this? So we’re gonna peel a little bit deeper into that onion, because understanding the psychology behind it is actually key to be able to change that pattern.

, Carl Young talked about how we can lose trust in ourselves when we’re always looking to others to validate what we think or feel. So Overexplaining is one way that shows up.

It’s a sign that sort of deep down we might not fully believe our own thoughts or choices are enough on their own. And then we wanna make sure that everyone understands it and validates us sort of back so we can feel good about it. And like much in psychology, a lot of these tendencies start early.

So if you grew up in a home where your feelings were maybe brushed off, or you had to defend your needs just to be heard or simply stating how you feel. Or what you want wasn’t really valid unless you were able to convince them and you have a really good reason. And so then as an adult, in order to feel like you are valid with your opinion or your reason and your feelings.

You needed to explain yourself and re-explain yourself over and over. So instead of acting from a place of strong self trust, you’re now kind of asking unconsciously or consciously, Hey, is this okay with you? Do you approve of me and my decisions? Do you understand that? And when we look for this external validation through the over-explaining, we erode our internal self-trust and authority over time. So every time we do it, we actually send ourselves the message. Hey, you need to get that external validation.

Other people need to validate your decisions choices and your opinions for you to feel good about them. And every time we do it, we reinforce that message.

And what happens when we do this over and over is actually we start to betray our own judgment, right? We’re sending that message to ourselves and maybe even to others,

that our decision isn’t quite good enough on its own, and it fuels the sense of self doubt. And young would say this is sort of a source of feeling, this sense of emptiness or disconnection from, um, our authentic selves. So that’s the, the psychological aspect, but again, I wanna compare that or mirror that to this other part because I wanna be really clear leaders absolutely need to explain themselves. The key is to distinguish between this compulsive over-explaining which comes from the insecurity, and the intentional explanation, which comes from a desire for clarity, alignment, you know, maybe even inspiration.

So healthy explanations serve the team and the work. They help people understand the intent behind your decision.

It’s not at all about how you feel in this. It is simply modeling transparent thinking. And the good thing by, by doing this is that it creates psychological safety, it gets people aligned and on board, and it, it helps build trust.

So that’s a really good thing. So let’s say if you are shifting priorities mid-quarter, we’re almost at year end and now you’re going back to your team and you explain how, you know, the economics or political situation have led to different market conditions, and that led to the decision to help the team and that led the decision to change strategic priorities.

All of this will help your team understand the trade offs you’re making and why you came to this decision that is not over explaining, that is strategic, intentional communication to create alignment. Or if you’re removing someone from a project and you’re explaining that there’s a skills mismatch or a capacity issue, that person can use this information , for their own development, right?

And to help them understand what’s going on. That’s, again, not overexplaining. If you are implementing a new process and you’re sharing the problems it’s designed to solve, help people engage with it more effectively. Again, not over-explaining, that’s change management. If you’re canceling a meeting or you’re blocking a day for deep focus work, letting the people know that you’re doing this because you have a high priority deliverable or a client commitment.

That is also intentional communication. You’re basically kind of reinforcing norms around ownership and prioritization. It’s not overexplaining and trying to validate a boundary, you are clearly stating what you’re going to do. So you’re managing expectations. So this intentional explanation. Feels internally, like, feels assuring and you are not at all focused on how other people respond to it. It’s really that you don’t pay much attention whether they like it or not, you’re paying attention to. How clear are you? The overexplaining from the place of insecurity feels very different. We often don’t feel grounded, right? It feels insecure. And then after we’ve communicated whatever we’ve said, we are on the lookout for small signals, body language, or maybe even explicit affirmation to make sure that they’re satisfied.

We check if they like the explanation. We want them to be good, and we wanna feel good. That is the difference between the two. They sound different, they feel different. They come from different intentions. So now the question might be, okay, fine, I get the two different things, but how do I know when I cross the line into Overexplaining?

So when I think I’m moving ahead with this intention part? What makes it now a red flag? Okay. Here are some red flags to look out for. Pay attention to your internal state if you feel anxious or guilty when you’re explaining something, that’s a signal.

If you notice yourself repeating the same point in different ways, like you Say it one way. Say it again. Say it again. That’s also a signal if you walk away from the conversation feeling resentful or depleted, those are all signals.

Paying attention to how you feel. The second one is notice the impact of your message. If your explanation is actually making things less clear, or if people are asking follow up questions that suggest that they’re confused about what you’re actually asking them to do, your explanation might be getting in the way of your communication.

It could also be that no one asked for this additional detail. No one asked. Why you have to leave at four o’clock. You could just say like, I have to leave at four o’clock today. You don’t need to overexplain that unless that goes against company rules. Right? But it otherwise, no one’s asked you for the details, but you sort of like volunteer a lot of information, but are things to pay attention to.

And then the third one is to pay attention to what happens in terms of team dynamics.

When you consistently overexplain, it undermines your authority in sort of subtle. Over time. Again, significant ways and it can make people think that every decision is negotiable or that they need your approval for things that should be within their scope.

’cause you’re almost role modeling this like need for validation. And then it can lead to this approval seeking behavior. That spreads throughout the team. So if you notice that other people do it, like you can see it in others like they’re coming to you for validation or they’re just adding more than is necessary, that is a good signal that you should look at your own communication to see if that is what your role model.

If you recognize yourself in any of this, here’s what I suggest to do first, develop self-awareness around when you tend to overexplain. Before you communicate the decision or set a boundary, just pause and ask yourself, am I doing this for clarity or for approval?

Is this detail essential or am I trying to manage how people perceive me? Second practice using. Silence as strength. Let your statements stand. If you say, Hey, we’re going to pause this project. You don’t need to immediately fill the silence.

Give people a moment to process what you’ve said before you add more information. Let it just sit for a moment, then add some an explanation, see what kind of questions come up, versus taking them on a whole rollercoaster that they can’t escape from.

Like we’ve all been on the receiving end of this, where someone. Is sharing information with us. We didn’t ask for, we didn’t need, and they say the same thing in three different ways be there and we don’t wanna be there.

So pause. And then third, just practice a new approach. Say no without overexplaining or justifying yourself. So for example, instead of saying, Hey, I really wish I could join, I can totally see the value of the initiative.

The timing’s just really tricky right now because I’m struggling. Uh, a few competing priorities and. I have to prepare for this client session and I have an offsite with the team. And you know, I don’t wanna seem unsupportive, I just don’t think I can give it the attention it deserves.

At first glance, this may sound pretty good. You said, Hey, great initiative. You would love to be participating. Um, and then you added the reasons for why you can’t, and you also said like, Hey, it’s not.

It’s just that I, I can’t give it what it deserves. So you, you are kind of praising them and recognizing how good this thing is. So you’re doing it in a way that isn’t gonna hurt someone’s feeling, but can you also see how that was an example of overexplaining coming from a place of insecurity, right?

It may sound thoughtful and polite, but underneath it all, it’s an attempt to soften the No. Out of discomfort with how it might land, and it puts you then in a defensive posture and actually opens the door for it, a pushback or for you to feel guilty. So instead, if you say, Hey, great initiative.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to take this on right now given my current priorities. Period. You were direct, respectful, and final. Now, at the end, you could still add, what I can do, however, is to help in this capacity or that way, or I can review something or make an intro. If there’s something that you can add, add that at the end.

But there was no overexplaining. It was very clear, very direct. So next time that you type up an email where you might have a tendency to over explain. Just read it again and look at how much of this fluff is unnecessary. And I fight myself doing this all the time where I would explain something sometimes to strangers, sometimes to acquaintances.

Sometimes to someone where I’m the client and I’m adding things because I think it’d be useful for them to understand my situation.

But no, they don’t, them understanding my situation isn’t helping anyone. It’s not serving a purpose. It’s not intentional. The only reason why I want them to understand my situation, it’s to soften the blow blower again. Make them feel better about it, and then I can feel better about it.

So the question is there is like, do you notice when you do it or does that happen on autopilot? In our communication and strengthening this and getting better at this skill and not over-explaining. It’s all about having your eyes wide open and being self-aware of what happens and then making a choice.

You can intentionally make a choice to give people backstory, but then you’re not doing it out of this emotional insecurity, but you’re doing it because you choose to. You want to. Okay, that’s different.

Now to wrap this up. The point really is that as a leader, it’s important to model. Clarity and for you to develop self-trust. ’cause more often than not, you’ll have to make decisions that are not crystal clear. They’re ambiguous and you can’t always ask people to give you a stamp of approval or to validate you on it.

It’s important that you trust yourself and you’re okay with also making mistakes along the way. ’cause that’s inherent in the process. So the more that you are clear on this and the more precise you are and intentional you are with the way that you engage and communicate with others, the more other people will respect you and treat you and model these types of behaviors as well.

And by the way, that also means that if someone does that with you, someone makes a statement or has an ask, or sets a reasonable boundary.

And even if you are curious, and even if you feel like, well, I would explain myself more, really ask yourself, is this necessary? Do I need to know why they’re saying that? Do they need to justify themselves or can I be okay with it? Right. So I am going to role model it myself, but I’m also gonna make sure that I respect, honor, or maybe even.

Like celebrate when other people on my team do the same thing. They explain and overexplain when needed and when it done intentional to build clarity and alignment. But I don’t need it for all this other stuff like that is totally okay. Even if I have a personal curiosity, they don’t need to explain themselves to me.

It’s okay. And so to bring that to the point , when we overexplain out of insecurity, we are doing it at the expense of clarity and effectiveness.

It’s just about how we feel about the whole thing. That’s not helpful, not in the paragraph that follows.

The goal is really intentional explanation, the explanation that serves the work. The relationships, not your insecurities or how you’re being perceived

That’s it for today. As I said in the beginning, I hope that this episode helped you think through what might be going on internally that isn’t often talked about.

Uh, but does impact our leadership effectiveness. And so pay attention to how you, explain, explain. So I hope you walk away with a bit of greater awareness of how you might be showing up and the next time that you find yourself in a meeting saying the same thing for the third time, or you’re sugarcoating feedback, or you explain why you do what you do and you realize like, oh man, I, there’s just too much fluffier. I don’t need that. I could say it and then make a period and then just sip it. Those are the moments, you know, in an email we can edit our, our communication, and we were back in meetings just.

Pause and be silent and see what happens next. That’s it for now. Have a great week and I’ll see you next time on The Manager Track podcast.

If you enjoy this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader. People love to work with. This includes a free master class on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it at archova.org/masterclass. 

The second resource is my best-selling book, the confident and competent new manager, how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out at archova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. 

You can find all those links, in the show notes down below.