The siloes in your organization often stem from shared communication patterns, highlighting the need for leaders to reflect on their role in fostering collaboration.
Leadership has evolved significantly over the last decade. With the rise of the younger generations, free speech is more than just viral. People are more willing to find their own balance and create a state of well-being for their bodies and minds. And yet, in many companies, people from previous generations hold the most senior roles and define the best way to act and shape the environment.
In their attempts to adapt, many senior leaders have done their best to adopt the new generation’s mindset, but along the way to building the new environment, they failed. It is clear from articles, research, and other documents that the topics of distance work, workplace flexibility, and social well-being are still being explored. More than five years after a global pandemic showed that most of these topics can be easily solved through direct, honest dialogue, scientists and researchers still produce different outcomes based on local understandings. Or, in other words, the global mindset has shifted, but the local norm hasn’t changed much.
And with many leaders facing this problem (according to an Inc.com report published in February 2026 – 41% of them), it still drains energy and works on the negative scale toward dissatisfaction.
And here they come – the endless meetings, the plans, and the complex execution agenda that aim to show people in the organization how open the leadership team is to the new, how flexible their thinking has become, and how willing and dedicated the leaders are to communicate and find tailor-made solutions. And it works great…at least on paper. But in reality, people feel just the opposite: stress, pressure, fear of asking for flexibility to avoid ruining their workplace, and fear of being punished for it. Even those who claim to be the most open-minded and unwilling to control people can ruin the whole impression of freedom with a single phrase or a simple act.
And the sad thing is that the circle of not understanding and not supporting builds stronger walls, because the fear created earlier prevents communication from flowing both ways. Those claiming to be the enablers turn in the eyes of the people around into the silos builders that stop the change and create uncertainty, instead of supporting the positive wellbeing.
While communication is the most effective tool for shifting a situation from one point of view to another, those leaders who want to support change and well-being truly should be able to critically examine their communication style and word choice and make the necessary changes to foster a more positive, supportive environment.
With the help of colleagues who work as psychologists and organizational consultants, I have aimed to collect responses from more than 960 leaders across several industries and countries, analyze their communication styles, and examine how they impact the environment. No matter the country or the industry, several patterns were rising, which showed typical phrases, building siloes in the organizations. From them, after careful analysis of the words used, with the help of four fellow contributors, we identified several common phrases that leaders use, unaware that they do more harm than good.
“We don’t care about where you work; we are a result-driven company.”
Surprisingly, many people in leadership roles still focus on results rather than how results are balanced within the environment and the actual impact the environment has on those results. Some may say that this means freedom in its purest form, but it actually has a different meaning.
Our analysis showed that after this phrase, people in leadership roles mean they don’t want to interfere with people’s agendas but need results within a specific time frame, with no excuses. And the push to deliver results stems from the understanding that the freedom granted comes at any price. You can be sick and then be healthy again, you may struggle with an issue at home or within your family, I give you the freedom to deal with it, but don’t forget that there is no compromise if you fail to deliver in return. At least this is how it came as an explanation after analyzing the answers of more than 300 leaders who shared it. Now does this sound so positive?…
“We are like family here.”
The warmth of the family opens up to you, right? But what we all have experienced in our early years is that family comes with care but also brings hierarchy, internal rules, mechanisms for control and punishment, etc. The family is a specific construct that cannot be universally applied, unless the leader hires only those “in full alignment with their family mindset.” Everyone else struggles and more often drops out of the organization because they don’t adhere to the specifics set by the family circle rules and agenda.
“Our values make us different and strengthen our success every day. We act in the same way toward anyone, no matter the level in the company.”
This one shows one standard for everyone and now compromises against deviations. Wow, what a utopia. But 476 leaders use it if not daily, then often. And it is scary. No matter the situation, there is one scripted approach, and we use it only to resolve issues and address challenges. Unfortunately, the world does not work like that. Our mindset and beliefs are shaped by the environments we have lived in and the experiences we have had. The company’s values are a good starting point. Still, with the intent to favor them and use them to control and shape the environment and people in it, the leader creates another silos where people share only fragments honestly and act with the intent to hide from each other their true selves.
A way to deal with this constructively is to use the values not as silos standards, but as a ground for people to build a working relationship, where these values help create safety to share and act with no fear of showing who they really are.
“We are committed to delivering the best results from the first time.”
This phrase shows how stressful a situation can be through the perspectives of more than 540 leaders. Instead of being supported to fail and learn, people are pushed to be perfectionists, or, if they can’t be, to hide their mistakes to avoid being punished or kicked out of the environment. And people feel the pressure to deliver what leaders call “excellence” without being asked the cost of the resources they invest to sustain that statement as a pure Truth. And over time, that statement, repeated regularly, creates exhaustion and leads people to burnout and drop out of the organization.
So now, being the best, doesn’t feel like the most appropriate response, or…?
“We are now here to help X to do his job.”
In a meeting, a person sits quietly, listening to feedback about what they didn’t deliver and what the expectations were, and this phrase drops out. At first, it sounds like a proactive step to help the person. But in reality, it is a masked way of telling the person in front of everyone, “Your work sucks.” Asking people, not experts in a specific area, to “help” harms in two ways – it kills enthusiasm in the person and stresses those “asked to help”. Most leaders say they don’t see it that way, but employees think differently.
And now, do the leaders really need to help someone if they didn’t ask about it? … Just a topic for thinking…
“I know that you didn’t ask, but if I were you, I would have done…X. Let me tell you what to do.”
The polite start of a good intention turns into a program to be followed, no matter whether it is acceptable to the person. What looks like advice at the beginning, formulated by experience, turns into a mandatory approach. And still, the leaders who marked this as something normal were more than 275. All they believed was that this was an extremely helpful approach toward the situation and the person. But looking on the other side, what is presented as a help is an authoritarian approach with controlling expression. It screams, “My way or no way.” After all, the person was hired for their expertise, knowledge, curiosity, energy, and dedication in the areas they work. Such behavior not only makes them feel insignificant but also makes them turn back and not show all their strengths in upcoming situations. And from that situation, the only thing to see is losing their ground sides who don’t help each other. And as a result, the employee creates a silos around them to
FINAL WORDS:
Siloes are not something new, but every generation of leaders explores them in a completely new way. The more leaders study it, the better they get at managing situations from it. And with more than one solution for each situation, the deeper a leader goes. The sooner they understand the siloes, the better they can deal with them, without hurting others, themselves, and the organization as a whole. But still, to learn to deal with the siloes, every leader should invest time and effort. This is a groundbreaking question, and some answers will follow in the next chapter.
The Human place - a path from you to yourself 