The Daily CHEW™
Moving God’s Love from Head to Heart for Christian Professionals
His American direct reports kept walking out of his meetings confused — and he kept thinking they should have understood him. A CEO I worked with came from a culture where indirect communication is the norm. He was brilliant: visionary, strategic, the kind of leader who could see three moves ahead. But when he said “I am open to change” in a meeting, his American team would hear a green light and start generating alternatives. He had actually meant “I do not want this to change.” When his higher performers brought it up, he would agree he was indirect — and then continue being indirect. Two of his best people were close to quitting because they kept investing hours building options he never wanted. What surprised me most was that he genuinely believed the team should already know what he really meant.
The breakthrough came when we changed the medium, not the man. He started writing his thinking down after the meeting, feeding it through an AI tool to help him be tactfully direct, and sending one short email that named exactly what he wanted. His team learned to wait for the email — not the words in the room — and the resentment died down within weeks. They could work better together. Even better, after months of seeing his own thinking translated into tactful directness, he began to speak that way too. The system did not just fix the team. It reshaped the man.
“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” — Colossians 4:6, ESV. God does not ask leaders to be blunt or vague. Scripture reveals a third way — grace and clarity together, shaped to the person on the other side. God reshapes leaders who are willing to use whatever scaffolding it takes to speak both truthfully and graciously, until the man himself catches up to what his team needed all along.
Here is the question for this Thursday: If I really believed God’s love is committed enough to use a system, a tool, or a discipline to grow me into a more gracious-and-clear communicator, how would that change the way I take responsibility for being understood this week?
One move before Friday: Identify one ongoing conversation where your team, your spouse, or your kids regularly walk away unsure of what you actually meant. Before the next exchange, write down what you want to say in plain language and read it back to yourself before delivering it. If this is the only thing I do from this CHEW today, it is enough.
With you on the journey,
Ryan
If you had to put this into one sentence for today, what would you say God is inviting you to rest in or return to?
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