Leadership Linchpin: Why Leaders Must Show Up for Communication Training
Linchpin - the person or thing vital to an enterprise or organization—or an actual pin put through an axle to keep the wheel in place so it can continue to do its job and move forward.
Take a moment and think about clean, clear, and transparent communication in your organization. Who is the linchpin?
An All-Too-Common Scenario
In my work, I often encounter the same pattern repeatedly: A leader reaches out with urgency in their voice, "Communication in our organization is challenging. People just don't seem to be getting the message. Beth, we need you in here to improve communication!"
I arrive ready to facilitate transformative workshops, armed with tools and frameworks that I know can revolutionize how teams interact. The team members file in. They may be uneasy, but they are ready to engage, to be vulnerable, to do the hard work of building better communication habits.
But there's one glaring absence: the leader who called me in the first place.
The Great Disappearing Act
The excuses are always reasonable on the surface. A last-minute meeting that "only they can handle." A priority deadline that demands their immediate attention. The metaphorical fire that they believe only they can extinguish.
Meanwhile, their team is in the room doing exactly what the leader said was desperately needed. They're showing up. They're putting their best foot forward and experiencing the kind of vulnerability and discomfort that helps teams bond and allows people to see each other in new ways.
But the leader is missing it all.
Missing the team building. Missing the breakthroughs. Missing the context that makes everything else make sense. And most critically, they're not learning the steps and frameworks that create the magic—the tools that allow teams to have tough conversations and negotiate conflict in healthy, productive ways.
What every leader needs to understand:
We are all linchpins. Every single one of us plays a role in keeping the wheels from falling off the metaphorical bus. And now more than ever, we all need to learn new skills and tools about how to communicate in ways that build trust and improve culture.
The moment you believe that you are above this work—or that you don't have time to engage in the often uncomfortable and vulnerable process of developing healthy communication skills—you stop being a linchpin.
You become something else entirely: a hindrance.
Even if you're the leader. Especially if you're the leader.
The Leadership Paradox
There's a cruel irony at play here. The very leaders who recognize that their organizations need better communication are often the ones who remove themselves from the solution. They identify the problem correctly but position themselves outside of it, as if communication breakdowns happen around them rather than involving them.
There’s a fundamental disconnect.
How can you lead a transformation you haven't experienced? How can you reinforce behaviors and frameworks you haven't learned? How can you model the vulnerability and growth mindset that effective communication requires if you haven't practiced it yourself?
The Real Cost of Leadership Absence
When leaders skip communication training while expecting their teams to embrace it, several damaging things happen:
The team learns new tools and approaches, but the leader can't support or reinforce them because they don't understand the methodology.
Mixed messages emerge as the leader continues old communication patterns while expecting the team to demonstrate new ones.
Trust erodes because actions don't match stated priorities—if communication improvement was truly urgent, wouldn't the leader prioritize being there?
Most importantly, sustainable change becomes nearly impossible because the person with the most influence over organizational culture hasn't committed to their own growth.
Being the Linchpin You Want to See
True leadership in communication means showing up for your own development with the same commitment you expect from your team. It means sitting in the discomfort of learning new skills, even when you've been successful using old ones. It means modeling the vulnerability that healthy communication requires.
When you participate in a Navigating Challenging Dialogue® workshop alongside your team, you don't just learn tools and frameworks—you demonstrate that growth and improvement are values that apply to everyone, regardless of title or tenure. You become the linchpin that keeps the wheels of positive change moving forward.
The question isn't whether your organization needs better communication.
The question is whether you're willing to be part of the solution in the most meaningful way possible: by showing up, doing the work, and becoming the linchpin your team needs you to be.
We Are Now Booking NCD Workshops for Fall 2025
We offer team workshops both virtually and in-person. Let’s chat about your team’s needs. Book a call with me today: https://NCDsolution.com/beth
-Beth