You have to tell the school something they won’t want to hear
They will find the difficult sentence whether or not you say it. What you decide is whether they hear it from you.
Something has been settled that people will not welcome: a post that is going, an event that is not happening, a change to how something is organised, a budget that will not stretch. The immediate leadership task is not to argue the decision again, but to communicate clearly what has been decided and what happens next. The work is to say it in a way people can act on, and the two failures available are opposite. Softening the difficult sentence means they find it later and conclude you knew. Overstating your certainty, or presenting someone else’s decision as your own, means you cannot answer the first question honestly. Before drafting anything, be exact about who decided this, what is settled, what is genuinely still open, and what you are not free to say yet. Where the news concerns staffing, restructuring or redundancy, or where a consultation requirement applies, your school’s or trust’s own arrangements govern what may be communicated and when.
Presenting symptoms
- You have written three versions and each one buries the same sentence in a different place.
- You are not certain how you would answer if someone asked whether this was your decision.
- You know one question you will be asked that you are not in a position to answer.
Possible causes
- The decision may be yours, in which case the work is explaining reasoning you actually hold.
- It may have been made by the trust, the governing body or an external authority, and pretending otherwise will not survive the first question.
- It may not be a decision at all but a proposal, in which case treating it as settled removes influence people are entitled to have.
- Part of it may be confidential or not yet finalised, which is a limit on what you may say rather than a reason to be vague about the rest.
You decided it, and you can explain why.
Your most useful next step: Lead with the decision rather than the context, then give the reasoning in terms of what it is for, and say plainly what you considered and rejected. Own it in the first person. Explaining your own decision entirely in the passive voice risks making it sound imposed and weakening your ownership of it.
Lead behaviours
It was decided elsewhere and you are announcing it.
Your most useful next step: Say who decided it and where, accurately, and do not either disown it or pretend it was yours. Give the reasoning as you understand it and say so when you do not fully understand it. Then be clear about what you are doing next: implementing it, and where relevant raising something through the proper route. 7.8 holds the harder version of this, where you also disagree with it.
Lead behaviours
It is a proposal and consultation is still genuinely possible.
Your most useful next step: Say that it is a proposal, say precisely what could still change and what could not, and say how and by when people can affect it. The book’s point is that people commit to what they help create. Consultation presented as meaningful when nothing can change damages trust and obscures the true status of the decision. If nothing can actually change, do not call it a proposal.
Lead behaviours
Part of it is confidential or not yet finalised.
Your most useful next step: Separate what you may say now from what you may not, and give the first part fully rather than giving all of it vaguely. Say that there is more you cannot yet share and, where it has been agreed, when you expect to be able to. Do not speculate about the part you are withholding, because a leader’s guess is heard as information.
Lead behaviours
Core behaviours
The book defines this as articulating the purpose behind a decision so that people understand rather than merely comply, and contrasts it with an instruction issued on authority alone. Unwelcome news is the case where that distinction shows most: a clear rationale helps people understand an unwelcome decision and act on it, even where they do not agree with it, and a decision that arrives without one leaves them nothing to work with but the objection. The chapter’s worked examples all convert a rule into its purpose, which is precisely the work here.
The book’s discipline is confronting the reality rather than the comfortable version. Two realities need it here. The first is the difficult sentence itself, which the drafting process tends to soften each time it is rewritten. The second is the honest answer to who decided this, which a leader under pressure is tempted to blur in whichever direction is more comfortable that day.
The book’s claim is that people commit to what they help create and that involvement produces ownership rather than compliance. It also names the cost: co-creation is slower. Both halves matter here. Where something is genuinely still open, saying so and meaning it is what makes the difference between a decision people carry and one they endure. Where it is not open, the same chapter is the reason not to stage a consultation, because involvement presented as meaningful when nothing can change damages trust and obscures what has actually been settled.
The book describes weighing second and third-order effects rather than eliminating risk. Announcements have them in quantity: who hears it before whom, what a phrase chosen to soften the message will be taken to promise, and what a leader’s speculation about an unfinished part will be treated as. The chapter’s point that a well-meant action can create a worse problem than the one it addressed is the standing warning for this record.
The book is explicit that humility is neither meekness nor self-doubt, and describes leaders who admit what they do not know and take responsibility when things go wrong. Both apply. Saying that you do not fully understand the reasoning behind a decision made elsewhere is more credible than a confident account that falls apart under a question, and owning a decision that is yours is the other half of the same behaviour.
Secondary behaviours
Use this after the announcement rather than instead of it. The book’s subject is an organisational message reinforced through more than one route over time, and its claim is that leaders stop repeating long before the audience has heard. People receiving unwelcome news take in very little of what follows the first sentence, which means the detail has to be given again, in writing, and again in person.
Use this where consultation is real. The book’s instruction is to understand before directing and to stay curious longer than is comfortable. It applies to finding out what people are actually worried about, which is regularly not the thing the announcement is about, and it is the behaviour that turns a consultation into something that changes the outcome.
A useful first action
Write the single sentence that is the actual news, in plain words, and put it at the top. Then write, for yourself, who decided it, what is settled, what is genuinely still open, and what you are not free to say yet. Everything else follows from those four answers.
Suggested approach
- Establish who decided this, what is settled, what is genuinely open and what you are not authorised to share.
- Where staffing, restructuring, redundancy or a consultation requirement is involved, check what your school’s or trust’s arrangements say may be communicated and when.
- Write the news as one plain sentence and put it first, rather than building up to it.
- Give the reasoning in terms of what the decision is for, and attribute it accurately to whoever made it.
- Say precisely what can still be influenced and how, or say plainly that it is settled. Do not offer consultation you cannot honour.
- Say what you cannot yet share, give the rest in full, and repeat the detail in writing afterwards for people who took in only the first sentence.