I was confident I knew what I was talking about six weeks ago when I started a blog series, #LeaderUP, sharing advice for how leaders can navigate during times of uncertainty. My intentions were good; I was full of energy and leftover grit and stored up momentum. I hoped the force of my productivity would muscle me and my family—and you—back to a normal I could understand. A normal I could predict.

I was wrong.

A client asked me today, “how much is too much internal communication from our CEO?”

You know what I’m about to say.

As a leader, talk as much, and only as much, as you’re listening. That way, your words are relevant to people, speak directly to what they need to hear, rather than to what you need to say.

Chalk it up to my mood today, but it’s about time we had some good old fashioned tough love talk about what leaders should immediately stop saying to their people, and what they should be saying instead to generate hope in the people who have signed up to be in their care.

Leader: There are lots of useful data out there about what to do when someone in your organization- someone in your leadership care- becomes ill with COVID-19. HR policies, practices, notification channels, and precautions. All essential to the health and safety of your workforce.

And then there are the people, the human beings, who are ill and frightened. Their family members are worried and they are struggling to focus on work for even short, sporadic stints.