The Aftermath

This is the second of two reflections. You can read the first, Nobody Talks About What Happens After You've Used Your Voice, here.

That first post was about what happens when your message doesn't land. This one is a follow-on, written after I'd had time to sit with what happened - and its aftermath.

When I was younger, my dad regularly said this to me:

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

Even at that young age, I understood what he was trying to tell me. But I couldn't make the hurt of the words wash off me. I'd try to picture myself as a duck, shaking my feathers, the words flying off me. Water off a duck's back.

It rarely worked. I've always been a sensitive soul, and words do hurt me.

As I've got older, I've tried to find ways to keep returning to the "sticks and stones" adage. But I still think whoever wrote that had clearly never sat in a boardroom.

Or a classroom.

Or even around a family dinner table.

Because words have weight. And they don't simply disappear once they've been spoken.

They linger.

Sometimes for minutes. Sometimes for decades.

As leaders, we spend enormous amounts of time thinking about what to say. How to influence. How to persuade. How to inspire. How to present.

Very little time is spent thinking about something far more important.

The aftermath. The part that begins after we've left the room.

As I shared last time, I recently had one of my own PowerVox moments. A colleague and I presented a piece of work we'd poured our hearts into. I believed in it. We'd prepared carefully. We'd thought deeply about how to communicate it. I was confident.

But it didn't land.

The feedback was difficult. And on reflection, I've come to think the response had as much to do with the conditions everyone was working under as with the work itself. That's not a complaint - it's the very point of our methodology. Landing is shaped by the room, not only by the speaker. But in the moment, it didn't feel that way. The room wasn't quite the safe space I'd assumed it would be.

And afterwards I was exhausted.

Not only because the work had been criticised. Because I'd forgotten something important.

Communication doesn't end when the meeting finishes.

It leaves a residue.

Words leave fingerprints on people. Sometimes we carry those fingerprints for years.

I suspect every one of us can remember a sentence that changed our life. A teacher. A parent. A boss. A coach.

Perhaps someone once told you...

"You'll never be good enough."

Or perhaps someone looked you in the eye and said...

"I believe in you."

One sentence. One moment. A lifetime of consequences.

This is why leadership is never just about strategy or intellect.

It is about stewardship. The stewardship of your voice.

Every time you speak, you borrow space inside someone else's mind. You influence the stories they tell themselves. You shape what feels possible. Or impossible. You can expand someone. Or diminish them.

And often you'll never know which you've done.

Leadership isn't so different from parenting. Children are always watching. Always listening. Long after they appear not to be.

Our organisations are no different. People notice far more than leaders imagine.

They notice what gets praised. What gets ignored. Who gets interrupted. Who gets thanked. Who gets publicly corrected. Who gets the benefit of the doubt. Who is excluded or dismissed.

Every conversation teaches people something about what is safe. And what is dangerous.

This, I've come to believe, is how culture is really created - one conversation at a time.

Many organisations proudly proclaim one thing, while their everyday conversations quietly teach the opposite:

The words may only last thirty seconds. The aftermath can last years.

People don't stop speaking because they have nothing to contribute. They stop speaking because they've learned the cost.

Fear is rarely announced. It accumulates. Conversation by conversation. Meeting by meeting. Sentence by sentence.

Eventually organisations begin to wonder why innovation has disappeared. Why creativity has dried up. Why nobody raises risks early. Why meetings have become strangely quiet.

In our experience, the answer is rarely capability. More often, it's memory. People remember what happened the last time someone spoke.

(We hold this as a strong conviction drawn from our work, and as one of the questions we're keen to study more rigorously: how the residue of past conversations shapes whether people feel able to speak again.)

The irony is that the same leaders who most want innovation can unknowingly create the very conditions that make it impossible. Because creativity tends to require psychological safety. Curiosity tends to require compassion. And courage tends to require consideration.

Not agreement. Not softness. Not lowering standards. Simply recognising that every human being in the room will go on hearing your words long after you've forgotten saying them.

PowerVox has always been about helping leaders find their voice.

I'm beginning to think that's only half the story. The other half is helping leaders understand the responsibility that comes with being heard.

Because voice is power. And power asks for stewardship.

The meeting ends. The words don't.

They travel home with people. Into the car. Around the dinner table. Into sleepless nights. Into tomorrow's meeting. Into the next generation of leaders.

That is the aftermath.

So perhaps, before our next important conversation, the question isn't simply "What do I want to say?"

Perhaps it's this:

"What do I want people to carry with them after I've left the room?"

We hope you've enjoyed this blog post. If you're interested in working with PowerVox you can email us [email protected]. Learn more about The Greenhouse at https://www.powervox.co.uk/the-greenhouse. To find out more about PowerVox Play Sessions, visit https://www.powervox.co.uk/studio-play. You can also follow us on social media, using the handles at the footer of our website.