The ick you feel in meetings? That's your brain working.
Read this sentence and rate it on how much "business savvy" it expresses:
"Working at the intersection of cross-collateralization and blue-sky thinking, we will actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing and end-state vision in a world defined by architecting to potentiate on a vertical landscape."
Ok one more:
"Our goal is to engage our capabilities by focusing our efforts on executing the current transmission of our empowerment, driving an innovative liquidity with our change drivers, and coaching energetic frameworks to our shovel-ready alignment."
If hearing sentences like these in a meeting has ever given you the ick, or made you feel like you're the one who doesn't get it, honey, you may be entitled to compensation.
The research 🫖
A hot-off-the-press study* confirms that how you respond to this 👆🏼 kind of language says a whole lot about you, and about whoever in your office keeps saying it.
People who find corporate word-salad impressive, who hear "shovel-ready alignment" and think "yes, exactly, that person gets it," score lower on analytic thinking and are more likely to take things at face value without questioning what they're actually hearing.
Here's where it gets spicy 🌶️: when researchers put participants through realistic workplace decision scenarios, how much someone fell for corporate BS was the biggest thing dragging down their performance. People who found the nonsense impressive made worse calls.
People who were more receptive to corporate BS also reported more trust in their leaders, more belief that their managers were visionary, and more inspiration from corporate mission statements. And that's actually the most concerning part.
When we mistake confident-sounding language for competence, we start selecting and promoting the wrong people. We reward the performance of intelligence over the actual thing, and that has real consequences for who ends up in charge. 😬
And more broadly, when we're surrounded by language that sounds important but means nothing, it's easy to start wondering if we're the problem. If everyone else is nodding along, maybe we're the ones missing something. Corporate jargon doesn't just happen by accident. It creates distance. It signals “I know something you don't” and it leaves everyone else feeling like they're one buzzword away from being found out. Some people wield it that way very deliberately.
And in a Carrie Bradshaw moment, I couldn't help but wonder...
Are you really the imposter in that room?
Or is it the person hiding behind "value-centered strategic intent" and "shovel-ready alignment," hoping nobody notices they haven't actually said anything?
The confusion, the feeling that everyone else seems to understand something you don't, the sense that you're missing some secret decoder ring, a lot of us have felt that. And it's worth sitting with the possibility that what you're actually picking up on is that the communication around you doesn't make sense, because it genuinely doesn't. Analytically sharp people are specifically less impressed by corporate bullshit, even when they're totally fine with regular corporate speech.
So what does good leadership communication actually look like?
This study is a pretty good reminder that clear, direct communication matters. You don't need the fancy, made-up lingo. In fact, the research suggests it's actively working against you.
But communication isn't just about the words you choose. It's also about how often you show up with them. And yes, you've probably been told to communicate more frequently with your team. But do you, really?
A 2023 study* looked at thousands of real 360-degree leadership assessments, the kind where your direct reports anonymously tell the truth about your weaknesses, and the findings were a lot.
Leaders were criticized for under-communicating nearly 10 times more often than for over-communicating. Out of 2,717 comments about leadership weaknesses, 421 flagged under-communication. Just 46 mentioned over-communicating. Of employees who said their manager was getting the amount wrong, 74.7% said too little, only 25.3% said too much. And in a nationally representative sample, managers scored an average of 4.26 out of 9 on communication quantity, where 5 was "just right." Consistently, measurably below what their teams wanted.
When employees felt under-communicated with, they didn't just rate their manager as less effective. They rated them as less caring. Under-communication reads as a lack of empathy, whether you mean it that way or not.
You might feel like you're communicating enough.
You might even feel like you're overdoing it.
Statistically, you probably aren't.
The more senior you get, the easier it becomes to assume your team is more caught up than they actually are, and the more they're quietly filling the silence with anxiety.
The bottom line: Your team doesn't need you to "actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing." They need to know what they're doing well, what needs to change, and that you're paying enough attention to tell them, in plain words, REGULARLY.
Say the thing.
Say it clearly.
Say it often.
No vertical landscapes required.
Let's go girls!
xoxo
Kelsey
This Week's Thing:
Add two questions to your next round of 1:1s.
✨ "Do you feel like you're getting enough information from me to do your job well?"
✨ "Is there anything you wish I communicated more clearly or more often?"
Don't save this for the end of year review. That's too late, and honestly, by the time it shows up in a performance cycle nobody is saying anything useful anyway.
Make asking for feedback, particularly about communication, a regular part of your 1:1s now. It will feel a little awkward the first time you ask, maybe even the second and third time. But what you're actually doing is building a relationship where your team feels safe enough to tell you the truth before it becomes a problem. And that's how trust gets built one honest conversation at a time.
A Girl’s Got To Cite Her Sources
*Linnell, S. (2026). The Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale: Development, validation, and associations with workplace outcomes. Personality and Individual Differences.
**Flynn, F. J. & Lide, C. R. (2023). Communication miscalibration: The price leaders pay for not sharing enough. The Academy of Management Journal