The experienced leader knows how orders can be easily misunderstood and how plans can quickly go wrong. The excuse of "I told them" is completely unpersuasive. Leaders are not writing poems to be parsed in first-year English classes.
Skilled communicators anticipate questions and likely areas of misinterpretation. They discuss what should be emphasized and what should be avoided. They note the swamps and the quicksand as well as the highways.
I've seen good and bad examples of this in organizations and in academia. When I taught business law, it was not uncommon to encounter students who were "sparse communicators." If you held their papers up to the light and carefully weighed certain words you might see - provided you were also merciful - that they'd given the right answer but they certainly didn't help you on that journey. They held onto words as tightly as a miser grasps a coin. Perhaps they wanted to avoid the wordiness of the shallow but their technique harmed clarity.
Leaders need to recognize that what is obvious to their eyes is not so to others. They need to explain in a manner which reaches the skeptical and the inexperienced. Failing to do so is asking for trouble.
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