Our On Leadership series explores the challenges and opportunities of political leadership, showcasing TBI’s unique approach to strategy, policy and delivery, with technology the enabler of all three. These perspectives – written by TBI experts with firsthand experience serving at the heart of governments around the world – provide a window into how bold ideas become transformative change.
“In many walks of life, communicating simply means informing people, telling them what you’re doing, imparting knowledge. But in politics, it is both a science and an art that can make the difference between success and failure.”
Tony Blair
Most people are too busy with their actual lives to pay attention to politics. Working in government – including in government communications, as we did – can inflate your sense of importance. Capturing the public’s attention when they are at best disinterested and at worst distrustful is a constant challenge for people in our line of work. We can get caught up in our own bubbles, and the public’s interest in government goings-on rarely matches our own.
In reality, what cuts through? Either a misstep, such as a scandal or a hastily prepared and sloppily delivered policy announcement, or an accumulation of failures (either real or perceived by the public). The latter is made worse if those failures occur when the public are at their most vulnerable: worrying about a sick child when hospitals are facing a shortage of doctors, or affording groceries when prices are increasing daily, or keeping their business afloat when the economy is struggling.
Governing is complex, but too often complexity becomes the default rather than the problem to solve. When a government system becomes overly bureaucratic, the typical response is counterintuitively to respond by creating more bureaucracy – more process, more consultation, more layers. We define, we abbreviate, we narrate, all until we have built a whole language that only we understand. And with every added loop and step, we drift further from the people we’re meant to serve, mistaking the navigation of complexity for progress, prioritising activity over action and process over outcomes. All of that is a surefire way to destroy trust.
If those in government become out of touch, this distance breeds distrust; and this trend is happening all over the world. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show a decade-long continual decline in public trust, with 44 per cent of people having no or low trust in their government in 2023.
So what can leaders do to earn back trust – and keep it? How do they make people feel that governing is being done with them and for them, not to them? As former political-communications advisors, we know what works and what doesn’t.
It starts with language. Not spin. Not slogans. Plain, honest words that show leaders get it: that they understand what their constituents back home are struggling with and have a clear, practical plan to make things better.
People in our former positions will – or should – repeatedly ask ministers a simple question: “What is keeping people up at night?”
Most ministers can answer it. But speaking to real concerns in real language is harder. It becomes buried under policy detail, media pressure, performance anxiety – usually the fear of landing a bad headline – and the pull of bureaucratic speak. The result? Leaders sound distant, canned and repetitive – even when they’re trying to help.
People in our former positions will – or should – repeatedly ask ministers a simple question: ‘What is keeping people up at night?’
”That’s where trust erodes. Not because people necessarily disagree, but because they sense inauthenticity. People’s hackles naturally rise when they feel you are telling them what you think they need to hear rather than speaking with candour, respect and a clear sense of the challenges they are facing. Platitudes and condescension are the enemies of good political communication, and usually of one’s electoral chances too.
The strongest foundations are built when leaders:
Speak like normal people
Are honest about challenges
Focus on delivery that’s visible and relatable
Are able to translate the complexity of policy design into the tangible benefits for citizens
When leaders do that consistently, trust follows – and so does permission to do more.
There are many elements behind a successful government-communications service, not least resource and process, but there are a few that, if championed by a good leader, can set the strongest possible foundations.
The leader sets the tone for how a government communicates, so good comms needs to come from the top. If a leader dodges questions, their ministers will too. If the leader sticks to platitudes, so will everyone else. But when a leader speaks plainly, explains the “why” behind decisions, and isn’t afraid to take responsibility, it creates a culture of honesty that filters through every level of government. People don’t expect perfection – and government comms will always require some shaping to stay on message and aligned with a broader narrative – but they do expect clarity and respect. This starts with how a leader talks to them.
That means avoiding hollow slogans and saying what you mean. It means resisting the urge to hide behind obfuscation or complexity and instead working hard to explain policy in terms that people actually understand. It means listening not only to advisors and polls but to how citizens themselves talk about their lives, and using that language when you speak. Most of all, it means remembering that trust is built slowly over time.
Delivery and Comms Are Inseparable, and Must Work Together
Delivering change is hard and often takes years to achieve. A politician elected for four years might make decisions whose benefits will not be felt for years to come. So, for most politicians, the focus is often on the announcement itself – the so-called “announceable” – rather than how the intended change or policy fits into a wider plan, and how it will translate to delivered impact for the public.
The knee-jerk political instinct to focus almost entirely on the communication of decisions, rather than delivering on the actions they concern, often leads to an increase in public cynicism and distrust when the promised change doesn’t happen, or when it takes so long to materialise the positive dividend is long lost. Tangible action and delivery follow-through are essential to building trust. And when delivery may take a while, the communication of tangible steps along the way becomes even more critical to get right.
Communicating to citizens without delivering results for them, too, is putting lipstick on a pig. Delivery without communications is like painting a Picasso and then putting it into storage for eternity, where no one will ever see it. Delivery and communications are an inseparable pair.
Take Time to Understand Your Audience – and Ask for Better Data
One of the fastest ways to tell whether a government team has lost its way – or never knew where it was heading in the first place – is to ask, “Who are you trying to reach?” and to hear in response, “Everyone.” Maybe that’s technically true – but in practice, it’s useless. The only way to cut through is to talk directly to different groups of people, in ways that acknowledge their lives, their priorities and how they actually consume information.
That means knowing your audience. Who needs to hear from you? What do they care about? How does your message land with them? And what’s the proof you’re making an impact? Not vanity metrics, not press releases per week, but polling, focus groups, town halls, constituent calls and surgeries, all providing data to show you’re getting through – or if not, exactly where you’re falling short.
In brief: stop treating comms like an afterthought and start treating it like a lever of government. If it’s not helping shift opinion or build permission to act, it’s just noise.
All this requires allocating resource to get and act on the right information – whether that’s people or professional data-gathering, or ideally both. Investment in this will prove valuable.
Bring Comms Colleagues in From the Start
Failing to bring communications colleagues into the room at the beginning can be the downfall of government and business leaders alike. We’re not just here to put out press releases or “spin” when it all goes wrong, or to protect the brand as though it were simply a look and feel. In politics, comms means all those things and more. Failing to grasp that and focusing only on “the message” or the “announceable” is a recipe for disaster.
We’re here to enable leaders’ policy priorities to see the light of day, and to win them the proverbial next day to continue governing. We can predict the issues that might derail the plan and get ahead of them before they do, help to maintain the public’s sense that you’re pushing through the challenges to deliver what you promised.
We can assess how an issue or policy might be perceived by the public and how it can best be approached. If you work with us from the start, we can help you hammer home your key messages and achievements at every opportunity, so every moment counts. We can’t if the comms are all about window dressing as an afterthought.
Finally, a leader who can communicate well is one with no need for cliches, political jargon and government bafflegab.
Words like “human capital”, “economic outputs” and “productivity gains” create barriers with ordinary people who don’t have the time to work out what you mean. If your grandmother wouldn’t understand it (assuming your grandmother doesn’t hold a degree in economic theory), your message won’t cut through. Not to mention hackneyed phrases like “I refuse to apologise for”, “Let me be very clear” and “Here to talk about the real issues”, which can turn the greatest of speeches into white noise for the average listener and, worse, just reinforce the idea that all politicians are the same.
If you wouldn’t say it in everyday conversation, don’t use it when you speak to members of the public. If a leader and their staff can speak from the heart, with authenticity and conviction, it will go a long way to building trust even in the hardest of times.
In the end, the only communications that matter are the ones people believe. That takes clarity, honesty and the courage to speak plainly, even when the news is tough. It means bringing comms in from the start, not bolting it on after the fact, and treating public trust like the governing asset it is. Because if you can’t explain what you’re doing – or why it matters – in words people understand, you’ll never get the chance to finish the job.
Our Credentials
Miriam McGrath is TBI Senior Advisor, Strategic Communications and former head of strategic communications in the UK Cabinet Office.
Joseph Pickerill is TBI Executive Director for Global Strategic Communications, former director of communications to Canada’s foreign minister and former strategic communications officer for the US Department of State.