In conversation with Sabine Kuhn
Every organisation understands financial debt. It is planned for, modelled, and carefully managed. Left unchecked, it compounds and creates long-term consequences.
According to Sabine Kuhn, there is another form of debt that leaders rarely acknowledge, yet it quietly erodes performance and culture from within.
“Communication debt builds every time people are told what is happening, but not why,” she explains. “It grows when leaders stay silent during change, or when decisions are announced without context.”
In today’s environment of constant uncertainty and transformation, Sabine believes that this invisible debt is starting to fall due.
The hidden cost of silence
“Most organisations would never make a major financial decision without a plan,” Sabine says. “Yet when it comes to communication, many operate reactively. Updates are irregular, often limited to moments of pressure, and stripped of meaning.”
At first, the impact appears minor: small misunderstandings, slight misalignments. Over time, however, teams fill the gaps themselves. Assumptions replace clarity, rumours replace leadership, and people slowly disengage.
Sabine poses a question many leaders avoid: When your people don’t hear from you, what story do you think they are telling themselves instead?
“Silence isn’t neutral,” she adds. “It’s corrosive.”
Speaking up in ways that matter
Quoting Herbert Simon’s insight that a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, Sabine argues that leaders must go beyond updates.
“It’s not about saying more,” she says. “It’s about helping people interpret what’s happening.”
She encourages leaders to reflect before communicating: What does this decision really mean for your people? How does it connect to strategy? What trade-offs were considered? What context is missing from the slide deck?
“If you don’t share your thinking, people will invent it for you.”
CEO-led, HR-enabled
Addressing communication debt, Sabine believes, must start at the top. “Employees need to hear directly from leaders—consistently, not just in crisis.”
HR, she adds, plays a pivotal role. “HR sits at the intersection of culture and communication. You are the architects of coherence.”
Her challenge to readers is simple: Are your communications creating clarity—or just noise?
As 2026 approaches, Sabine leaves leaders with one final question: What communication debt are you carrying into the year ahead?
At Talent & Truth, Sabine works with C-suite and HR leaders to build communication systems that prioritise meaning over messaging. “When leaders share how they think,” she concludes, “organisations move faster, trust deeper, and grow stronger.”
Communication, she believes, is not a soft skill – It is leadership infrastructure
Contact
Sabine Kuhn, CEO at Talent and Truth
