There's an old political adage that says "if you're explaining, you're losing." It's usually applied to campaign messaging, but there's a version of this that plays out constantly in boardrooms and executive meetings. When a senior leader immediately shifts into teaching mode to justify a decision, they often invite more scrutiny than they deflect.

The instinct that got you here, is not what will get you there

Most of us got to leadership positions because we're good at reasoning through problems and articulating our thinking. When someone questions a decision, our natural response is to explain the logic, share the data, and walk them through our reasoning. This feels like the right thing to do. Transparency, right? Show your working.

But in senior leadership contexts, this instinct can work against you. The moment you start explaining, you've implicitly accepted that the decision is up for debate. You've invited your audience to poke holes in your reasoning, question your assumptions, and offer alternative interpretations of the same data. What started as a brief update becomes an extended interrogation.

Explanation invites evaluation

When you explain your reasoning, you're asking people to follow your logic and assess whether it's sound. This is appropriate in many contexts, but it fundamentally changes the nature of the conversation. You've moved from "here's what we're doing" to "here's why I think we should do this, what do you think?"

In board and executive settings, this shift can be costly. Time is scarce, and everyone is operating at a high level of abstraction. Extended explanation consumes attention disproportionate to the stakes. Worse, it can signal uncertainty where none exists, inviting others to fill the perceived gap with their own opinions.

The alternative is to signal confidence in your judgment rather than present a case for evaluation. A simple "I'm comfortable with where we've landed" communicates that you've done the work, weighed the trade-offs, and reached a conclusion you're willing to stand behind. It acknowledges uncertainty exists while making clear you've internalised it and made peace with the decision anyway.

Trust versus logic

This distinction matters because explanation and stated confidence invite very different responses. When you explain, you're asking people to evaluate your reasoning. When you signal confidence, you're asking people to trust your judgment. These are fundamentally different requests.

Explanation invites debate about the reasoning itself. Did you consider this factor? What about that scenario? Trust invites a simpler question: do I believe this person has done the work and has the judgment to make this call? If the answer is yes, the conversation moves on. If the answer is no, you have a bigger problem that more explanation won't solve anyway.

Senior leaders who understand this dynamic know that not every question requires a detailed answer. Sometimes a question is really just checking whether someone's paying attention, whether they've thought it through. The appropriate response is to demonstrate that you have, not to re-run the entire analysis in public.

When explanation is still the right call

None of this means you should never explain. Explanation is genuinely useful when there's a real knowledge gap you can fill, when you're building shared context for future decisions, or when the stakes are high enough that collective reasoning genuinely improves the outcome.

The skill is recognising the difference. Is this question seeking information, or testing confidence? Is extended discussion proportionate to the stakes? Have you earned enough trust that your stated judgment carries weight, or do you need to build that trust first?

The best senior leaders I've worked with read these situations well. They know when to teach and when to simply stand behind their work. They've learned that the instinct to explain, the very thing that made them successful earlier in their careers, can become a liability if applied indiscriminately at senior levels.

Sometimes the most effective thing you can say is simply that you've done the work, you've weighed the options, and you're confident in the path forward. Then stop talking.