Are communicators confusing the durability of a message with the durability of its emotional effect?
Reassurance can have a remarkably short half-life.
A confident statement from a chief executive can restore optimism. A compelling vision can make an uncertain future feel manageable. A clear explanation of a difficult decision can temporarily settle an anxious workforce. But the relief doesn't necessarily last.
Sometimes it survives for weeks. Sometimes only days. Occasionally, another question emerges before the leadership briefing has even finished.
Nothing material has changed. The information remains valid. The leader is no less credible. Yet the anxiety returns, demanding another explanation, another demonstration of confidence, another reason to believe things might turn out well.
We tend to assume that reassurance accumulates. That each confident statement, encouraging development, and demonstration of competence contributes to a growing reservoir of trust. But perhaps reassurance is better understood as something we consume. And when the underlying uncertainty persists, the relief it provides may create an appetite for more.
For strategic communicators, that raises an uncomfortable possibility: What if the message has worked, but the reassurance hasn't lasted?
When the message isn't the problem
Much of strategic communication is concerned with ensuring that messages are understood, believed and remembered. We develop narratives, establish credible spokespeople, build communication programs, and measure whether audiences are receiving and accepting what we tell them.
When anxiety persists, our instinct is often to communicate again. Refine the narrative. Increase leadership visibility. Find another way to demonstrate confidence. Sometimes that's precisely what's required.
But consider an organisation undergoing a significant restructure.
An employee attends a leadership briefing and receives a clear explanation of the organisation's direction. They understand the rationale for change, believe the chief executive is acting in good faith, and accept that difficult decisions are necessary. They may even leave feeling reassured.
The following morning, however, they wake up worried about whether they'll still have a job in six months. The message hasn't been forgotten. Their confidence in the chief executive hasn't necessarily diminished. The uncertainty has simply become frightening again.
What, exactly, has the communication failed to achieve? Perhaps nothing.
Perhaps we've been treating the persistence of anxiety as evidence that a message hasn't landed, when the real problem is that the uncertainty itself remains unresolved.
Psychological research into reassurance-seeking suggests that repeated reassurance can temporarily reduce distress without necessarily addressing the underlying anxiety. In some circumstances, the relief can reinforce the impulse to seek reassurance again.
I wonder whether something similar happens in organisational communication. When people return repeatedly for information, are they always seeking answers to new questions? Or are they sometimes looking for renewed confirmation of something they already understand?
The distinction matters because one is an information problem. The other may not be.
The reassurance of leadership
This becomes more complicated when we consider what people expect from leaders.
Part of leadership is making an uncertain future feel real. Giving people a credible sense of where they're going, why it matters and why they should believe the journey is possible.
Strategic communication plays a central role in making that future comprehensible and believable. But how often does that sense of confidence need to be renewed?
An organisation navigating prolonged change may communicate frequently and effectively while its employees remain deeply anxious. Another town hall is scheduled. Another leadership update is circulated. Another opportunity is created to demonstrate confidence.
Is that evidence that the previous communication was insufficient? Or is it simply what people need when uncertainty continues?
Perhaps repeated reassurance isn't necessarily a failure of leadership. Perhaps it's part of what leadership requires. But there is another possibility worth considering.
A leader who repeatedly provides reassurance may become increasingly important to an anxious audience, even when the underlying uncertainty remains unresolved. People attend briefings, seek guidance, and return to official channels.
We might reasonably interpret that engagement as evidence of trust. But could it also reflect an ongoing need for reassurance? And might the two sometimes be difficult to distinguish?
What are we actually measuring?
Strategic communicators devote considerable attention to audience sentiment, message acceptance, leadership confidence, and engagement. These are useful indicators, but they may not always tell us what we think they do.
High attendance at a town hall can indicate confidence in leadership. It can also indicate considerable anxiety about what leadership might announce.
A positive response to an executive update may reflect genuine confidence in the organisation's direction. It may also represent temporary relief that a feared development hasn't occurred.
And an employee who continues asking questions may not be confused or distrustful. They may understand the situation perfectly well and remain uncomfortable with what it means for them.
The same observable behaviours can have very different psychological origins. Yet we can be inclined to interpret them through the lens of whether our communication strategy is succeeding.
Perhaps we need to distinguish more carefully between message retention and reassurance retention.
An audience can understand, believe, and remember a message long after the emotional comfort it provided has disappeared. Equally, a message can produce an immediate improvement in sentiment without creating any enduring understanding or trust.
The first may be excellent communication. The second may be considerably less effective than it appears. And if we don't distinguish between them, we risk drawing the wrong conclusions about our work.
Knowing when communication has done its job
None of this is an argument against reassurance. It can be humane, valuable, and essential, particularly when people are confronting circumstances they cannot control.
Nor am I suggesting that communicators should abandon the responsibility to build confidence or that organisations should communicate less frequently. But perhaps we should be more realistic about what communication can accomplish when the underlying uncertainty cannot be resolved.
We often approach communication as though its effects should accumulate. The more consistently we explain, reinforce, and demonstrate, the more confident our audiences should become. In many circumstances, that's a reasonable expectation.
But uncertainty may complicate the relationship.
People can trust their leaders and remain anxious. They can understand a strategy and remain doubtful about its outcome. They can accept a decision and continue worrying about its consequences. None of these responses necessarily indicates a failure of communication.
And perhaps that's what makes reassurance such an interesting challenge for our profession. Its immediate effects are visible and often measurable. Its durability is much harder to establish.
We can observe whether people feel better after hearing from us. We can measure whether they understand and believe what we've said. But how do we distinguish between confidence that endures and reassurance that simply needs to be renewed?
And when anxiety returns, how do we know whether we need to communicate differently, communicate again, or recognise that the uncertainty itself is doing precisely what uncertainty does?
Perhaps one of the more difficult questions for strategic communicators is knowing when communication has done its job.
When a message has been understood, believed, and remembered, but the anxiety it briefly relieved returns, what exactly are we trying to fix?
The message?
Or the uncertainty that no message can remove?
Matthew (Matt) Thomas is Founder and Chief Catalyst at Stake The Reputation Company, a Melbourne-based consultancy working across brand, reputation, communications, and public affairs. He has advised some of Australia’s largest private companies and has worked extensively with global organisations localising their storytelling and narratives for Australian audiences. His experience spans consumer, government, health, infrastructure, technology, and corporate reputation, including advisory work at all levels of government in Australia.
Matt’s work sits at the intersection of communications, behaviour change, and institutional strategy. He is also a contributor to the The Oxford Handbook of Social Purpose, writing on reputation, legitimacy, and the growing gap between organisational messaging and operational reality.
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