Why Your CEO Deleted Your Email After You Asked About Their Weekend
- Aug 7
- 5 min read
Matching Leanne’s impressive qualifications, which include medical and business degrees from Harvard, are her energy, humor, and keen insight. Dr. Leanne Elich is an award-winning Sales Psychology and Business Strategist, author, speaker, and one of Australasia's most successful Technology Business Executives.
Have you ever sent an email that felt perfectly written, only to receive no response? You spent time getting the tone right. You opened with a friendly greeting, asked about their weekend, and eased into the reason for your email. It felt warm, professional and thoughtful. The person reading it deleted it before reaching the second paragraph.
Now imagine the opposite. An email lands in your inbox with no greeting, no small talk and no context. Just a direct request, "Can you send me the report by 3 pm?" One person appreciates the efficiency. Another thinks, "That was a bit abrupt." Neither email is wrong. They're simply written for different people.
Understanding that the interesting question isn't who communicated better, but why we assume everyone wants to be communicated with in the same way, helps readers recognise their own biases and develop adaptable strategies.
We all start with ourselves
Communication feels personal because it begins with something familiar, ourselves. When we decide how to write an email, lead a meeting or deliver feedback, we naturally draw on our own preferences. If we appreciate warmth before business, we tend to offer warmth before business. If we value brevity, we get straight to the point. If we like detail, we include every single step.
It feels logical because our own preferences are the easiest reference point we have. Psychologists describe this tendency as the false consensus effect, our inclination to assume other people think, feel and behave more like us than they actually do. It's one of the brain's many shortcuts, helping us make quick decisions without constantly analysing every social interaction from scratch.
Most of the time, we aren't consciously choosing to communicate this way. We assume our version of "good communication" is universal.
Communication is about interpretation, not intention
When communication doesn't land, our instinct is often to focus on the message. Maybe I should have explained it better. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Maybe I used the wrong words.
Sometimes that's true. But often the issue isn't the message itself. It's that we spend far more time thinking about what we want to say than about how the other person is likely to receive it. We like to think communication is about expressing ourselves clearly. More often, it's about whether the other person interprets our message the way we intended.
Every conversation is filtered through the other person's experiences, priorities, personality and expectations. The same words can create completely different reactions depending on who is listening. What feels respectful to one person may feel unnecessarily indirect to another. What feels efficient to one person may feel cold to someone else. The message hasn't changed. The interpretation has.
We prepare more than we observe
Before an important meeting, most of us prepare our message. We think about what we want to say, the points we need to cover, and how we want to come across. Far fewer of us prepare to observe.
Yet the person sitting across from us is constantly providing information about how they prefer to communicate. They tell us through the questions they ask, the pace at which they speak, the level of detail they want, and even what they choose to focus on first.
The biggest communication mistakes rarely happen because we choose the wrong words. They happen because we never stop to ask whether we're speaking to the right version of the listener. The most effective communicators don't just deliver information well. They pay attention before they speak.
The signals are usually there
One of the most overlooked aspects of communication is that people constantly reveal how they prefer to engage. Some people begin every meeting by asking about your weekend. Others open their laptop and ask, "What's first on the agenda?"
Some reply to emails with a single sentence. Others provide context, explanation and detail. Some make decisions quickly. Others want time to think before responding.
Even body language provides clues. Some people lean into conversation immediately. Others sit back, observe and contribute only after they've processed what they're hearing. These aren't random habits. They're behavioural signals.
The problem is that most of us are so focused on delivering our own message that we stop paying attention to the person receiving it. We're busy preparing our next sentence while the other person is quietly telling us exactly how they want to communicate.
Observation is an underrated communication skill
When people think about becoming better communicators, they often focus on speaking, presenting, negotiating, influencing and persuading. Those skills matter, but before any of them comes another skill that receives far less attention, observation.
The strongest communicators are rarely the people with the most polished script. They're the people who notice. They notice how quickly someone responds, whether they ask questions before making decisions, whether they prefer facts or stories, and whether they want context or conclusions. These observations allow them to adapt naturally rather than relying on the same communication style in every interaction.
Frameworks help us notice what we usually miss
This is where frameworks such as DISC become valuable. Not because they place people into neat personality categories, but because they interrupt one of our biggest behavioural blind spots, the assumption that everyone processes information the way we do.
A highly dominant communicator may value speed, clarity and outcomes. Someone with a more relational style may naturally look for connection before moving into the task itself. Neither approach is better.
The value isn't in the label, it's in the reminder that the person sitting opposite you may be processing the same conversation very differently. Frameworks like DISC don't replace observation. They sharpen it.
Adaptability isn't about being fake
Some people worry that changing how they communicate means changing who they are. It doesn't.
There's an important difference between changing your personality and adapting your communication. We already do it every day. We don't speak to a close friend the same way we speak to a client. We don't explain an idea to a new graduate the same way we explain it to an experienced executive. That's not inauthentic. It's awareness.
Adapting your communication isn't about becoming someone else. It's about recognising that communication isn't for the speaker. It's for the listener.
What this reveals about human behaviour
One of the brain's greatest strengths is its ability to use past experience to navigate the present. One of its greatest limitations is assuming those experiences are shared by everyone else.
We naturally believe our preferences are reasonable because they make sense to us. But effective communication begins the moment we become curious enough to question that assumption.
Perhaps the people we describe as great communicators aren't better at finding the right words, they're better at noticing what everyone else misses.
Read more from Dr. Leanne Elich
Dr. Leanne Elich, Business Psychology Strategist
Matching Leanne’s impressive qualifications, which include medical and business degrees from Harvard, are her energy, humor, and keen insight. Dr. Leanne Elich is an award-winning Neuroscientist and Sales Psychology Strategist, author, speaker, and one of Australasia's most successful Technology Business Executives.
