The Sentence Every Leader Should Stop Using

I've heard thousands of leaders speak. Across airlines, banks, manufacturing floors, logistics hubs. And there is one sentence I keep hearing that quietly does more damage than almost anything else a leader can say.

"That's not my department."

It sounds reasonable. Even professional. A clean line in the sand. But every time I hear it, I know exactly what follows: a customer who feels shuffled, a team that stops raising problems, and a cross functional cold war that nobody officially declared.

I've watched senior, capable people say this sentence and genuinely believe they were doing the right thing. Staying in their lane. Respecting boundaries. What they were actually doing was teaching their teams that ownership stops at the org chart.

And teams learn fast.

Within a few months, you have an organisation where everyone is technically correct about their own responsibilities and nobody is actually responsible for the customer's experience, or the complaint that keeps repeating, or the handoff that keeps breaking down.

The sentence does one more thing, and this is the part leaders rarely see.

It signals to the people watching you that silence is safe and speaking up is risky. If the boss will not cross a line to solve a problem, why would anyone else?

So what should a leader say instead?

Firstly, name the problem even if it does not belong to you. "I can see this is a real issue. Let me find out who can fix it and get back to you."

Secondly, connect the dots instead of pointing fingers. "This sits between Sales and Operations. Let's get both of them in a room."

Thirdly, model the behaviour you want to see in your team. Your words are a training programme whether you intend them to be or not.

None of this requires you to overstep. It requires you to stay in the conversation long enough to actually help.

This is exactly the kind of communication pattern we address at Doozy Skills, because it is never just about one sentence. It is about what that sentence builds or erodes over months and years inside a team. Our work is to help senior leaders and their managers catch these habits before they calcify into culture.

We believe the cost of poor leadership communication never shows up on a single day. It shows up quietly, in attrition numbers, in repeat complaints, and in teams that have simply stopped speaking up.

If you are a CHRO, L and D Head, or Business Head wondering why your teams are not as aligned as they should be, comment the word GAP below and I will send you a short diagnostic question set to help you identify where communication is quietly breaking down in your organisation.