The Hidden Language That Gets Managers Promoted While Protecting Their Sanity
I’ve been thinking about this for some time. What makes successful managers?
I’ve been thinking about this for some time. What makes successful managers? Successful managers are not just the ones who get promoted regularly... they are the ones who build a sustainable career. A sustainable career cannot happen without a healthy mental state. Therefore, there must be something that keeps their mental state healthy while still displaying promotable skills.
Why books miss this point
In my own career, I’ve seen firsthand how the advice in leadership books sometimes falls short, which is why I began noticing a different pattern.
I’ve read a lot in my own career, especially during my management journey. I’ve benefitted immensely from those materials. But over time, those lessons helped me less and less. Eventually, I saw what separates successful managers from struggling ones. As the books suggested, inspiring teams, candid feedback, etc. are all useful advice, but their definition of leadership cornered managers into taking on more burden and becoming sandwiched between upper leadership and their teams. That is the highway to mental struggles.
Before I get to the actual point, let me explain why the books don’t mention what I share here. The reason lies in who wrote them:
Managers who were promoted many times and built successful careers. They practice what I’m about to describe almost unconsciously, so they attribute their success to other factors.
Research groups who observe successful managers from the outside but don’t fully grasp the everyday struggles of the role.
The strongest tool: communication
Managers rely on many tools, technical expertise to solve problems, decision-making to set direction, and emotional intelligence to guide people. All of these matter. But none of them work without effective communication. Words are the medium through which technical insights are shared, decisions are explained, and emotions are conveyed.
Now let’s get to the actual point. What’s the strongest tool of a manager? Their technical knowledge, their smile, etc...? No. Their communication and words are the strongest tools they have. Communication signals confidence, clarity, and most importantly—sanity. Let’s focus on the sanity part.
Internalizing vs. Externalizing
Struggling managers tend to use internalizing language. Instead of focusing on the external problem, they focus on how the problem makes them appear to their managers, peers, and teams. It’s easy to detect this in their language. For instance, when they share an update, you hear them starting with “I” or “We.” They inject themselves in the first sentence. They talk more about themselves than the problem. Problems become threats to their identity. Internalizing is often the first response because it feels safer: by centering themselves in the update, managers try to signal control and responsibility. But this instinct backfires, making them look less confident and more burdened.
But don’t get me wrong, it’s not about ego. Sure, some display egoistic behaviors. But most managers suffer from this because of the leadership definitions they are bombarded with every day. As leaders, they are often told, or at least implicitly expected, to inspire people, steer all problems, and act as the source of all knowledge. How can something happen and they don’t know the full details? These implicit and explicit expectations fuel their suffering. They force managers to manage their image, signaling that they must appear present in every part of the problem. This is why their updates so often begin with “I”, as if proving they are personally on top of everything. For example, instead of saying, “The system crashed overnight and the team is running diagnostics,” they might say, “I am looking into why the system crashed overnight.”
And here’s the irony: even though these expectations push managers toward internalizing language, it is actually those who externalize, the ones who keep the focus on the system, the facts, and clear ownership, who come across as more confident and promotable.
Why?
Because externalizing language shifts attention from self-preservation to problem-solving. It demonstrates clarity, authority, and trust in the team, qualities senior leaders look for when deciding who is ready for the next step.
And the more successful and sane ones? They keep the problem outside and solve it there. For them, problems are just life events, as Eckhart Tolle would call them. They don’t make problems part of their identity. Many use externalizing language unknowingly, often because they naturally focus on systems and facts rather than on self-image. For them, it’s simply how they process information, but it ends up projecting confidence and composure. One simple way to detect this in their language is that when they speak about a problem, they start with the system itself. Let’s do a comparison with a few different scenarios:
Bug investigation
Internalizing manager: “I don’t have much information as the logs didn’t show us anything, and I am talking to the engineer to dig deeper...”
Externalizing manager: “The logs didn’t yield enough visibility right now, and Michael on my team is taking a deeper look into them. I am in touch with him and will let you know about the latest status.”