Why I’m a communication ethicist (and why it matters)

In a previous post, I talked about what I study as a communication scholar, and how that background informs the work I do as a coach. Today, I want to talk about one of my areas of specialization many people find intriguing: communication ethics.

So what do communication ethicists do?

Again, if you ask two communication ethicists what they do, you’ll get two completely different answers. For me, my answer starts my Karl Jaspers-inspired definition of communication in the last post: 

Communication is a loving struggle that happens when our backs are against the wall. And our backs are almost always against the wall.

Communication is a struggle between people. We’re debating, arguing, wrestling with each other to try to figure out what we should do next. More often than not, the stakes of that argument are high for all of us. More often than not, communication doesn’t feel warm and cozy. And more often than not, we have absolutely no idea what the right answer is.

But above all else, the struggle needs to be loving. 

Because when our struggle stops being loving, our communication becomes violence.

So when I think about communication ethics, I see it as trying to figure out what it means to struggle lovingly with one another when our backs are against the wall. But what does that struggle look like?

For me—and this is a theme that will occur frequently throughout this blog—communication less about doing than it is about being. That is, I don’t see loving struggle as a system or a set of rules or an action plan. We’re already in it. Our challenge is to embrace it.

Loving struggle is defined by five elements I’ll discuss briefly: vulnerability, misunderstanding, listening, empathy, and compassion. 

Communication ethics embraces vulnerability. In Daring Greatly, Brené Brown notes that the word “vulnerability” comes from the Latin word for wound. Woundedness is an inescapable part of human life, how we respond to our woundedness defines how we show up for others. 

Many of us, especially white people who have spent their lives in culturally dominant positions, orient our lives toward shielding ourselves from vulnerability in ways that harm others and deny ourselves of authentic relationships. Embracing vulnerability allows us to come into our full humanity.

If we think vulnerability is hard, we’ve just convinced themselves that we’re somehow exempt from the human condition. The first tenet of trauma-informed practice is realizing that trauma is everywhere we look. It’s time we write ourselves back into the human story. And in a way, that’s what communication ethics is striving to do.

Communication ethics leans into misunderstanding. Communicating is an act of profound vulnerability. It always brings the fear of being misunderstood, of having our words taken out of context, of having our intentions misconstrued. 

Often, we assume that communicating well is about avoiding those misunderstandings. But communication ethicist Lisbeth Lipari argues that we’re getting everything backwards. 

Misunderstanding isn’t just inevitable, she writes in her book Listening, Thinking, Being. It’s essential because it forces us to recognize that we’re different from other people. And those differences call us forward to learn more. 

Communication ethics begins in listening. Often, when we feel misunderstood, we immediately want to protest our innocence and declare how others are getting us wrong. Leaning into misunderstanding, however, means we make room for listening. 

“One way we can make room for understanding is to clear a space in which we can tolerate the painful ambiguities of not understanding or knowing and, in turn, of being misunderstood,” Lipari writes. “For when we assume that understanding is contingent upon continuity, similarity, or agreement, we leave little room for discovery or for others” 

Listening, she concludes, is the prerequisite for ethics, because it opens a space that allows us to see people in their full humanity. This space is messy and ambiguous, and it can be scary because we don’t know what we’ll find there. But if we want to learn, we have to enter into that space with the courage to ask questions. And to wait.

Communication ethics enlarges empathy. As we ask questions and wait, we find that the circle of what we know and care about gets bigger. In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown calls this cognitive empathy, “the ability to recognize and understand another person’s emotions” without judging those emotions or stepping away from them. 

We’re not feeling those emotions directly—Brown calls that affective empathy, which leads to burnout and overwhelm—but rather learning to step inside another person’s shoes. It’s an imaginative move in the fullest sense, a movement of the heart that connects us with people in both their joy and their pain.

Communication ethics embodies compassion. Broadening our ethical imaginations through empathy isn’t enough. Brown emphasizes that empathy with nothing to back it up is empty. If it’s going to mean anything at all, our empathy has to lead to compassion. “Compassion,” she writes, “is the daily practice of recognizing and accepting our shared humanity so that we treat ourselves and others with loving-kindness, and we take action in the face of suffering.”

But while compassion is active, notice how much reflection has gotten us to this point. Compassion isn’t another form of doing but a way of being. 

“Compassion is fueled by understanding and accepting that we’re all made of strength and struggle—no one is immune to pain or suffering,” Brown continues. “Compassion is not a practice of ‘better than’ or ‘I can fix you’—it’s a practice based in the beauty and pain of shared humanity.”

In other words, the practice of compassion cannot occur without first being vulnerable, grappling with misunderstanding, listening to others, and allowing what we hear to deepen our empathy. If we leap into action without doing those things, we may be doing so with the best of intentions, but our struggle won’t be loving.

My coaching practice prepares my clients for the loving struggle of everyday life. I help clients embrace their vulnerability and lean into the misunderstandings they encounter. I give them the space to listen to themselves so they can listen to others. And together we strive to broaden our capacity for empathy and compassionate action that allows them to transform their lives, their organizations, and their world.

Sound interesting? Want to learn more? Sign up for a Discovery Session today.