TL;DR
Passive voice does more than make your message fuzzy. It takes the person responsible out of the sentence. Whether it’s how we talk about violence against women or how companies apologize, removing the actor lets people dodge accountability. Leaders who put the “who” back in build trust.
We’ve all gotten this email. “Changes have been made to the PTO policy.” “The decision was made to delay the launch.” “It was determined that the budget will be reduced.”
Changed by whom? Decided by whom? Determined by whom?
Nobody knows. And that’s exactly the point.
I’ve been telling you to ditch passive voice for years (I wrote about it in Say What You Mean). My argument has always been about clarity: passive voice buries the action and makes people work too hard to understand you. That’s true. But I’ve been underselling the problem.
Passive voice doesn’t just bury the action. It buries the actor.
And when the actor disappears, so does accountability.
“Mistakes Were Made”: The Classic Dodge
The most famous example is “mistakes were made.” Political consultant Bill Schneider suggested calling it the “past exonerative” tense, and William Safire described it as a passive-evasive way to admit an error while keeping your distance from it. Mistakes were made by whom? The sentence won’t say. It refuses to.
And we all do some version of it. Listen to how people talk about wins and losses. Wins get the active voice: I closed the deal. We hit our numbers. Losses get the passive: Costs increased. The project fell behind schedule. Funny how that works.
Here’s what gets me. As I’ve written before, bad press is a business decision made visible. Behind every “mistakes were made” is a person who made a call. Passive voice doesn’t change that. It just makes you look like you’re hiding it. And people notice, because words are signals, whether you mean them to be or not.
“Mistakes were made” tries to turn a decision into weather.
Communication reflects decisions; it doesn’t replace them. No sentence structure can hide whose decision it was.
Say This, Not That: Passive Voice Edition
You know I love a “Say This, Not That” list. Here’s a few examples of what the passive dodge sounds like at work, and what to say instead:
- Don’t say: “The deadline was missed.”
- Say: “I missed the deadline.”
- Why it works: Everyone already knows who owned it. Saying so yourself ends the guessing and earns you credibility.
- Don’t say: “Your role has been eliminated.”
- Say: “We made the decision to eliminate your role.”
- Why it works: It’s harder to say, and that’s exactly why it matters. People deserve to know a person made that call. Your employees are your first public, and they deserve the active voice most of all.
- Don’t say: “Decisions were made.”
- Say: “Leadership decided.”
- Why it works: It sends questions to the people who can answer them, instead of into the void.
- Don’t say: “The ball was dropped.”
- Say: “I dropped the ball.”
- Why it works: Four words that build more trust than a four-paragraph explanation.
How to Put the Actor Back in the Sentence
Step 1: Ask “By Whom?”
This is the one-question edit test. Before you send an email, an apology, or an all-hands script, read each sentence and ask, “By whom?” If there’s an answer you’re avoiding, rewrite it. And if you can’t answer it at all, pay attention. As I wrote in When the Decision Is Clear, the Explanation Is Simple, fuzzy decisions produce fuzzy communication. Decide who owns it, and the sentence fixes itself.
Step 2: Own It, Fix It, Time-Bound It
“I” and “we” are the most credible words in any apology. Say what happened, who did it, what’s next, and when you’ll be back: “I sent the client the wrong deck. I’ve sent the right one and called to apologize. A review step will be in place by Friday.” Just like with “I don’t know”, owning it is what builds trust. You can’t own something you’ve written yourself out of.
Step 3: Know When Passive Is Fine
“The building was constructed in 1920” is a perfectly good sentence. Nobody needs to know who poured the concrete. The problem isn’t the grammar. It’s using it to hide.
Say Who Did It
Language shapes where people look, and where they look shapes who they hold responsible. Leaders set the tone. If you hide behind passive voice, your team will learn to do the same, and accountability will quietly drain out of your culture one sentence at a time.
So here’s your homework. Pull up the last three emails you sent. Circle every sentence without an actor. Ask, “By whom?” Then put a person back in it.
Everything speaks. Including who you leave out of the sentence.