Glad to see this article. It reminds me of a tech lead I once had: very skilled engineer, great guy (we still hang out now, long after I left that job), but we communicated differently. I come from a background where people think they're being subtle if they don't grab the front of your shirt when they're talking. His background must have been very different: we had a problem on a number of occasions where he would ask me to do something, he would leave the conversation with the idea that I had agreed to do the thing, and I was completely unaware that he had even asked.
This isn't foreplay. No one has time to read the tea leaves of someone else's "subtleties" and murky language. It's a waste of time and cognitive effort. Directness is a virtue. By directness, of course, I mean clear language that is to the point, not aggressive and disrespectful imposition. If you need something, then that's what you should say. The answer should likewise be direct. Yeses and noes, and because.
Common sense is one thing, as we don't necessarily want to have to spell everything out (and even here, there generally exists a space of reasonable difference of opinion and approach, and mutual familiarity also breeds implicit context), but it is uncharitable to put people into a position where they must constantly strain their minds to try to determine what you need, only to punish them for failing to meet your preciously specific and indeterminate expectations. This can quickly become abusive, not to mention annoying.
To wit:
Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language. (Rule 12, William Strunk, Jr.)
Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:37)
I don't fault him for this: I assume that's just what he learned at home. The ultimate lesson I take from this thread is that people's preferences in this matter are all over the place, and if you want to be a leader (as opposed to, say, a manager), you have to be able to be flexible in your approach. It's a matter of picking the right tool for the job.
Since this tech lead and I are both (relatively) mature adults, eventually I simply told him he needed to be more direct with me if he wanted me to understand him, he said that he was not entirely comfortable with that but he would try, and we got by well enough after that.
