Delay your decisions as much as possible

Fine tune and revise your communications so much and go through so many review phases that you miss the opportunity to have an impact.

How to be a great boss: "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be done."

Whoever said that first was brilliant. In contrast, I once had a boss who had to craft a simple reply to a customer (a user of our industrial software package) who had written in to complain about something. My boss started on the reply and then revised it and revised it. He sent it to me and to others in our department to add comments. Days passed, weeks passed, months... well you get the picture. He never sent the reply. Not only did he miss a golden opportunity to set things right with this customer, he came off looking like he didn't care what the customer had to say.

The same circumstance can happen with internal communications. Face it: you are never going to please everyone. Some employees will be peeved at you no matter what you say. Most people will barely read what you send them. Keep your written communications to the point and honest.