Leadership briefings can work wonders in motivating and teaching staff, but only if they engage employees and get the leader’s message across, says best practices company CEB in a new blog posting.

A well-run leadership briefing can help employees understand strategy and how their work connects to it, as well as provide access to information, tools and people that can help them do their jobs. But most briefings only manage to get the message to about half of the employee population, CEB says, and employees tend to rate them as below average (i.e., they don’t like them).

While most senior executives generally achieve the essentials of good communication—using concrete language, being brief, providing evidence—they are less effective at engaging employees, CEB notes.

Many communication teams try to coach leaders to adopt a more engaging, inspirational style. However, if the leader isn’t authentic, it can backfire and make the whole briefing even worse, CEB warns.

An alternative is changing the content of these messages. If the leader can relate to a topic and truly get behind it, they’ll be authentic without the need for coaching.

See the full CEB posting: “Leadership Briefings Are More Powerful Than You Think.”