Squawk if you mean it!

Parrots have been living rent-free in my head these last few years.

Ask anyone in my orbit and they'll tell you it's true. They'll either confirm to have seen me wearing parrot-donned clothing or giant dangly parrot earrings or caught glimpse of my 3ft tall stuffed parrot (name: Stella) in the background of a Teams meeting. At this very second, no less than half a dozen "parrot paraphernalia" surround me in my office. My Instagram algorithm is 80% parrots and I torture my friends everyday sharing clips of screaming African Greys wreaking havoc for their owners.

I just love them. They’re loud. They’re colorful. They’re sassy. They’re brilliant. They're hilarious. They’re lovable. They’re unapologetic. In essence: they're all the things I sometimes am plus all the things I wish I could be.

They are my spirit animals + my muses + my style compass.

It's a bit eccentric, I'll admit. And if you were to say one of my more jungle canopy-inspired clothing ensembles was 'giving quirky middle aged art teacher', that would be accurate. It's fine. I'm totally cool with it.

But that's not to say that I haven't been intrigued to learn more about this flighted passion of mine. I have, indeed. It sort of came out of nowhere, and as a result I have tried desperately to translate the meaning of my newfound fixation. In short - I have simply learned that they bring me joy and make me colorful, which has been especially important to me these last years during lots of change, cycles of grief, and personal transformation.

But, with the more reflection I have done, I have come to realize that parrots are also a simply perfect metaphor for communications and leadership. How convenient is that!

I see several connections, but let's hone in on just a few.

To start, Parrots are the ultimate communicators: they mimic, they squawk, they demand to be heard. They squawk when something feels wrong. Every workplace needs its parrots — the ones who add color, challenge monotone culture, and remind us that noise is sometimes the first sign of life. Great communicators echo values, repeat messages until they stick, and make sure the “squawk” cuts through noise. On the flip side, parroting can also mean hollow mimicry — leaders recycling jargon, employees echoing “safe” opinions, comms teams pushing slogans instead of substance. This raises relevant questions for us as communicators: Are we amplifying with meaning — or just repeating noise? Are we giving our people room to be parrots — or just asking them to parrot? Of course, in comms, parroting isn’t always bad. After all, the best messages are the ones you can squawk in your sleep. But when leaders only echo what others say — without adding truth or substance — all you get is noise.

There’s a lesson here for comms: Repetition matters. A message only sticks when it’s squawked often enough to cut through noise. But repetition without meaning? That’s just parroting.

And let’s be honest: a lot of corporate comms leans toward parroting. Buzzwords recycled. Slogans repeated. Safe phrases passed around until they’ve lost all weight.

The parrot archetype challenges us:

👉 Are we echoing with substance — or just making noise?

👉 Are we helping leaders originate truth, or just repeat what’s been said before?

Take-away: In a world full of parrots, the brave move isn’t to squawk louder. It’s to squawk something worth hearing.

Secondly, Parrots aren’t trying to blend in. Their very survival strategy is to stand out — with volume, with color, with presence. In other words, they are the animal kingdom manifestation of Radical Authenticity.

Too often, organizations preach authenticity but reward conformity. And the truth is, many organizations want “authentic voices,” but only within the safest of cages. They want color — but not too much. Candor — but not too loud. Employees are frequently told, “Bring your whole self to work” — but only if that “self” is palatable. Parrots don’t whisper to fit in — they squawk to be heard. And if companies truly want authenticity, they need to build cultures where being loud, colorful, and different isn’t just tolerated — it’s valued.

Authenticity isn’t just a tagline. It’s a practice. Ask any of today's Fortune 500 leaders - who are being challenged daily to show up differently (see: as themselves without all the BS and corporate nonsense) than any of the business schools ever prepped them to. Not unlike a parrot's tropical habitat, the world is a colorful, messy, loud place. And corporate America, in particular, has thrived by slapping a heavy coat of sepia tone over it all for decades upon decades - muting it all to a neutral, unoffensive, quiet, stasis mode. But the tension point is rising - in fact, it's already risen. So, the real question is: are we building cultures where the bold, the colorful, the unapologetic voices are valued — or where they’re quietly trimmed down to beige?

Parrots don’t apologize for being loud or flamboyant. They’re proof that boldness and vulnerability can co-exist. Parrots push us (and the leaders we support) to reflect on the corporate cultures in which we thrive: What does unapologetic authenticity really look like there? And what does it look like for me as an individual?

At the end of the day, parrots remind us of something simple but profound: voice matters. Not just the noise we make, not just the slogans we repeat, but the courage to say something real in our own colors, our own cadence.

In communications — and in leadership — the choice is always the same: do we ask people to parrot what’s safe, or do we create the conditions where they can speak, squawk, and shine with authenticity?

One makes for volume. The other makes for change.

Engage with this article on LinkedIn.