Persuasive Messages: Advice from Confucius on communicating in troubled times

Given the uncertainty of the times, it would be good if more of our political and business leaders followed this advice from Confucius:

If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone....Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.