Communicating well with your staff is a basic necessity for any boss. And it’s especially important in a small company, where relationships tend to be more personal. There’s nothing that will alienate employees more quickly than feeling that they’re being kept out of the information loop. And nothing engenders more loyalty than making people feel that they’re part of an inner circle.

If you own a business with fewer than a dozen employees, as I do, you ideally want that circle to include everyone. And yet there is such a thing as too much information sharing. Major company events such as acquisitions, asset sales, layoffs, and strategy shifts present a lot of delicate issues that you’d do well to think through carefully.

Even if you have a high level of trust in your team, you don’t want to find yourself musing too openly about major business decisions. Uncertainty is a condition that most people just don’t thrive on, so be careful about signaling upcoming changes before you have a fully baked plan. Employees usually know more than you think about what’s going on, so be conscious of what you’re communicating in your demeanor. Days of hushed conversations will not go unnoticed.

When you’re ready to talk to people about a major development, do it fast: Decide who you might want to tell individually (and if in doubt, tell them individually). Then figure out how to tell them in quick succession, and follow that immediately with a companywide meeting. It’s important to respect the proper sequence of information release, but the more compressed it can be, the better.

While your instinct might be to explain all the background behind a major decision or development, be careful about violating others’ confidences. I’ve made this mistake, telling a staff member more than they needed to know about the reasons behind someone’s departure, and that person was rightly angry.

Personnel issues are always the most delicate, and the suggestions above apply in spades to layoffs or firings or the hiring of a new person in a sensitive position. In a larger organization, layoffs in particular can be all but impossible to handle gracefully; I’ve been in the position of having to decide whether to acknowledge what everyone knew—that they were coming—or wait the additional week it would take to figure out exactly who would go.

In a small company, you shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of time lag. On the other hand, one piece of conventional wisdom about layoffs—to focus on the feelings of those who are staying, not those who are leaving—is less cut-and-dry. If someone who had been part of the family feels they have been treated unfairly, the fallout can be quite damaging.

As the leader, it’s your responsibility to convey confidence and clarity of purpose (even if you don’t happen to feel it at the time). I don‘t deviate very often from staying strong and putting the best face on things even in bad economic times. Yet as long as you don’t do it too often, you can gain a lot of credibility by letting your emotions come through sometimes. Tired or worried or frustrated are feelings everyone can respect, as long as you’re frugal with them.

In a small company, you don’t have a lot of policy and procedure to fall back on. It’s all about you, and specifically about what you say and what you do. Be yourself and also choose your words carefully. Those two things can be compatible.