What Transparency Makes Possible

"I would rather not scare anyone." That is what a boss once told me when I finally asked why our budget kept coming back for another round of cuts. His silence was costing the team more than the truth ever could.

People want to know what is real and true. They are tired of surprises and want to work in an environment where they can think clearly, without the unknowns that creep into every decision and relationship.

Beyond job security and career advancement, employees want a culture that puts a premium on the truth. They want leaders who are proactive about where the organization is headed and honest about its future. Put simply, they want transparency so they can plan and protect themselves.

That need has only intensified. Layoffs and reorganizations have taught people that they must look out for themselves when employers won't. Organizations that ignore this will lose top talent and pay a heavy price to replace it.

Think of how many careers could have been saved, and how many talents discovered, if transparency had been part of the culture.

Why Leaders Hold Back

Leaders often hold back because they fear it will make them look less authoritative, as if the credentials they worked so hard for will lose their power. That fear reflects a misreading of what people want.

People want leaders who are more human, less perfect and at times a bit vulnerable, regardless of rank. They want to know their leaders have faced the same problems and how they overcame them. They want balance between knowledge, the head, and wisdom, the heart.

Digital life has changed expectations too. People can learn a great deal about their leaders online, and they expect a level of openness that would once have seemed unusual. They want to see facial expressions and hear tone. They are evaluating whether you are acting or being genuine.

For leaders, that means communicating less through long emails and layers of intermediaries, and more through direct conversation, in person or on camera, with greater frequency. That builds trust and sets a precedent that ripples through the organization.

1. Problems Get Solved Faster

Earlier in my career, my boss challenged our team to cut the budget every quarter. Each time we submitted a revised plan, he sent it back for another pass. Finally I confronted him. He told me, "Glenn, I am being told that I must achieve a specific bottom line performance this year and if I don't, I am going to have to cut staff." He had kept that pressure to himself.

I recommended that he share his concerns openly with the team. If someone couldn't handle the truth, that would reveal another problem. His senior team would be far more effective at designing a strategy to exceed the performance requirements than at cutting a budget line by line. He did, and he learned a valuable lesson about solving problems by being transparent about them.

2. Teams Come Together More Easily

Transparency is a powerful unifier. When a leader openly discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the team, everyone can share their perspectives, and the leader, with the team's help, can match people to assignments based on what each one does best. The group matures together and develops an entrepreneurial spirit that crosses functional lines.

3. Relationships Grow Authentically

Transparency brings together people who haven't yet discovered one another. My company once designed a leadership strategy for a client. Based on one-on-one interviews and assessments, we created a five-person leadership team for a specific task. None of the five knew each other, and their titles and ranks differed. But our pre-work showed that their character traits, while different, complemented one another. The result was a vibrant team of distinct leaders who forged a powerful relationship by being authentic and open with each other.

Relationships don't truly take shape until a problem is encountered and resolved together.

4. People Start Promoting Trust in Their Leader

When leaders are transparent, especially in the worst of times, people evaluate them more objectively and trust them more as people. They begin to vouch for that leader to others. That is how credibility spreads beyond the people who experience it directly.

5. Performance Rises

Each of these builds on the others. The formula is simple:

Faster problem solving + stronger teams + authentic relationships + trust = higher performance.

When leaders withhold the truth, they put every one of those factors at risk. The irony is that it is the leader who loses most when performance declines. It connects directly to why people stop believing their leaders.

Tell Your Team One Hard Truth

• Share one real business pressure with your team and ask for their ideas.
• Replace one long email with a direct conversation.
• Tell your team one thing you are still figuring out.
• Ask what information they wish they had from you.

It's better to be open and honest at the beginning. Otherwise, you may not be around long enough to see the success and significance of being a leader who never let power stand in the way of honesty.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.