Transparent Leadership
Transparency is a word I have heard a lot when those around me talk about something people in leadership roles can do better. Is there a drought of transparent leaders? I ask that because I have heard from several individuals across a variety of organizations that their leadership is failing to be transparent with them, but what does that really mean? Transparency is not the issue. How leaders are communicating is. Transparent communication means being clear, concise, and timely… miss one, two, or all three of those marks when communicating, and you have a bunch of upset individuals under you asking for you to be more transparent when you communicate with them.
So how do leaders not only satiate the hunger for greater transparency, but do it in a way that works for both the leader and those asking for transparency? The answer is not as much of a balancing act as you might think. It all boils down to three key areas of focus (as mentioned previously): clarity, conciseness, and timeliness. Clarity means being really direct with what you can and cannot talk about. You don’t need to tell everyone everything, but you do need to know when to tell individuals when things are happening behind the scenes, and you will tell them more about it later. For conciseness, it’s setting expectations for what is to come. No one likes surprises, and if the surprise is change, that is doubly not liked. The last item covered in more detail below is timeliness. If you tell someone something is going to happen a day before it happens, there is no time for being mentally prepared, only time to be confused and upset. I lay out how to become better in all three of those areas below. Want to be a better leader? Now is your chance to learn how to use transparent leadership.
Saying What You Can’t Say
Probably the hardest of the three key areas to master… communicating with clarity as a leader can be difficult. Everyone interprets similar messages in different ways. Your job as a transparent leader is to be as direct as possible, leaving little room for interpretation. When communicating, it is key that you only give relevant information to stakeholders of that information. If you tell everything to everyone, the messaging gets lost, people become inundated with too much to think or worry about, and your “transparency” becomes unhelpful. Ok, but what if you have information that impacts specific individuals and you cannot tell them about it yet? You have three options: tell them nothing, give them a heads up, or tell them something.
Telling them nothing may be necessary if they are getting fired, or their gossip would harm aspects of the workplace. Telling them something (something you are allowed to say) gives them a fraction of the picture and leads to miscommunication. My advice for most situations is to take the middle road. Giving individuals a heads up is both simple and effective. You give them time to prepare, but they cannot twist the information; they can only think about it. When giving a heads up, remain neutral and plain-spoken. The goal is for no one to feel like they were caught off guard.
An example would be if the organization is planning on reorganizing some departments. In that instance, a heads-up would look like, “Some organizational changes are on the horizon. I can't share any details yet, but I wanted to give you a heads-up that more information will be coming soon. Until then, I encourage you not to jump to conclusions—we'll share what we can as soon as we're able”.
As Simple As Setting Expectations
This and the next key area are much simpler and easier to enact today to become a more transparent leader. Being concise means almost exactly what being clear means, but for this point the focus is on to-the-point expectations for your team. First, you have to make sure you are setting expectations for your team so they know what they are aiming for. Second, you need to be concise in those expectations. There should be little room for guessing what you are actually looking for. Third and last, you should always leave the door open. By leaving the door open, I mean you tell your team that if they are ever unsure what you meant by a certain expectation, you tell them they should reach out to you directly for clarity, rather than try and guess what you meant.
Speak Early & Often
Saving the simplest for last, timeliness is all about not communicating too early or too late. Most of the time, no one is complaining about someone communicating too early. As a transparent leader, you should work on ensuring you are communicating as early as is necessary, and as often as you believe you would forget if that information was told to you. We don’t all have a perfect memory, so set up reminders for everyone to be aware. In short, communicate earlier and more often than you think is necessary. Being maybe a little bit annoyed from too many communications is much better than being upset from being surprised.
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Till next time,
