What Makes A Good Leader? Transparency
Transparency -- I see you and I trust you.
Stephen M.R. Covey writes about creating transparency in his book The Speed of Trust as one of the foundations of positive workplace culture. There are leaders who are excellent at being transparent with their teams or their company employees, and then there are leaders who find transparency too difficult, unimportant, or wrong to do. However, there’s so much evidence out there that proves how vital it is for leaders to be transparent with their teams!
Evidence:
In Google’s five year study to find out what made their most highly successful teams set apart from others, they found that psychological safety is by far the most important factor. Within the definition of psychological safety lies a sense of transparency among team members. Psychological safety is defined as team members feeling safe to appear vulnerable and take risks in front of each other. How can we be truly vulnerable without being transparent about how we’re feeling and what’s going on? If we withhold important data, upcoming changes, or what it takes to be successful with our teams, how can we expect them to be vulnerable with us and therein creating a more highly performing team?
Wondering how you can be more transparent as a leader?
Reminder! You don’t even need to be a manager or in the c-suite to be a role model or leader to those around you.
Give clear and constructive feedback. Data shows that people want feedback on how they’re doing! They want to hear from others, especially their leaders. People are eager to hear what was great about what they did and what could use some tweaking in the future. When you are giving feedback, remember that it’s important to do so in a timely manner. Don’t wait until an annual review to give feedback! It should be specific, immediate (or soon after the project/event/etc.), and frequent.
Right/Night “Total Transparency”. One of the tools we’re honored to use with our clients is called The Predictive Index (through a strategic partnership with Perspective Consulting, Inc.). At PI headquarters in Boston, they earned the “best places to work” on Glassdoor’s employee choice list. Here’s their post about what they do with their company that helped them earn this award. One of the points they made that stands out is that the leaders share what is going right in the company, and what is keeping them up at night. In doing so, they are demonstrating vulnerability through their honesty - which will help create a more psychologically safe culture.
Be honest and vulnerable about your own feelings and needs. We have to communicate clearly with the people around us. As you might have noticed, most humans can’t read minds! It’s important to model what transparency looks like for others by doing it ourselves. As one of my leaders used to say, “encourage the behavior you want from others.” That always stuck with me, and it helps me remember that I need to set an example of the behavior and actions I want from others.
It should also be said that transparency does not mean total disclosure. As stated in this Harvard Business Review article, there are times to be mindful of what we should not share with others and be gracious with others’ boundaries. It’s still important to respect people’s privacy and communicate our own needs around what crosses a line.
If you’re in the Kansas City area, here’s your reminder that we have a workshop called How to Give Feedback and Manage Conflict in the Workplace… and another called Improving Your Team Culture Through Psychological Safety. Email kiley@vaxacollective.com to reach out to learn more about how Haley can come to your organization and help your teams grow. If you’re outside of the region, we can talk about what this would look like for your organization as well.