6 questions to be a transparent leader
Whether you’re on Team Biden or Team Trump, we can all agree that the past week could have been a plot on a show like the West Wing or House of Cards. In the middle of the night, the nation learns that POTUS has COVID and numerous others in his inner circle test positive. He’s helicoptered to the hospital, treated with experimental drugs, and then discharged and back at the White House within days.
As we’ve stayed abreast these developments throughout the past week, it’s been hard to know who or what to believe. For example, the White House physician later admitted to giving false and misleading information. Sometimes there are good reasons that leaders do not share the full story with their teams, but clearly this was a case of information sharing gone wrong.
Whether you’re an executive that has an organization report up through you or you’re a product manager indirectly leading a scrum team, you’re a leader. Leaders motivate a team around a vision and the team must trust the leader to be acting in the group’s best interests, rather than his or her own. This trust is formed through transparent communication between the leader and team. Not only must leaders share with teams about how key metrics are performing and what the vision is, but also the thought process that led to important decisions.
It’s not always black-and-white to know what to share. On one hand, leaders want to be transparent and authentic with their team. On the other hand, leaders don’t want to distract their teams with unnecessary communication. When you’re not sure if you should share info, here’s a cheat sheet.
Start with the first set of questions.
1: Do you have obligations that prevent you from sharing the info?
Example: I have access to Level I Personal Identifiable Information (PII) about my users. Unless a coworker has a legitimate business need for the information, I can’t share that data with others, in order to protect the user.
2: Does receiving the information create a burden to the audience?
Example: I know that a company is going to be acquired. If I tell a family member, they now possess inside info and can face consequences if they take any actions that could have been influenced by the inside info.
3: Does sharing some information without other context mislead the audience?
Example: Let’s go back to the opening example. When asked about results of X-rays and CT scans of Trump’s lungs, Dr. Conley responded, “There’s some expected findings but nothing of major clinical concern.” The use of the phrase “expected findings” paints a picture that the President is doing great, but could be misleading. Expected findings does not necessarily mean normal, healthy lungs; it could mean there is damage from COVID. Assuming you can’t share the rest of the context to clear up confusion due to one of the reasons above, then it may be better not to say anything than to mislead.
If you answer “Yes” to any of these questions, then don’t share.
If not, then move onto the second set of questions.
4: Does the information matter to the audience?
Example: I ate a bagel for breakfast. That information does not matter to the engineers on my team, but could be relevant to share with my doctor if I’m diabetic.
5: Does sharing information have the potential to increase the quality of a decision?
Example: I may not need to ask for input from a colleague in an unrelated function before coming up with requirements for a feature, but I may learn something useful if I share my ideas with them.
6: Does not sharing the information create the perception of an ulterior motive?
Example: I hear that a key customer complained about a feature, but don’t mention it to my peer that owns that product. Is it because I forgot about the feedback or because I want my peer to look bad in front of our boss?
If you answer “Yes” to any of these questions, then go ahead and share.
Leaders often find themselves struggling to figure out how much information they should share with their teams, but this lesson is critical to master. As the well known saying goes,
“It takes years to build trust, and seconds to break it.”
If you fail to communicate transparently with your team, you can break your team’s trust and it’s very hard to get it back. After giving incorrect information on Saturday, Dr. Conley clarified on Sunday, “I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness had had. I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction, and in doing so it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true. The fact of the matter is he’s doing really well.” Hmm… after that track record, do you honestly believe what he says?
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