Corporate transparency is a hot topic right now, but there’s still a long way to go. A December 2016 Betterworks survey of 1,000 employees found that 64 percent of respondents continued to feel that their company’s leadership wasn’t transparent in communicating top goals. So, what are business leaders doing wrong?
By seeing how others have missed the mark, other leaders can be on the lookout for similar problems in their own companies.
Here are some mistakes workplace and HR experts have reported seeing firsthand when it comes to transparent leadership:
1. Believing in the ‘that’s-above-your-pay-grade’ mentality
Many leaders decide to keep things from their employees because they believe certain information is “need-to-know.” Information about how the company is performing or why decisions are made are deemed topics employees either aren’t interested in or have no right to know.
However, leaving employees in the dark breeds distrust. “Employees start to ask ‘What is leadership hiding?’” Carl Seidman, a Chicago-based executive coach and consultant, told me. “Employees can become paranoid, fearful, feel unprotected by leadership, threatened in their roles, disengaged or even malicious if they feel resentful.”
But, by giving employees bigger-picture information, they feel valued. They stop thinking they’re expendable because they are included.
So, instead of thinking up reasons why employees shouldn’t know something, consider why they might want to. Are they worried they’re not meeting expectations? Do they believe that their work isn’t contributing to the team? Providing information on factors like profits can help alleviate those worries.
“It’s all rooted in trust,” Seidman pointed out. “If leaders trust their employees and employees trust their leaders, they should agree that each is acting in the best interest of the company.”
2. Unclear goals and expectations
When you’re talking about transparent leadership, general expectations for employees often get overlooked. It’s not that these goals and responsibilities are purposefully kept a secret; companies just aren’t in the habit of making them overt.
So, it should come as no surprise that many employees are unsure about how they should be performing.
A September 2015 Gallup survey of 550 companies consisting of 2.2 million employees found that only 50 percent of those employees said they understood what was expected of them at work. The other half of employees said they had to guess.
With all the new performance management tools available, that’s inexcusable. For instance, Lattice allows an organization to set individual, team and company goals while providing feedback to employees about how they’re doing. Everything is laid out in a clear and…