The case for less transparency in the workplace
“My leadership style follows a few key principles…enable ultimate transparency.”
“Regarding transparency, it is meant to breed trust, and trust is the foundation of great teamwork.”
“Transparency from the top down — you’ll always hear company news from your CEO first.”
Right now, transparency is one of the most-promised attributes of workplace and leadership cultures for tech start-ups. Why?
From my own experience and reading, it follows this line of reasoning:
1) Startup is challenging their respective industry’s status quo. Part of the challenge is that said startup is reinventing it to be better or even possibly morally superior to incumbents.
2) Part of that is having a culture of complete transparency (unlike the corporate incumbents with opaque agendas.)
3) It‘s then assumed this level of transparency must be nurturing a trusting and honest culture. (Its basically de facto now. The phrase, “transparency builds trust”, produces 19.6M Google matches alone.)
“As a small-business person, you have no greater leverage than the truth.” — John Whittier
Let me be clear, none of these start-ups’ founding teams’ intentions are misguided. Its the science that causes the intention to backfire.
Trust isn’t a static commodity nor should it be wielded like a blunt instrument. Trust expert Rachel Botsman says it best. “Too often we talk about trust in general terms when it is in fact highly subjective and contextual. Trust is a human feeling, a continuous process that happens between people. It’s like a currency of interactions.”
“One of the mistakes I hear is that the way to build more trust is through transparency,” Botsman told the People Space. “It is a common narrative. But if you need for things to be transparent, then you have practically given up on trust. By making everything transparent, you are reducing the need for trust.”
In a culture in which full access to company information is expected…well, trust is no longer a currency that matters.
The other tricky part of a ‘transparent culture’? Most people don’t react positively to the knowledge that leadership has changed their minds or reversed a belief. Research shows that transparency is only well received when it fits the established narrative.
A study was done measuring how employees’ perception of CEOs changed after the CEO shared a viewpoint with the company differing from one they had expressed previously. Respondents indicated that after learning a leader changed his or her mind on a viewpoint or a decision, especially a moral one, her teams perceived her as hypocritical and insincere. And choosing to be transparent could be interpreted as a moral decision, if not an ethical one.
But the definition of transparency is subjective. It ranges on a spectrum depending on the person. This means that leaders trying to build trust with transparency are setting themselves up for failure. They’ll never satisfy everyone all the time and feelings of betrayal will begin to fester in small pockets that will eventually spread.
So here’s my TLDR;
Fostering an environment that nurtures healthy communication is vital, however, transparency as a core value alone isn’t going to produce stronger trust bonds. Consider what your definition of honesty and openness is before sharing it more widely. Invite others to participate as well and involve other leaders. Consider the idea of ‘transparency’ as a dynamic discussion instead of a static state.
