{"id":3373,"date":"2019-02-12T18:15:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T18:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knowyourteam.com\/blog\/?p=3373"},"modified":"2024-08-08T14:40:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T21:40:03","slug":"how-transparent-should-you-be-as-a-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2019\/02\/12\/how-transparent-should-you-be-as-a-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"How transparent should you be as a leader?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two things I\u2019ve found helpful to consider when trying to decide what to be transparent about with my team \u2013 and what to keep to myself.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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How transparent should you be as a\u00a0leader<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a question many leaders struggle with\u200a\u2014\u200aincluding myself. Do you share financials with the company? Or how about salary? How open should you be about why someone was fired?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From open-book management to making compensation public within the company, the concept of transparency in the workplace is more popular than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understandably (and rightfully) so. As a concept, transparency makes sense: If you want your team to behave the way that you would behave, they need access to the same information that you have. And, the more transparent you are, the more you\u2019re likely to build trust within your team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about the unintended consequences? Can transparency backfire? Do you inadvertently cause panic in a company when you reveal what the monthly burn rate is? Do you encourage resentment from more junior employees when you reveal how much senior employees in the company are making?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a leader, how do you decide what to share with the rest of the team and what not to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months ago, I\u00a0spoke<\/a>\u00a0with the insightful Des Traynor, Co-founder of\u00a0Intercom<\/a>, on this topic. For Des, deciding how transparent he should be was one of the hardest lessons to learn as a leader. And as a CEO myself, I couldn\u2019t agree more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our conversation, Des shared with me two things to consider when deciding how transparent you should be in your company:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transparency requires context.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe key thing people forget in transparency is it\u2019s not about opening up the Google Drive and making sure that everyone can read everything,\u201d says Des. \u201cIt\u2019s about transparency of context as well.\u201d Many of the CEOs who are a part of our leadership community in Canopy<\/a> echo this sentiment as well. One CEO remarked how he had shared revenue numbers once, and \u201cthings had gone sideways with individuals who just don\u2019t understand or appreciate all that goes into starting and operating a business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the negative reaction came from the lack of context about the revenue numbers. What that CEO wished he would\u2019ve done was share more context. If you share revenue numbers without the context of monthly spending, people start wondering, \u201cWhere\u2019s all that money going?\u201d So for example, at my company, we share revenue numbers, within the context of also our profit margin and expenses\u200a\u2014\u200aso it\u2019s understood how revenue supports our business as a whole, and not just \u201chere\u2019s the pile of money we\u2019re making.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transparency is a spectrum.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Transparency isn\u2019t all or nothing\u200a\u2014\u200athings don\u2019t have to be either completely open or completely a secret. Des emphasizes this, saying, \u201cI think it\u2019s worth having a critical threshold to decide what\u2019s actually good for everyone to know, what\u2019s not a secret but needs context, and what actually genuinely might be a secret because you don\u2019t want everyone panicking about something.\u201d Transparency is a spectrum, and if you indiscriminately just make everything 100 percent public, you could be wasting people\u2019s time, confusing them, or causing them strife. Everyone has a capacity of information and overloading folks with every detail of what\u2019s happening in marketing, support, design, engineering\u200a\u2014\u200ait can be too much. As a leader it\u2019s important to ask yourself: In what cases is transparency appropriate and helpful, and in what other cases is it distracting or a burden? Are you being transparent, just for the sake of being transparent, or are you truly trying to help people make better decisions, and feel a greater sense of trust?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, transparency is truly a positive force. When it does backfire or causes fallout, it\u2019s often because a leader hasn\u2019t often taken the time to consider these two things: Transparency requires context, and transparency is a spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you think through what you should be transparent about in your company, keep in mind these two things. Hopefully, they\u2019re things you won\u2019t have to learn the hard way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published for <\/em>Inc.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\ud83d\udc99\u00a0Our software\u00a0<\/em>helps you nail the fundamentals of leadership:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0We help you\u00a0<\/em>run\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>effective one-on-one meetings<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, get\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>honest feedback<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, share\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>team progress<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>build team rapport<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Try Canopy<\/a> to find your own answer, as a leader, today.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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