The Power of Transparency: Replacing Fear with Trust in Leadership
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Unearth the profound impact of transparent leadership and how it far surpasses using fear and control. It fosters trust, collaboration, and high-performance within our teams, transforming work environments for the better.
The Problem with Fear-Based Leadership
I ask every CEO I work with whether they actually like the stress and tension of trying to control their teams, of finding ways to bring about enough fear in their employees in hope that they’ll perform better.
Not one of them has turned to me and said, “Yo, bud, that’s what I wake up in the morning for.” It’s a miserable way to manage people and certainly not inspirational.
Yet so many of us have led our teams for the entirety of our careers this way. Mostly because we didn’t know what else to do. This is what we learned growing up and throughout much of our education.
But there are better ways of leading that not only inspire teams but also feel better to us.
Significantly increasing everyone’s job satisfaction can only be good for the bottom line. So let’s take a look at what it’s like to be a high-functioning transparent leader.
The Detrimental Impact of Fear on Performance
When we attempt to instill fear in employees in hope of getting them to perform better, we shoot ourselves in the foot. When people feel fear, a lot of their physical, mental, and emotional time and energy goes into trying to “survive” the experience.
This detracts from quality productive work engagement and the stress increases the likelihood of mistakes being made. It also increases the odds of a stress claim further down the road. None of this is good for the company.
The Self-Destructive Cycle of Fearful Leadership
I do want to note that IF you do attempt to leverage fear in this way, it’s worth exploring what’s driving that style of leadership. Most often, it’s an attempt to relieve pressure we’re feeling. When I work with leaders, we find that underneath that feeling of pressure — is fear.
When we lead — driven by a fear we may not even realize is driving us — we’re unlikely to perform optimally, because just like our employees, our own performance is impaired when we’re experiencing fear.
How is Leading with Transparency Different?
Transparent leaders embody honesty and openness in our communication and work environments. We’re up front with what’s going on in the organization and behind the scenes, sharing what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and what we’re intending to achieve.
This type of open communication builds trust in the organization. When people feel like they’re in the loop, they tend to feel a greater sense of ownership in their work.
This inspires them to take more pride in their work, perform better, and be more collaborative with other team members. Quality collaboration brings about faster and more effective solutions to challenges that arise.
The Rewards of Leading Transparently
Better leadership leads to better communication, better morale, better solutions, better collaboration, better performance, better production, better bottom line.
And this is all without using fear to motivate anyone.
Implementing Transparency and Inclusivity in Leadership
Leading transparently requires us to communicate openly and authentically about what’s going on in the organization. When we invite the team to learn about what’s driving our choices and actions, the benefit is that they feel a greater sense of inclusivity.
Releasing the need to use fear and control — a perpetually strained effort to get our teams to do what we want them to do — allows for higher functioning feedback loops that can uplevel the quality of our products and services.
Cultivating a Fear-Free Leadership Culture
Free of fear-based leadership we can establish a culture where people feel safe enough to question our choices and offer perspectives we may not have seen that can make or break a project.
It is imperative for us to be able to truly listen to and learn from criticism offered, which helps team members feel heard and valued.
To allow ourselves to be vulnerable, which helps team members feel more connected. To own our missteps, which models integrity for the organization.
To successfully lead when we're being judged, we need a certain level of healthy self-assuredness so that when we do receive negative feedback, we can really listen, not self-defend or make them wrong, not duck or run for cover. All of this helps team members feel respected.
Self-Awareness: A Key Component of Transparent Leadership
To powerfully bring transparency into our leadership, we need to raise our self-awareness about whether we are using fear to motivate performance. And awareness puts us better in touch with our intuition, which can alert us if we're acting out of alignment in some way.
If we receive input and start to feel defensive, self-awareness can facilitate our being better able to deal with those self-protective feelings so that we can remain in a receptive, listening mode. This helps team members feel that it’s safe to share and a greater sense of trust is established.
Alignment and Accountability in Transparent Leadership
Self-awareness would also help us to see if we’ve acted out of alignment with our company’s values. If we have, a transparent leader would proactively own the error and do our utmost to clean up any mess we’ve made with those we’ve impacted. We would not wait until we’re under duress or in fear of being outed.
The Future of Leadership Is Transparency
Leadership is an ever-evolving field and transparency is foundational to a higher standard in leadership. And why wouldn’t every one of us embrace it? Our teams feel and function better, our organizations flourish, and for us, lower stress and a greater sense of connection and accomplishment is nothing to sneeze at.
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It's my mission to support people in leading with unyielding integrity, clarity, and authenticity. If you'd like to tap into your deeper insight and practical wisdom to lead more powerfully and effectively, feel free to reach out at connect@evolvingceo.com to set up a time to connect.
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