Honest and Transparent
The past few months have been unprecedented times in the world and thus for your business. In what could mean the survival of a business or an excellent opportunity not foreseen, business leaders are looked at right now to be…actual “leaders”. Whether you’re the owner of a small business, in the C-suite of a large enterprise, or middle management of any company, you’ll have someone looking at you and asking “what’s next”?
As an individual, you’re inundated with information, opinion, and anecdotes, some will resonate, some will not; some information is accurate and some are not - but how do you know? How do we answer that question and other questions on the direction of your business, when we are experiencing challenges that most have never experienced? What are the right answers? Only time will exactly tell, as we look back and reflect on the decisions we made, but that doesn’t help right now when direction and answers are sought from you.
A suggestion? focus on being honest and genuine with people and yourself. You don’t have to know all the answers, but you will know some. You are going to make right and wrong judgments; you will change your mind and direction, probably multiple times. All of this is fine. No leader is perfect or knows all the answers - so why should you? When presented with questions from staff, be honest. Tell your people why you made the decision, why you changed your mind or why you don’t know an answer. If you’re not genuine and try to act like you have all the answers or ignore the questions, they will see through it, and then a loss of trust and credibility follows.
Let people know what you know today, good or bad. Let them know you may change your direction tomorrow or the next day as you receive new information. If you are asked a question that you don’t know the answer to, it is okay to say you don’t know - but get back to them when you do know. Be as transparent as you can, let them know why you and your leadership team made a decision and how you think that decision will impact the business and the staff. Remember your team is also getting inundated with information and will have differing opinions on the state of the world. They don’t have to agree with the data you’re basing your decisions on, but it’s fair they understand what source you’ve selected and why.
Yes, you have to make business decisions and very rapidly. You will get some right and some wrong, but always be straight-forward and honest with your people as you make these decisions. There are things out of your control, but you can always control your integrity to those you lead. One final piece of advice, I don’t believe you need a crisis to lead in this manner, this can be done at any time and your staff will appreciate your honest and transparent approach.