Daily Leadership Thought #63 – Be Transparent
Successful businesses are transparent about their performance. They embrace honesty about results, good or bad.
I’m regularly surprised by the number of business leaders who are afraid to share their financial results with their employees. Believe it or not, if you don’t give them the information, they will make it up on their own and typically overestimate things in either direction. They’ll think you’re doing better than you are, or they’ll think things are worse than they have been (especially in recent years). People tend to draw unfavorable conclusions hastily without the necessary information for innate psychological reasons. Consequently, they may perceive themselves as exploited or find themselves in a precarious employment position. Therefore, you need to dispel fiction with facts when it comes to financial outcomes.
The more people know about the company’s basic metrics, the more they can connect their work to its results. If you’re a fair employer, they’ll take pride in the organization when things are going well and help when you need extra effort. Furthermore, numerous studies have demonstrated that your top performers want you to keep score. They want to be part of a high-performing organization that meets (and ultimately exceeds) its goals and/or addresses problems proactively. You shouldn’t hide from success or failure. Instead, bring your people along on the business journey with you and provide a clear picture of where you’re heading, how you plan to get there, and how you are progressing.
Related articles
- What Is Financial Transparency? (smallgiants.org)
- Seven Benefits of Financial Transparency in Business (completecontroller.com)
- Five Steps to Help Employees Understand—and Care About—Your Metrics, Scores, and Targets (customerthink.com)
- Focusing on Metrics that Matter (cloudave.com)
