Transparency Establishes Trust
Transparency builds trust, and makes employees feel that they’re working for a company with higher ethical standards. According to a 2014 American Psychological Association Survey, 25% of employees do not trust their employer. Half of them believe their employer is not upfront with them and open to the overall vision of the company.
When transparency is added to the corporate culture, employees will be more engaged and committed to the vision of the company. The reason is they fully understand the mission and feel vested to share ideas, display their creativity, and bring about innovation to achieve the desired objective. People are always going to be first and best choice for operating within the solution before automation since when committed will add more continuous value to the process.
So how does a company being about the full value of transparency to the workplace? The answer is communication. Please note not just any communication but direct and clear communication that comes from the highest level of honesty and integrity. It is important that communication be a two way street both coming from top down and down up. Employees are most engaged and committed to the process when senior leadership continually updates and communicates company strategy, value, and the truth about their current situation. Companies that adopt the concept of transparent leadership see a stronger bond of trust and commitment from their employees to strive for efforts not achievable the other way around.
Transparency Expands Relationships
You have probably heard that people do not leave the job itself but leave the managers associated with it. Solid relationships with strong foundations are built from being transparent. A 2014 CareerBuilder survey showed that 37% of the 3,008 employees surveyed were likely to leave their jobs due to poor relationships and lack of confidence with their boss’s performance.
So how do we improve relationships in the workplace? The best advice would be to have an open environment that encourages transparency and sharing of ideas without judgement. While this is not easy, there are training programs to improve workplace communications and teach people from all backgrounds to relate to one another without judgement. Keeping an open office is to keep the flow of communication steady to prevent bottlenecks or issues from arising. This means for senior management to engaged employees and relate to them as people. They should go out there and have meaningful conversations that build not only trust but a foundation of confidence for everyone to succeed as one. Once you establish this open line of communication you will see a shift in the mood and even your company culture.
Transparency Increases Productivity
Most employees over the years when asked felt their employers were not straight forward with the company vision and not providing the right information to be truly successful in their jobs. This creates lack of trust and a huge drop off with level of commitment to apply their full potential toward the job.
Senior Management has to be fully transparent about their organization’s vision, mission, and values with employees. Transparent leadership starts with the CEO or President. This critical information depicted above must be communicated clearly to gain trust and commitment from employees to be fully vested and for them to apply themselves as a team to achieve company goals. Companies have to put together training programs holding everyone accountable to have alignment with the values, vision, and mission of the company. Investing in your core people will be less expensive and a far better investment than constant onboarding of new people.
Transparency Strengthens Innovation
The difference between companies like Amazon and Apple to others is how together a company can solve problems beforehand and come up with new ideas to disrupt the marketplace in a good way. A transparent leader main goal should be to identify each of their employee’s strengths and leverage them together to handle bigger and more complex problems. Your best solutions and innovations come from truly understanding what makes your people tick and leveraging their strengths. It is important for people to be out of their comfort zones but not dwelling on their weaknesses. Situations that allow them to leverage their strengths foster innovation and more creativity to succeed.
When employees feel micro-managed or not trusted by their manager, the result is less effort, less productivity, and most likely to leave the organization. On the other hand, employees who are empowered by their managers and feel trusted will be better performers, exert more effort, and always go above and beyond role expectations. They feel part of something big and often get tasks done on time and have greater confidence in the workplace to perform at their highest level.
So what else is important to communicate to them to strengthen innovation? It is important to let your employees in on company problems they will either have a solution for you or help you work on one. In addition, you will get a solution a lot faster than if you, alone, spent all that time trying to come up with one just because you did not want to let others know there is a major problem. Being transparent is not a weakness but actually strength at the core level. Sharing ideas and information will allow companies to get a new perspective, new opinions and better insight. Problems will be solved faster and more efficiently if you learn to be open and honest. Below is a list of suggestions to improve innovation and trust in your organization.
- Invest in your people first and ongoing for maximum development
- Make sure your current policies and procedures are truthful and establish trust
- Give up full control and leverage strategically people’s strengths as a team. Empower coming from trust and manage together as a team.
- Share information upfront and always be honest with every situation no matter how bad it may be. Be proactive and not reactive.
These reasons provided will not only benefit you personally but everyone in your organization. Being transparent does not cost much to implement within your organizations. You will see major improvements in your business when you are open, honest, and communicate effectively with your team. A team effort always prevails in the long run. Establish an open environment by keeping your people in the loop and work together as one to come up with solutions rather than manage the problem. Your business is ready to reach the next level when transparency is part of the process every step of the way.
To your health & prosperity,
Christopher Salem
