As my team has gotten larger, my decisions around transparency have become more complicated.  Really this is a meta-post, because it’s likely some of my team members will read this and what’s more transparent than sharing my complex relationship to transparency.  Inception indeed.

I’ve noticed two kinds of transparency – information transparency and what I’ll call subjective transparency. 

Information transparency is how we make decisions about who learns what information.  When do we or don’t we share information about what the budget will be, whether quotas will be higher or lower, who in the organization is getting promoted, what the OKRs will be. 

I find information transparency pretty easy to manage.  I share as much as I am allowed to share as soon as I can.  While OKRs may not be final or rolled out to the entire organization, I share what I know with my leaders.  While we may not know the specifics of how something will be executed, I share what I do know with a broad audience. 

The other type of transparency is where the complexity comes in.  What I’m calling subjective transparency is how much of what I think and how I interpret things I share.  This is where I need to decide whether to share how I feel about a certain goal or organizational change; what my interpretation of the information is.

“I wanted that role and didn’t get it and I’m disappointed,” “I don’t agree with a focus on that,” “I think the new person they put in charge of that is finally the right person, but they have a lot to undo.”  And positive ones too: “He’s going to be a great leader,” “I really like this new process for approvals,” “This product strategy is the right decision.” 

This kind of transparency requires much more vulnerability and risk. My feelings and opinions are respected on the team, so if I’m sharing that I don’t believe in something or don’t like something, I’m basically setting the team up to follow.  And if I’m sharing positive sentiment I may be setting unreasonably positive expectations for the team. So why do I do it?

Trust.

I think a key reason people want transparency from their leaders is that it builds trust. Sharing quotas ahead of time might be appreciated, but it’s not risky.  Sharing that the quotas aren’t what I wanted to see but they are what they are, can be an empathetic choice.  Sharing that I don’t know whether an executive leaving is a good or bad thing brings me closer to my team by opening the door to discussions. It signals that I’m not an automaton towing the line but that I am interested in opinions, interpretations, and expressions of emotion.  By showing my leaders that I can dislike a choice while still liking my job, I give them the option to do the same.

Let’s be real: It’s not about sharing every opinion about every decision with every person.  That would be exhausting.  Also ineffective.  But balancing where I do and don’t do it is something I’m learning.  And the more I experiment and take risks around this, the better my relationships get.

Someone once taught me that the job of an executive is to perpetually project momentum.  I think it’s more complicated than that.  Indeed leaders need to drive momentum, but to do it, and only it, perpetually, can’t be right.