Recently, I overheard two frontline supervisors talking about a meeting they attended a few days earlier. At that meeting, senior leaders of their division shared upcoming plans for layoffs to cut expenses. The senior leaders explained that they would announce the plan in a week, once the details were ironed out. The senior leaders closed the meeting with the demand that nothing be said about the upcoming layoffs.One supervisor said to the other, “What are we going to do? We can’t tell our direct reports what we know.”
Told to Play Dumb
The concerned supervisor – not as tenured as the supervisor he was talking to – said, “When something like this gets announced, my team members are convinced that I knew what was coming. Sometimes I do – but like at this meeting, I’ve been told to ‘play dumb.’”
I cannot pretend to understand all the dynamics at play in every organization on the planet. However, I am quite confident that effective, servant leaders do not lie. Nor do they ask their managers to lie. The costs are simply too great.
Lies Create a House of Cards
Remember building little structures with playing cards? By pulling one or two key cards, the whole thing collapsed. Lies are like those key cards. If leaders lie, it’s only a matter of time before those lies are discovered. It may take weeks or months or years, but the truth typically comes to light.
When a leader’s lies are discovered, those lies erode:
- Trust – Team members learn that they cannot trust what those leaders tell them. If some of what they hear turns out to be untrue, they quickly go to the assumption that “everything we hear is a lie.” That perception becomes fact to those players.
- Respect – Team members feel disrespected because leaders have not trusted them with the truth. When key plans, decisions, and actions are withheld from employees, respect disappears.
- Credibility – A leaders’ plans, decisions, and actions tell team members exactly what the leaders’ values are. If those leaders do not serve others consistently and don’t do what they say they will do, their credibility is lost. Un-credible leaders inspire fear and discontent, not confidence and accomplishment.
Without trust, respect, and credibility, team members have no reason to apply their discretionary energy to workplace projects, goals, and tasks. Lies can take years to recover from – if a leader can recover, at all.
Be Honest & Transparent
One lie spawns ten other lies which support the first. It gets complicated to keep track of who was told what! Don’t spend your time juggling lies – spend your time being honest and transparent.
Honesty & transparency means you let your team know what the context is for your plans, decisions, and actions. Educate others about the issues and opportunities before you and before the team. Do so regularly, not immediately before a tough decision gets announced.
Education about the business issues and opportunities you face enables talented team members to put their brains to work. They may surprise you with a different way to solve problems with less negative impact on your workforce, customers, or citizens.
If you can’t be honest & transparent – and there are scenarios where you cannot disclose details of every possibility – what should you do? The conversation between the two supervisors ended when the more experienced supervisor put his hand on the shoulder of the concerned supervisor and said, “I tell them what I can. If I’ve been told that I cannot tell details, I explain that I’ve not been given the authority to disclose what our leaders are considering. My team may not be happy about it, but at least I’m not saying ‘I don’t know’ – which is a lie.”
I couldn’t have said it better. What is your experience with untruths in the workplace? Add your thoughts in the comments section below.
