One of a leader’s most important jobs is to drive employee trust. Without it, you cannot drive change and accountability. When I was CEO at Investopedia, we drove trust by always sharing the “bad and ugly” not just the “good”. If we were missing our goals, we let everyone know the challenge, the reason behind it and what we were doing to fix it.
I required every member of my executive team to send a weekly all-employee email we called the “3x3” with three positive updates and three challenges. We forced the sharing of the bad so that everyone would know the challenges each department was facing. We forced it to ensure no one would be surprised. We forced it because it enabled 150 individuals to provide solutions so we could fix things faster.
But most importantly, we shared the bad because it is precisely through the transparent sharing of the bad that trust is built. Psychologists will tell you that trust is most engendered when individuals can be vulnerable around each other. “Sharing the bad” demonstrates a leader’s potential failings and vulnerability, and therefore trust.
"Opinion: A CEO explains why you should stop lying to your employees." Marketwatch. Sept. 15, 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment