The Real Impact of a Lack of Transparency

A lack of transparency can have significant negative impacts on individuals and organizations. It erodes trust, fuels suspicion, and can lead to poor decision-making and reduced productivity. In the workplace, it can create a toxic environment, while in business, it can lead to reputational damage and financial consequences.

Here's a more detailed look at the impact of a lack of transparency:

1. Unforced Errors: Miscommunication and misunderstandings about priorities and goals can lead to inefficiency, redundant tasks, missed opportunities, and teams working against each other.

2. Problems Fester: Without transparency, problems remain unresolved as their root causes go unnoticed, undiagnosed, and incorrectly addressed.

3. Resistance Grows: When team members aren't open about their ideas, concerns, or feedback, opportunities for improvement are missed, and overall progress stalls.

4. Silos Form: Lack of clarity can lead to conflicts between departments or teams, each vying for resources, priorities, or approaches, which hampers collaboration.

5. Feeling Left in the Dark: Unclear priorities or exclusion from crucial information can lead to mistakes and misunderstandings, making it hard to meet expectations.

6. Feeling Unappreciated: Exclusion from key conversations or not being given access to important information suggests that one's insights and involvement aren't valued.

7. Feeling Insecure: Unclear or absent communication can lead to second-guessing, stress, and a sense of disorientation, making individuals feel like mere cogs in the wheel, questioning their worth and the value of their contributions.

8. Reduced Employee Engagement: A lack of transparency can make employees feel undervalued and disengaged, impacting morale and productivity.

9. Poor Decision-Making: Without access to relevant information, employees may make poor decisions that negatively affect the organization.

10. Erosion of Trust: When employees lack access to information or feel decisions are made in secrecy, they are likely to distrust management and colleagues, leading to a breakdown in communication and collaboration.

In essence, transparency is crucial for building trust, fostering collaboration, and promoting ethical behavior in any context. Its absence can have far-reaching negative consequences.

I suppose no further convincing is needed. Each and everyone of these seven points is in itself already a sufficient reason to increase transparency. And together they express one simple message: be transparent.

Is there enough transparency in your organization?

Moving from Blame to Accountability

To move from a culture of blame to one of accountability, it's crucial to understand the difference between the two. Blame focuses on finding fault and assigning responsibility for a negative outcome, often leading to defensiveness and conflict. Accountability, on the other hand, involves taking ownership of one's actions and contributing to solutions. By shifting the focus from blame to accountability, individuals and organizations can foster a more positive, productive, and growth-oriented environment.

Here are seven practices to lay the foundation for creating a culture of accountability.

1. Delegate effectively. This includes taking the time to clearly articulate the desired results in writing, specify the delegate’s decision-making authority, provide required resources, and provide regular feedback. Most, if not all, problems would be mitigated if leaders followed this pattern of delegation.
2. View problems as learning opportunities. The Kaizen Institute has a saying “Where no problem is perceived, there can be no improvement.” Never forget that we are all still learning to do our jobs better, and we learn best from our mistakes. Most importantly, make sure the people you lead know that you hold this belief.
3. Lead with inquiry. Don’t assume you have all the facts. When you ask questions with a sincere desire to learn, you are less likely to provoke a defensive reaction.
4. Remove emotion. Feedback and guidance turns to blame the instant the person on the receiving end perceives angry and frustrated tones. Even if the anger isn’t directed at the person accountable for the results, they will likely interpret the emotion as blame. Additionally, emotion interferes with the brain’s ability to problem solve and think logically.
5. Focus on the problem and solution, not the person. Focusing on the issue or problem, not on the person, creates an open, trusting, communication-rich environment.
6. Look for breakdowns in the process. Flawed systems, or processes, contribute to most workplace problems. We tend to assume that the cause of problems happened right before and in the same vicinity where the problem occurred. Think beyond the obvious to discover contributing factors separated from the problem by time and proximity. Poor leaders ask “Who’s at fault?” Strong leaders ask “Where did the process break down?
7. Act like a leader. When things go right, good leaders deflect the credit. When things go wrong, good leaders take all the responsibility. That’s tough, but that’s the price of admission to leadership (or rather, it should be). It’s just a shame that most people in leadership positions didn’t get that memo.

Ending a cycle of blame and fostering accountability requires a conscious effort to shift your mindset and actions. By understanding the difference between blame and accountability, adopting a growth-oriented mindset, and actively promoting accountability, individuals and organizations can create a more positive and productive environment where learning and improvement are prioritized.

Setting Clear Expectation for Employees

Unclear or misunderstood expectations can lead to a drop in performance, along with conflict between a manager and a team member. Although no one likes a micromanager, most employees appreciate knowing they are on the right track. Setting expectations and communicating employee responsibilities to each new hire can have a long-lasting effect on your business. However, a study by Gallup shows that nearly half of all U.S. employees don’t know what’s expected of them at work.

Here are some tips for setting expectations and finding meaning at work for new and existing employees:

1. Connect Individuals to the Big Picture

Numerous research studies indicate that employees are more likely to find meaning at work if their job helps them achieve some longer-term goals. Typically, this involves a leader understanding the far-reaching goals an employee wants to achieve and helping them see how their work is contributing to that.

It is important to articulate a common goal, not just to harness the collective energy but also to help people build a connection between their work and the organization’s highest aims. People need to know how their work connects to the organization’s vision and what’s in it for them.

This requires reconstructing day-to-day work to the organization’s objective, helping employees understand how a series of low level tasks are related to the bigger picture.

2. Identify Meaningful Progress

We need regular feedback to inform us how we are tracking to motivate us to stay the course. Many of us need to feel that we are making progress and that our work is contributing to something important. Measurement and feedback provide an important sense of momentum which is, critical to increasing performance and motivation.

At work, a lot of measurements can be meaningless for individuals. Help your employees measure what matters to them. Work with them to uncover what makes them feel successful at the end of the day or week. Communicate regularly to employees how far they are expected to go and keep them informed of progress along the way.

Research shows that when people know exactly how they were progressing they have the best performance and least stress.

3. Connect Your Team to the External Customer

Ultimately, organizations have to solve customer problems to stay in business. The reality is you can’t make good customer decisions if you are siloed. Yet, the customer can often get forgotten about as an organization becomes larger. It is important to help your people understand how their work benefits customers.

The best method to do that is for employees to hear firsthand from customers how the organization’s product or service improves their life.

It’s important to help your employees think about who would be worse off if they didn’t do their job.  Reframing for who your work matters can be a powerful motivator to improve our results.

Employees feel most appreciated when you help them feel connected: to purpose, accomplishment, and one another. Communicate their exact role in your organization’s greater purpose—how they make a difference and contribute. And how they fit into their teams and the broader organization. When employees connect to organizational purpose, great work, and their teammates, they feel a higher sense of belonging at work. Successful companies show employees how their efforts play a part in something much bigger than themselves, so they feel more valued by their leaders and by their organization.

Leading with Accountability

Accountability is essential for any successful organization. When team members take ownership of their projects and accept responsibility for outcomes, the entire company benefits. In order to foster a culture of accountability, leaders must step up to the plate and model specific behaviors. Accountable leaders don't necessarily have to come from the C-suite. Anybody, at any level can lead through accountability.

In the book Winning With Accountability, author Henry J. Evans of Dynamic Results examines the ways in which individuals can demonstrate accountable interactions. The four pieces to accountability are:

1.     Clear expectations: The request, task, expectation, project and the response must be detailed and clear. One tool that can help with assessing specificity and clarity here is the SMART goals framework.

2.     Specific date and time: The individual commits to delivering something by a specific day and specific time. Align priorities and resources with your biggest goals.

3.     Ownership: The individual takes responsibility for seeing the task through to completion and accepts responsibility for the outcome. One task, one owner.

4.     Sharing: Accountability is created when two or more people know about a specific commitment. It’s crucial to make your team your accountability partners—it’s about declaring your commitment and asking your teammates to hold you accountable.

Accountability is the sauce of successful teams. Not only is accountability an essential quality to have at work, but also in life. Accountability is when you accept a hundred percent personal responsibility for your actions and decisions.

Successful teams and companies can’t thrive without accountability. Accountability in the workplace creates more robust relationships, healthier working spaces, and more productive teamwork.

Accountability is a skill that can be coached in many employees, and it is a value that is truly contagious. Accountable people lead by example, and when they take steps to lead their colleagues towards more accountable interactions, ownership and responsibility will catch on like wildfire. And the best part? Anyone, at any level of the company can step up to be a leader of accountability.

What is Accountability, and Why is it Important?

Accountability means showing up and setting out to accomplish the things you’d said you’d do. It’s about taking personal responsibility for your work. It’s also trusting in your teammates and knowing you can count on each other to get things done. 

Accountability in the workplace can mean that all employees are accountable for their own actions, behaviors, performance and decisions. It's also linked to increased commitment to work and employee motivation, which leads to higher productivity. Employees who feel they are being held accountable for their actions, behaviors and decisions are motivated to perform better because they know they will get feedback. 

Creating a culture of accountability is an essential tool used by high-performing teams to develop better work relationships, eliminate surprises, and improve overall job happiness. Here are 3 ways to create more accountability in the workplace: 

1. Model accountability on your team 

When it comes to building a culture of accountability, change starts with you. 

Team accountability is impossible without strong personal accountability in place first, so it’s important to first work on yourself before approaching an accountability conversation with co-workers or direct reports. 

2. Set clear expectations for team members 

It may sound obvious, but doing what your teammates expect of you requires clarity around what’s expected in the first place. 

Unclear expectations and lack of specificity create accountability gaps. To fill these gaps and reduce ambiguity, try to be as specific as possible. 

Strategies for stronger expectation-setting: 

• Define project ownership: Work with your team to clearly define who owns what. Many teams like to use a RACI chart for each project — clarifying who should be responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed on the work. 
• Use a detailed project spec template: Project specs and one-pagers help teams create alignment, clearly define expectations, and eliminate accountability gaps. Each one should specify the project timeline, ownership, and specifics on the deliverables.  
• Get more intentional with meeting action items: Action items are valuable for a variety of purposes – building accountability is a big one. When action items come up in team meetings, it’s all too easy for them to slip through the cracks or lack enough specificity to drive follow-through. To keep action items top-of-mind, assign a notetaker to document them as you go and share them out immediately after the meeting ends.  
• Publicize roles and responsibilities: When people know their role, they’re more likely to feel a sense of ownership and take charge of their work. Likewise, when teammates understand each other’s roles, it strengthens collaboration, communication, and trust because they know who to turn to for what and what is (and isn’t) expected. As a manager, make it a point to publicize everyone’s role and revisit expectations on a regular basis. 

3. Create a “safe space” environment 

Trust and psychological safety are foundational to building a culture of accountability. Without them, folks on your team won’t feel comfortable opening up, sharing transparently, and taking ownership if things don’t go as planned. 

When you build up psychological safety on your team, people feel safer taking risks, asking for feedback, and being vulnerable in front of each other through the ups and downs that inherently come with any job. 

Building systems for accountability into your team’s workflow can help employees feel more empowered and help managers support them, without micromanagement. 

You can have better performance discussions, build healthy habits around planning and goal-setting, and achieve better results. If you want your team to be more effective, invest in team and individual accountability. 

How to Equip Leaders

In the team, you as the leader always want to get things done. It is not just simply telling people what do they need to do. It will not develop their true potential in the team. Without utilizing their potential, meaning you put your own mind into a team’s work, you cannot gain benefits from working as a team.

According to John C. Maxwell, in the book ‘How SuccessfulPeople Lead’, He found best methods to help others do their jobs well. It is called five-step process for equipping people:

Step 1 — I do it (competence)

This is the first step where you try to show them what you are capable to do. It is pretty easy and straightforward, that you take part of the things that need to be done. However, it feels like competition and might feel you put your ego at the first place. Don’t get it wrong! you are helping your team in taking down things to-do. Before you lead, or move to the next step (demonstration), you must understand it first at its best.

Step 2— I do it and you are with me (demonstration)

After you able to do things alone, it is time to step up your game. Demonstration is good way help you understand more into something. While you’re demonstrating, you let them get into your world. Unconsciously, you give them knowledge that is raised at the same level as yours. Keep your communication open as they will not understand if you do it quietly.

Step 3— You do it and I am with you (coaching)

This step is slightly harder, as you give them some trust to do things. They might not meet your expectation and it might let you down. This is where your patience as leader will be tested. People make mistakes. Let them know where did they get it wrong, and let them experience and study it. Always keep in mind that as the great leader, you are the captain of your crews. Grow up your trust towards them and you are ready for the next step.

Step 4 — You do it (empowerment)

As you cannot always be side-by-side with your team, you might want to give your 100% trust to them. By giving your trust, you build their confidence. Confidence is the key for your success, their success, and the team’s success. They might feel that they’re well-trusted and keep it at constant pace. Well, I’m afraid to say that you might not be able to proceed to the next step. Even though you trust and empower them, you still need to guide them at back.

Step 5— You do it and someone is with you (reproduction)

This is the hardest part, where you build leadership skills inside people you taught before. This trust is not to get things done effectively, but towards get things done efficiently. It grows your team’s productivity, because you are not spending time to teach others over and over again. In good case, where one of your team able to reach step 5, your team’s productivity will grow exponentially.

By analyzing these five steps, it helps you to equip others to be effective in carrying out tasks. For some tasks this may be a relatively short time, depending on the depth and complexity of the task itself. But it could take some considerable time when the task is complex and difficult to manage.

These steps are not linear, meaning you can use any steps, even after reaching Step 5. These steps are believed not only improving the team’s productivity, but also relationships in your team.

Maxwell talks a lot about equipping people, which means empowering them to make decisions, solve their own problems, identify growth opportunities, and build a legacy. These steps are a good way to ensure the person is equipped with the knowledge and background to lower and mitigate the risks of failure. At its core, the five-step process for equipping people offers proven principles that provide a blueprint for developing a strong leadership culture and establishing a environment for empowerment.

Delegation vs Empowerment

As a business leader, you have a responsibility to develop others, leverage your resources, and create an environment that engages people to volunteer their commitment. These are traits of a good leader, and one of the most effective tools you can use to fulfill your responsibilities and allow others to contribute is delegation and empowerment.

Delegation and empowerment are two ends of a continuum that leverage resources, develop others, and allow people to feel as if they are contributing.

The key difference between delegation and empowerment comes down to one important factor: who is in control, or how much autonomy does the individual have in the job.

“To delegate” is to deliberately assign a defined task, mission, or function to a specific person or entity, normally a direct report or subordinate.

“To empower” is a broader term that conveys giving or allowing others the freedom to act with little (or any) prompting, direction, or supervision. It also includes providing additional tools to enhance a person's capabilities.

There are three factors you must consider when deciding if you want to delegate or empower: knowledge, skills, and abilities. The more competent and experienced the team member, the more you can empower them to take ownership of the task and exercise more control. On the other hand, for less experienced team members, more direction and control may be required to ensure successful completion of the task.

The amount of control and autonomy required to complete a task is an important factor to consider when deciding whether to delegate or empower. Tasks that are very prescribed may not provide many opportunities for empowerment, but there may still be some aspects that can be delegated to team members to develop their skills and provide additional support.

Another important factor is the amount of control and autonomy that a leader is willing to give when deciding whether to delegate or empower. Unfortunately, some leaders have a tendency to micromanage everything and everyone, feeling that they must be involved in every decision and activity.

Leaders who micromanage may feel that their team members don’t have the necessary knowledge, skills, or abilities to complete tasks successfully without their guidance. However, this mindset can be counterproductive, as it can stifle creativity and innovation, demotivate team members, and limit their potential for growth and development.

Moreover, micromanagement can be a drain on a leader’s time and energy, leaving them little time to focus on strategic initiatives and higher-level tasks. It can also create a sense of distrust between the leader and their team members, eroding the team’s morale and productivity.

Your job, as a leader, is to develop others, leverage your resources, accomplish the work, and create an environment that engages people to volunteer their commitment. You can do this by giving people appropriate levels of control and autonomy with delegation and empowerment.

Delegation and empowerment creates a sense of ownership and responsibility within your team. It allows your team members to take the lead in their assigned tasks and work towards achieving the desired results. This, in turn, leads to increased productivity, better teamwork, and improved morale.

Delegation and empowerment also help in developing your team members’ skills and abilities. As you delegate tasks and empower them to make decisions, they gain valuable experience and knowledge that will benefit them in their career growth.

Moreover, by delegating and empowering your team members, you as a leader can be free to focus on strategic initiatives and higher-level tasks. As you delegate more tasks, you free up your time and energy to focus on more significant issues, such as planning, strategizing, and creating new business opportunities.

Delegation and empowerment are powerful tools that can help leaders leverage their resources, develop their team members, and create an environment that fosters engagement and commitment. By understanding the differences between delegation and empowerment, leaders can determine when to use each one and how to apply them effectively.