Transparency. Everybody wants it. Some people believe it. Not everybody is ready for it. It’s important and complicated because there’s much more going on than the reasonable request for transparency. And that’s the trouble with transparency.
Countless articles and studies demonstrate the value of transparency within relationships. Transparency generates trust, strengthens bonds, promotes accountability, and often increases profitability. Transparency is great!
Unless it’s not.
In the summer of 2003, Charlie Company 2/75 Ranger Regiment had been stuck in Afghanistan, covering a second rotation in a row. We were stuck because the war started in Iraq while we were already in Afghanistan, and it didn't make sense to relieve us…just to redeploy us. Instead, a company from our sister Battalion (3/75) went to Iraq, and we covered their rotation in Afghanistan. After getting extended two months in a row, we hoped to get good news when we heard the “big boss” was coming to see us.
The Colonel was coming to Asadabad. Our Regimental Commander (RCO), Colonel Joe Votel (who would later retire as a 4-star General and command US Central Command), was flying out with the Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM), Hugh Roberts. These guys are Legends of the 75th, and surely they wouldn’t come all the way from Bagram unless they had good news. Our platoon needed good news. We had been in Asadabad, near the Pakistan border, for ten straight weeks. The pace, the frustration, and the makeshift showers that electrocuted us were all far past old by that time.
We waited eagerly and were rewarded. The RCO and RSM brought all the boys into the Joint Operations Center (JOC), sat us down, and shot it straight to us. They thanked us for our hard work. They congratulated us for maintaining a high op-tempo. And they said the words we all longed to hear: “You’re going home!” We all returned to our hooches a little lighter that night. The incoming rockets and mortars couldn't even bring us down. We were finally going home!
That night General Votel got a late call from Kabul. Our higher command, the “Big Big boss,” decided we would stay another month. The reason escapes me, but it really doesn't matter 20 years later. It really didn't matter to us the next morning either. What mattered was how General Votel handled it. He brought us all back together in the JOC the next morning, sat us down, and was transparent. “I’m sorry, men. You’ll be staying another month…at least. We’ve been extended by Command in Kabul.”
The words hung in the air and were met by a Ranger rarity - silence.
Later that day, I remember General Votel waiting for his helicopter back to Bagram. He sat on a makeshift picnic bench, alone—another rarity. Whenever the RCO was around, the boys were always happy to tell him how it was! Not this time.
I’ve never seen such a lonely Ranger in my life.
Donnie Boyer and I sat with Hugh Roberts on another makeshift bench. “He’s pretty upset, men. He feels like dirt.” He said in his thick Brooklyn accent. We believed him. “This was not the plan.” We understood. “Hey, Rangers! We drive on!”
We couldn't argue. We could complain, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. I was furious that we got extended again. I would miss my son’s first birthday after already missing his birth the year before. But I just couldn’t be mad at the lonely RCO or the RSM. They did all we could expect. They were transparent with us. They were honest. I just didn't like what they had to say.
We can all relate.
We cry for transparency. We expect transparency. Sometimes we demand transparency. And sometimes we get what we asked for and don't like it. But not liking the truth doesn’t make it any less truthful. It also doesn’t make the leader any less trustworthy. In fact, it makes them more trustworthy because they are courageous enough to tell it to you straight.
We see the transparency trap playing out in teams across the country. Leaders share their frustrations with us that their people don’t respond when they give it. Employees share with us their frustrations that their leaders aren’t transparent enough. That is true in some cases, but to be honest, not often with the leaders we get to serve. The leaders we serve give their best - imperfectly, yet in earnest, just like their employees.
“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”
Employees cry for transparency, while leaders cry for performance. In reality, both want the same thing - trust. The problem is we cannot simply snap our fingers and create trust. And because there is no shortcut to relationship, it’s worth examining the transparency-trust paradigm from the employee and the leader perspectives.
Here are a few observations about why employees struggle at times with leader transparency:
Expectations Mismatch: the employee's expectations are not met. Our expectations are a natural extension of our experiences. Many employees have experienced a lack of transparency, so they are skeptical of its merits when confronted with it. Also, many employees have experienced layoffs in the past, so when a leader says, “No more layoffs,” they tend to respond skeptically.
Negative Impact: the revealed truth has material consequences. Reductions in force, layoffs, poor performance, the list goes on. Sometimes the leader has to break it to the team, and it’s not good. But it is true. When this happens, employees are often impacted with more labor, less help, and more uncertainty.
Direction Disagreement: the leader has made a decision that the employee disagrees with. This happens A LOT. Most leaders gain information from various sources within the organization. They develop a common operating picture to make decisions from. And though employees appreciate the chance to be heard, if we’re all being honest, we want our own heards to be more heard than others’ heards. Sometimes the decision just doesn’t fall our way.
We Don’t Like It: There. I said it. Sometimes we just don't like it. Hell - I didn't like getting extended in Afghanistan. Stop wasting valuable time and brain power litigating reality and just own it. To quote Sam Elliott, “Sometimes you eat the bar…and sometimes the bar eats you!”
Here are a few observations about why leaders struggle at times with transparency:
Oversharing: Sharing details (often when they are yet to be fully understood and are still developing) creates an undue amount of uncertainty and anxiety within the organization. Information changes fast and often in many environments, and oversharing can create a sense of aimlessness or lack of mission clarity that stalls execution.
Speculation: Sometimes leaders just don’t know the answer to a question or the direction for a program or initiative yet. Saying, “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you,” used to be a sign of strength. Now it’s an invitation for skepticism and resentment. The last three decades of leadership failures at all levels of society have justified that cultural skepticism.
Appropriate Confidentiality: Sharing certain information may be either unethical (like the details of an employee termination) or inappropriate (like individual compensation details). A prospective partnership, innovation, or advancement might also be placed in jeopardy resulting in practical harm to the business. Additionally, the leader might be operating under a Non-Disclosure Agreement or is bound by their supervisor to hold information.
Inefficiencies: It just slows everything down. In large organizations, leaders cannot speak to every employee, though that expectation has been fostered in the workplace. Also, sometimes there’s really nothing more to the job than the job - the tasks do not require discussion.
Having been on both sides of the transparency-trust conversation, we understand the feelings involved. We all have to take some responsibility in these relationships. Leaders need to speak clearly and appropriately. There are nearly always elements that cannot be shared at the time - say that. It sounds like, " I cannot share those specific details at this time, but once I can, I will share it.” And we need to follow through. Teammates need to own their share of the equation and assume good intentions if this is going to work. If we want our leaders' transparency, we must do our part to trust them.
Finally, if you aren’t sure whether your leadership is trustworthy, give them a chance to prove it to you, but don’t operate as if they’ve already proven that they have not. And if you’ve already determined that you cannot trust your leadership, then leaving might be a good option for you. But asking for more transparency is not.
