How To Create A Culture of Transparency

6 Lessons On Being Authentic And Transparency

Pic by Dmitry Ratushny

Fear has become, unfortunately, a regular emotion at work. How often do you feel afraid of sharing your thoughts because of what might happen to you? Have your colleagues stopped sharing their ideas after being censored over and over?

I say this from direct experience.

“We cannot discuss these things at work,” I’ve been told several times when running change leadership workshops. “We are afraid of getting fired.” Surprisingly enough, these same people have no evidence of people being fired for speaking up.

What’s the root cause of this seemingly unfounded fear at work? Clearly, something important is missing: trust and a safe space. And that’s where transparency comes to play.

One Cannot Not Be Transparent

Building on Paul Watzlawick’s axiom, “One cannot not communicate”, one cannot not be transparent. Everything one does is a message: activity or inactivity, words or silence — all are messages communicating something.

Trust can help a team cope with adversity and, ins…