3 Reasons Why It’s Important To Be A Transparent Leader

If you’re an executive or company leader, you need to get comfortable with being transparent.

There may have been a time where companies and their leadership could get away with hiding behind secrecy, but I think that time is quickly passing. The new workforce demands transparency and they have a lot of leverage.

I recently read an interesting article from Gallup about what Gen Z and millennials expect from their workplace. The four things emphasized in the article were:

• Gen Z and millennials want an employer who cares about their wellbeing.
• Gen Z and millennials want their leaders to be ethical.
• Older millennials want open, transparent leaders.
• Gen Z and younger millennials want leaders who support a diverse and inclusive workplace.

Transparent leadership is the common theme here, and if you’re not ready to be more transparent with your employees, then you need to prepare for the negative impacts this lack of transparency can have on your personal brand and your company’s reputation.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the importance of workplace transparency.

Job Seekers Are Smart About Their Job Search Strategy

Job seekers are quickly realizing that they can’t just keep applying to every job opening and hope that someone calls them back. Instead, they have to strategize about what jobs match their skill sets best, and what companies have missions, values, company culture, and leadership they can get behind.

Once they come to this realization, job seekers are more than willing to do their research, and there are a lot of places they can look, including company websites, company social media accounts, job board sites, and news and trade publication articles.

Job seekers can also tap into their networks and utilize current connections, or make new connections, that can provide intel about certain companies.

Company leaders need to realize that it’s not enough to just post basic information about the company and brag about culture and leadership. While job seekers will note this information, they’ll also seek to verify it elsewhere.

As a career coach, I’m always telling my clients that they need to quantify their skill sets with numbers and examples of those skill sets in action achieving a result. Well, the same can be said for employers and executives trying to sell their mission and company culture.

Actions Always Speak Louder Than Words

When it comes to issues like employee wellbeing and supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce, words will only get you so far. The fact is, a lot of leaders know how to say the right things, but if you want your company to stand out, you have to truly live and breathe these important issues.

For example, when it comes to building a diverse and inclusive workforce, leaders need to be on the ground floor talking to employees about what it’s going to take to build a workplace with multiple different perspectives, where all employees feel comfortable and empowered, and then using that feedback to build a plan.

Transparent leaders don’t make decisions about diversity and inclusion in the corner office with other suits, but instead, they realize that it’s an ongoing process that the whole company needs to have a hand in it in order for the process to be successful.

The same goes for building policies and benefits to address concerns around employee wellbeing.

I believe that it’s OK for leaders to acknowledge from time to time that they don’t have all the answers and they’re open to learning new things, sometimes from their own employees, or bringing in outside help.

Many companies will publish annual yearly surveys about demographics, diversity and inclusion statistics and goals, and overall employee happiness. While these surveys are important for overall transparency and having things on the record, job seekers are more interested in concrete examples of how leadership and employees came together to put a plan in motion.

Everyone Wants To Know About Who’s In Charge

I think another theme of the Gallup article is that job seekers are scrutinizing company leadership just as much as they are the company. In many cases, company leadership is the deciding factoring for talented professionals weighing competitive job offers.

Yes, Gen Z and millennials want leaders that are ethical and transparent, but they also want leaders that didn’t forget what it was like to be in their shoes and will make every attempt to relate to the challenges they are facing.

As a leader, you start to build your reputation by the things you do in the workplace, and by the overall success of your company. These are some of the factors that go into overall leadership scores and employee reviews on job board sites like Glassdoor and Comparably. 

But to be known on a wider scale and build a personal brand that you have some control over, leaders need to focus on building their executive presence online.

It doesn’t matter what level you are at in your career, we’re all businesses of one marketing ourselves as professionals.

With job seekers putting just as much focus on company leadership as the company itself, leaders need to market themselves as well, if not better.

Building an executive presence online is a way to share a bit of your professional journey and leadership philosophy. It’s also another venue to discuss professional accomplishments and what you’ve learned from mistakes along the way.

Building an executive presence online is not only great personal branding, but I believe it’s another form of transparency that the modern job seeker is going to demand.

How Do I Build An Executive Presence Online?

Join me on Friday, April 16 for my proven 4-Step Process For Creating Your Executive Presence Online. This live event will run from 12 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. ET (9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. PT).

This live training will give leaders the tools they need to build an executive presence that will help them stand out and gain respect as a trusted advisory in your space. This exclusive class would normally cost you $500 but you can sign up today for only $49.