Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
The Quick Take podcast provides concise and actionable tips to help executives and leaders, like you, tackle the thorny and complex challenges that affect us daily. By leveraging their experience and relationship with other global leaders, our hosts provide suggestions that are based on their deep experience as leaders and coaches but also pressure tested in boardrooms everywhere because they asked their friends….(almost). Hosted by James Capps and Susie Tomenchok. Episodes release weekly on Thursdays.
Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
Building Trust Through Transparency
Ever wonder why some leaders inspire unwavering loyalty while others struggle to gain trust? Dive into the world of executive leadership as we uncover the power of transparency, ethical decision-making, and consistency. From Whole Foods' open approach to Johnson & Johnson's dedication to ethics, discover how top companies build trust from the ground up. Whether you're leading a team of 50 or 50,000, this episode delivers actionable insights to transform your leadership style and create a culture of trust that resonates throughout your organization.
In this episode, we discuss the following:
1. The importance of transparency in leadership.
2. Three ways to create trust in an organization.
3. The need for consistent communication in leadership.
CONNECT WITH SUSIE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok/
CONNECT WITH JAMES:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/capps/
Welcome to the Quick Take Podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Susie Tominchuk.
Speaker 2:And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today. Welcome to Quick Take.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I'm your host, susie, along with James. How are you, james?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm just on the tail of a 25-minute rodeo ride of conversation with Susie, which is always a great way to start my day, it sounds like we were talking about comedy, but we were actually talking about really horrible things.
Speaker 1:But you know, we're here, we're here nonetheless, we are here. How are you Good?
Speaker 2:I'm very good. I'm very good, I'm busy, but things are good.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm excited to figure out what we're talking about today, because it will be really fun. I know it's all about transparency.
Speaker 2:It is In leadership it's funny. What's interesting is we were talking about how people are in certain weird circumstances. They aren't necessarily truthful with their kids or with their peers and others, and I do think that it's a reasonably. This segue makes sense to me.
Speaker 2:I don't know about our listeners, but the truth is is that in leadership and in crisis, you know, transparency is huge and you know I was talking to a leader the other day about a company that was implementing some new programs trying to create transparency between the leadership team and the employees, and the struggle that they were having to get buy-in from the leadership team on that additional transparency was really interesting. Ultimately, the conversation boiled down to how do I prove to people that transparency is valuable and I just thought, gosh, I find it so simple in my mind that that's a valuable thing, but maybe there's a worthy conversation about why transparency is important and what's going on in your businesses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you're going to go this way, but when you were saying that, what I see when I talk to different leaders at the executive level is they define transparency very different and it's probably because of their experience with feedback, with how they position things, what has worked and what hasn't. But we talk in general about how important transparency is to leadership, but we don't really talk about what it means and what it is maybe put a fine tooth comb on that.
Speaker 2:I think that transparency is the how, the why is trust.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Right, and the goal is really to create a trust, great trust, within the organization. Every organization has to have trust. A way to do that is transparency. Now, the rub then becomes what kind of transparency? Right, and I think that's where I've had those conversations, I know you've had those conversations. I think that's where you're going down that path, which is, well, we shouldn't tell everybody our financials. I shouldn't tell everybody about this. Yes, right, transparency, you know, as a whole, you know a complete and total transparency also undermines trust. Yeah, faith is lost when they're, when you start to see how, how the sausage is made, but the truth. But if your goal is trust, which it should be, transparency is a great tool to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I still think that everybody thinks about transparency how far you go in a different light, and so it makes it challenging to know how honest when all those things that they're important to make sure that your message does land as well. But transparency is, I agree with you. Trust is so important and don't assume you have it, Observe if you have it. And the way to get there is to really be open with the other party and with the team.
Speaker 2:Well, let's do this.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about three ways that you can create trust in the organization, and I think the first one you know would is is transparency right, and I think there are a ton of examples of how transparency creates trust.
Speaker 2:One of my favorites, honestly, is Whole Foods. Whole Foods has very expensive products, it has somewhat of an elitist attitude and it doesn't carry everything, but what it does do is it is it's abjectly transparent. It tries so hard to be transparent about what is organic and what is not. It explains to its customers what it is and what it isn't, and from the get-go, if you look at the beginning of the whole foods movement, before Amazon got involved, I don't think it's changed much, but that you know their, their, their corporate goals, talk about transparency to drive that trust, and so I think that that's why that company continues to be successful, because they have so much trust between the buyer, the seller and the company that they're, they have uh, they have an allegiance, and so if you're going to create trust, transparency, you can see it in Whole Foods. That's a great way to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, the other just piece of that too, is consistency.
Speaker 2:That trust is consistent over time.
Speaker 1:So you can't just do it as a one and done, kind of transparent today, but tomorrow I'm going to be a little bit behind the curtain. You have to have consistency along with that transparency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, with all all three of these pieces of advice, um, you know a lot of the the work in leadership is not, you know, two days after the leadership offsite, it's not. Uh, two weeks before you do your uh employee survey, uh, consistency is is the, the the key to to driving behavior changes, and I think that's the case here.
Speaker 1:All right Fair. What's number two?
Speaker 2:The second one is really putting in a way to do ethical decision-making across the board. You know you've got to show that your decision-making is being done with the goals of the company in mind, with the employees in mind and with the customers in mind. I'd love to dwell down and to say that ethics has varying degrees of alignment, but I think every company has its goals. Some companies our goal is profit. Some is to save the community, some is to end hunger. That's not what I'm saying. You should not change your company's goals to be ethical, but your decision-making should be ethical. Your decision process should be made with good intention. It should be done with your company's goals in mind, and I think an ethical approach towards leadership is a way that you can ensure that you create trust that your employees and your direct reports know that the decisions you are making are being made with their best interests in mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's so important. I think the other thing that that does is when you think like that, it allows you to be really objective in your decision-making and it makes it easier or it makes you become more consistent, because you're not waffling around, You're really being consistent with you have a North star, if you will that's really overused but you have a way to base the basis of your decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that a company has to be proactive in this. Johnson and Johnson was notorious for their ethical training courses that they provide for their leadership. Ge Jack Welch also was very specific in this space. I'll debate that one, but I know it's well-written that that is the case. But Johnson Johnson in particular has gone out of its way to drive that decision-making. There are plenty of NBA white papers out there about that. But I think what they were doing was saying, look, this matters. We are going to spend money on it, we're going to spend time on it and we are going to create a culture of ethical decision-making. And when you drive that consistency across the board, even those people who are not on the training people that took the training three years ago they know it's important and it changes the behavior of the company.
Speaker 1:It does, and also it's a muscle that you need to build to have that consistency, Especially if you've come from an organization that doesn't have that. You have to really think about that shift in the mindset if that is something that you need to really work on.
Speaker 2:Yep, I totally agree with you. And then the third item, which I think we sort of touched on it, is that consistency. You've got to have a framework within your company that consistently goes back and measures those behaviors. I'm working with a company right now that's a small company, it's a manufacturing company, a couple hundred employees, two locations, one in Texas and the other in Colorado and they built medical devices and they believe that it's an employee-owned company, that that kind of ethical decision-making and that the transparency creates a better culture.
Speaker 2:Now it's interesting that they talk about it, but what they do on a quarterly basis is they go back and double-check. They go back and say are we walking the walk, Are we talking the talk? Sure, they do an employee survey, but they sit down as a leadership team. They sit down with representative groups for management and employee representative teams and say are we doing what we say we're doing? Not only do they end up having good outcomes to make sure that they are behaving correctly, but that creates such an amazing dialogue within the company. They've been amazingly successful. So creating that regular cadence of checking your six, validating that you're walking the walk and talking the talk, I think is just as important as doing those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll give you another example too. I have heard this leader that has 50,000 people in his organization. He's very, very high up and he, every time I've seen him speak, he talks about these three pillars of leadership and he's always very consistent. And then what I see is I hear his direct reports talking about it, I hear them talking, and so that brings that trust and that stability, because people need stability along with trust to feel, and so you get that all the way down to the front line.
Speaker 1:When there's consistency across the organization, they can feel it all the way down, and sometimes that consistency comes with repetition and even if you feel like you're a broken record, it's super important to do because that's how it really settles in.
Speaker 2:It reinforces. You know what's the three tricks to teach people something you tell them. Tell them what you're going to tell them. You tell them what you're going to tell them. You tell them and then tell them what you told them, and so I think that consistency is key.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in advertising it's seven touch points, you know until they'll buy. So it's very consistent. There's very research back. So all right, Tell us the three again.
Speaker 2:Right If you're going to create trust in your organization. That is really why you're doing these things. Trust is done through transparency, creating open dialogues, making sure that people understand why you're making these decisions, understand and create that kind of cohesion. Two, put a framework together for ethical decision-making and ethical leadership. That framework ensures that your decisions are being made with the right intentions, that they align with your corporate goals and with the goals that you maybe outside of your company you've set to ensure that you are doing what you want to be doing. And then, third, create some consistency there. Create and drive a reassessment to ensure that you're doing these things consistently You're still doing them and reevaluate to ensure that those things are still adding value to the company.
Speaker 1:You know, James, the takeoff was a little bumpy, but the landing was well done. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the mind of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind.
Speaker 2:You can find us on LinkedIn, youtube or whatever nerdy place on the internet. You find your podcasts. Our links to the show are in the show notes. We appreciate you.
