Dorrier Underwood

I often hear from people on the leadership team of one client that their boss (call him “Fred”) is not very “transparent” with them.  Lack of transparency is easy to complain about when people feel like they don’t know what’s going on or they’re concerned that they are being left “out of the loop.” People expect and even demand transparency of others, and yet as leaders we can easily overlook our own tendency to be vague or even unintelligible with the people who depend on our leadership. Merriam Webster defines transparency as the quality or state of being transparent,  and then goes on to define the root word as:  free from pretense or deceit :   frank  easily detected or seen through :   obvious   readily understood  characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices. I’ve made it a practice to have Fred open all of our team sessions, welcoming his people and confirming his co...

Having a big vision is a mixed blessing. For one thing, the bigger the vision, the more likely Integrity is on its way out. Growing up, I heard a lot about "doing business on a handshake," which meant honorable people kept their word to each other even without a signed document. It was understood that “forgetting about" the agreement cemented by that handshake—or waffling on it—would damage one’s reputation in the community. A promise does not exist in isolation. The issue of integrity is not a personal issue. There is always somebody else involved—or many somebodies. My first thought when I'm not going to make a deadline is that I'm bad. It takes effort to set aside "showing how sorry I am," so I can remember the strategic purpose that my promise serves. It also takes compassion (on the part of the person who made the promise and the person to whom something has been promised) to let go of blame, so we can focus clearly on what needs to happe...