Transparency in Leadership

I spent most of the month of August on campuses with faculty and staff, student leaders, coaches, and student-athletes who were returning for yet another school year. Several of the groups I worked with requested sessions on leadership development. During these sessions, we all experienced a few lightbulb moments that are simply too good to keep to myself.

In each session, I placed several hundred photographs on tables throughout the room. I asked the participants to get into small groups and to identify which images represented authentic leaders and which images represented inauthentic leaders. The following examples came from three different groups but they each received the exact same response: the audience fell silent, then a few people said “whoa,” and then applause filled the room. I’m amazed at the depth that these young students were able to apply after our short time together.

In one session a young college student stood before the group holding a picture of lipstick. I must admit, I was not at all sure where she was going with this image. She spoke on behalf of her small group and said, “We selected this image of lipstick to represent inauthentic leaders. We feel like inauthentic leaders don’t really care for their people and they aren’t focused on doing what is important for their people. This kind of leader just dresses the part, they are focused on their appearance. It’s like they put on their lipstick to look good, but they aren’t really leading. When you remove the lipstick, you find out there isn’t much there to work with.”

In another session a high school student came forward to share the image her small group had selected. When she held up a picture of a lighthouse I was once again very curious about this selection. She said, “We selected this image of a lighthouse for inauthentic leaders because this kind of leader wants to be seen, they want people looking at them and paying attention to them, but they aren’t paying attention to others. The light they shine is always about themselves. They don’t care about the people they are leading; they just want to know that others are looking at and admiring them.”

And in yet another session a young college student stood before a room full of her peers and held up a picture of an old window frame. She then shared, “We selected this image for an authentic leader. We noticed that this window frame is old, dusty, worn out and a little broken, but it is also transparent. As my group talked, we agreed that it’s ok to be a little broken as a leader; in fact, if we are being honest, we are all a little broken and that’s alright as long as you are transparent about it. We think authentic leaders value transparency.”

Far too often in my work I discover the source of pain for a group is poor and ineffective leadership. When I dig a little deeper, I frequently find that the root cause of that leadership struggle is actually an unhealthy leader with an inaccurate definition of leadership. When a leader thinks that leadership is about appearance and the perception of being perfect, the group has been set up to fail. Leadership is not an image, but rather imagining that imperfect people can thrive when they are allowed to bring their whole selves to the work they do - less lipstick and shining lights, and more dusty windows frames.

The healthiest leaders I work with understand the value of bringing their whole self to their leadership. When we do this, we function as the window: sometimes old, dusty, cracked, worn out, and maybe a little broken, but still transparent about who we are as we lead others. This shift to bringing our whole selves means we can’t follow someone else’s blueprint of leadership; we must walk our own path and we will experience some bumps and bruises along the way. I encourage leaders to resist the urge to cover their wounds in “lipstick” because healthy leadership isn’t about being a bright, shiny leader, but rather about the ability to consistently show up for others in authentic ways.

It is important to understand that transparency in leadership does not mean that we ask our people to carry our burdens. We need to lead from our scars, not from our wounds. In other words, some healing needs to have taken place before we share our pain with those who are following us. I have heard it said many times that as leaders we should only share our pain when we are able to speak of it in the past tense. There is a difference between being honest, authentic, and transparent about our humanness versus offloading our unprocessed pain onto our people. Our followers are not responsible for carrying our burdens.

So, what is your image of an authentic or inauthentic leader? Are you willing to trade-in the lipstick and the lighthouse imagery for that of a dusty window frame? We need more worn-out and maybe slightly broken but always transparent leaders who are willing to bring their whole selves to a healthy leadership journey.

Authentic leaders value transparency and, oddly enough, without it your followers will see right through you.

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