in this video we're going to talk about
ethical leadership specifically how
ethical leadership relates to
transparent communication we're going to
look at a model of transparency and how
it applies to organizational settings so
let's unpack the details so they're
friends Alex line here and today we're
going to talk about ethical leadership
normally on this channel we're talking
about communication and leadership and
this topic is near and dear to my heart
I wrote about this in my book I'll put a
link to this in the description below
the video you can also visit it on the
website as well if you would like so
today we'll talk about my bird's-eye
view of ethical leadership specifically
about communication and then I'll unpack
a three-part model of transparent
communication that's in that book so
first here's my big picture view on
ethical leadership ethics is everybody's
responsibility and it's not just because
it's the right thing to do bad decisions
are often bad because they are unethical
in other words unethical behavior is bad
for business if you look a lot of the
problems that we've seen in
organizations over the past 15 or 20
years a lot of them started internally
with bad unethical decision so it's not
just about doing what's good because we
want to do what's good it would be good
people it's because it's going to also
destroy our organizations so I really
believe that part of this is
communication we often see a tension
between secrecy and transparency in
organizations and on the side of
sequency that's where a lot of these
problems begin so I believe and agree
with Matt Seeger and Rob Omer they wrote
about this in an article in management
communication quarterly that leaders
have what we call communication based
responsibilities they have a
responsibility to be informed and get
informed about any of the potential
problems that are happening in the
organization to create an atmosphere
where those problems can be identified
and then solve those problems so there's
my bird's-eye view on transparency and
organizational settings and now I want
to get into this three-part model so
let's unpack it so on the flip side of
this model of transparency we have this
issue of secrecy
and that's usually a sign of trouble and
usually something you want to avoid it
leads to lots of unethical behavior in
the long run so let's talk about this
organizational transparency model and it
has three parts the first part is
organizational openness so when you have
an open organization all the
compensation hiring and firing decisions
are all pretty obvious everybody knows
the rules of the game the way you get
projects approved or maybe not approved
it's all really open people understand
the expectations and that's the kind of
organizational openness you want where
everything is out in the open and plain
to see the processes are not secretive
or hidden a lot of times where people if
people don't know how things get approve
how people hire get fired how you get a
raise you end up with a really political
kind of organization that can turn
negative and so you want to creative
processes that's really open and the
rules of the game are obvious the other
part of organizational openness is the
obligation to speak about problems that
you see you have an obligation to talk
as Karl Weick said because if you're not
speaking about problems that you see you
end up with what Karl White calls
pluralistic ignorance where you see a
problem something that looks out of
place are odd but you don't say anything
about it and then the next person maybe
sees that same problem but doesn't say
anything about it and everybody knows is
a problem and no one's speaking so it's
called pluralistic ignorance and by
speaking about it by having that
obligation to talk when you see a
problem you puncture pluralistic
ignorance and then the problems can be
identified early and solved so
organizational openness is a huge part
to establish this culture in this
atmosphere to lead to more ethical
communication and leadership the second
part of the model is information sharing
information should be shared widely
because high-quality information leads
to better decision making if you find
that you're in a context where people
are holding back information or leaving
specific details out because they want
to get something approved that's a sign
of trouble that's another type of
secrecy the reason you want to share
information is because if you get all
the information on the table you're much
more likely collectively to have a
healthier
decision-making process that you can
really move the organization forward if
you're basing your decisions on have
truths on strategically ambiguous
information you're going to end up with
poor quality decisions so Nelson one of
my favorite authors called this idea
significant choice people have the right
to make an informed choice about the
significant issues in their lives and in
this case in organizational settings if
you're going to base information on
manipulation on partial information
you're going to get bad decision-making
the third part of this model is candor
every once in a while you're going to
have to have a conversation about a
sensitive topic oftentimes the topic
might involve somebody personally and so
here you need a mixture of open and
honest communication but you also need a
balance of care and kindness so to me
candor is both of these things you don't
want somebody who's brutally honest with
you you just want them to be plain
spoken about the issue to broach the
topic so you can solve their problem
they have to do that with care you don't
want to be the kind of person and maybe
you know the kind of people that will
end up hurting people's feelings
routinely and say well I was just being
honest yes you need to be honest and
open you need to be candid but you also
need to do that with care and that way
you can have difficult conversations
without fear that you're gonna hurt
people's feelings all the time because
you're to brutish in your approach so
those are the three parts the model
question of the day which one of these
you find most difficult in your
particular professional setting I would
love to hear your comments in that
section below the video so thanks god
bless and I will see you next time