Tell it Like It Is

I've always been a fan of "leading up". I became familiar with it for the first time when I read "Extreme Leadership" by Jocko Willink. I'd love to go over why that book is a really important read, but I'll save that for another day. The basic idea is that anyone, no matter the level of authority you have in your organization, can show leadership. Specifically, it can be accomplished by contributing to leadership and decision-making processes. In short, you help your leader be a better leader. This is often discussed also as "managing up".

I was thinking about this today for a few reasons: the book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" was brought up in a newsletter, and an internal survey at my company went out. If I remember correctly, there's plenty of discussion around "telling it like it is". As a manager, I find this important in maintaining a healthy relationship with your team and helping them grow with direct feedback. There's no point in trying to be gentle about giving feedback. Express how someone is not meeting expectations, highlight how important it is to their growth, and expect to follow up. You can't hope someone will act on a piece of feedback if it's not shared with clarity. You can't hope someone will act on a piece of feedback if its importance is glossed over. All of this can be overcome by being direct.

I find that people appreciate honesty and transparency, and genuinely care about learning where they can grow. If you're being vague it becomes harder to share that vision and guide them so it's a lose-lose. Tell it how it is and embrace the uncomfortable feeling you might get. Things don't end there though, I mentioned a survey and I wanted to discuss that briefly.

This survey serves the purpose of giving everyone a voice. It helps the company track the trends of leadership and the results are shared transparently with everyone. This is a reality check for management, from the bottom layer up to the executive team. I never pull my punches there and my manager is seldom surprised by the results. That's because I share concerns directly and the survey is just a confirmation of thoughts and feedback I already provided. The survey also helps uncover any concern that can be discussed between leaders to which they need to provide a response and an action plan. I do this for my team too and usually plan with them what action items would help mitigate the low points. Again we discuss this transparently and tell it how it is.

Thoughts

Learning to tell it like it is serves a great purpose. From helping your team to grow to holding your leaders accountable. Any relationship that is built around transparency and directness is a stronger one. I can't remember a time when I decided to provide transparent feedback that I regret (yet). Not just in a professional setting but also in a personal one. I believe this is a good part of the reason why I was able to create a strong relationship with my partner and my team. I also expect them to be the same way and encourage it! I want people around me to feel comfortable disagreeing with me. It's a good exercise for both parties as long as it's done with the right mindset in a healthy manner (that's the goal anyway isn't it?). If you read this random daily thought I encourage you to look around and learn where you can bring that directness. Don't forget yourself though! Unfortunately, we might tend to either lie to ourselves or be elusive. Honesty and transparency with yourself should be a staple, start there and then expand.