The Role Of Truth In Building Trust

Truth is absolutely essential in leadership. It helps you communicate better with your publics.

True, it is considered that sometimes being totally truthful will spread panic in the organization. Governments sometimes perceive the need to hide the truth from the general public in times of threat so as not to spread panic. I mean it was Winston Churchill that said that the truth is so precious it should be guarded by a bodyguard of lies. LoL.

Even in the business world, there’s often a fair amount of classified info that leaders can’t talk about legally (unless it’s the government that wants the info). And making some apologies could expose the organization to a risk of lawsuits.

But corporate leaders, especially those in public limited companies are frequently punished if found out to have been hiding major unpleasant truths from the public. Think of the Bernie Madoff saga. Think of the FTX implosion.

The truth is that truth is a powerful way to communicate your character to your organization and build trust.

Banks, the media and other organizations begin to have issues the moment people begin to perceive them as being purveyors of falsehood, of fake news, or ‘cooking the books’.

People do not continue to trust leaders who they perceive to lie to them all the time. One useful tactic? Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

A middle ground between truth and lies is the grey ground where the teller tells a different truth that they consider won’t hurt them, but won’t give the enemy a weapon to use against them.