Encouraging Transparency In Leadership

One thing NBA players and founders have in common: we fail in public. A bad game for me happens in front of 20,000 people. My stats live online. Every mistake gets replayed. There's no hiding how I'm doing at my job. Founders experience the same thing. A product launch that flops, a missed quarter, or a pivot that doesn't work. It's all visible to investors, employees, customers, and the internet. Most people don't operate like this. They can struggle quietly. Adjust privately. Learn without an audience. But when your failures are public, you can't hide from your weaknesses. The data is right there. You can't tell yourself it wasn't that bad. Everyone already saw it. You're forced to confront blind spots faster than you'd ever choose to. It's uncomfortable. Sometimes humiliating. But it builds something. Call it exposure tolerance. The ability to get embarrassed and still show up tomorrow. The feedback loop is relentless. You learn faster because you can't avoid reality. You stop telling yourself stories, because either way the tape is shown next practice in front of all your teammates. That's why I connect with founders. Not because we share the same skills or backgrounds, but because we understand what it feels like to be exposed, judged openly, and still show up the next day. Public failure accelerates growth. But only if you stay in the arena long enough to learn from it.

People can handle difficult truths. They cannot handle the feeling of being managed. Many leaders understands this intellectually but fewer act on it consistently. Instead, when a hard decision comes (e.g., a layoff, a reorg, a strategy reversal), leaders often default to holding back context, softening the rationale and attributing their own decisions to external forces. They do this thinking they're protecting their team but the team experiences something different: being managed. Recent Gartner research discussed in a really interesting Harvard Business Review article puts numbers to what I've been seeing in my work. Fewer than half of employees trust their senior leaders. And the damage comes from three specific behaviors: (1) Withholding context. "We can't get into the details right now." Trust drops 20%. (2) Deflecting accountability. "The market forced our hand." I've sat in rooms where a leader made a difficult decision for sound reasons and attributed it to someone else. Trust drops 30%. (3) Walking back commitments without acknowledgment. A public decision gets reversed without an explanation and a new direction is presented. Another 20%. What sits underneath all three is the same instinct: managing discomfort instead of sharing it. The same research found that employees are over 4x more likely to trust leaders who explain the "why" behind hard decisions, including what alternatives were considered and rejected. I interpret this to mean: Teams need their leaders to be transparent about the mess. Trust erodes in patterns, not in moments. And it rebuilds the same way: one honest conversation at a time. #trust #leadership #teams

"I only tell my boss the risks when I’m 100% sure, otherwise I’d rather keep quiet” - a manager recently told me during a workshop: Other managers started nodding - highly relatable. This is what psychology calls the MUM effect - Minimizing Unpleasant Messages coined by Rosen & Tesser (1970). It’s the deeply human tendency to avoid delivering bad news or to soften it until the truth is barely visible. - We do it to protect ourselves from blame. - We do it to protect others from discomfort. - And in the moment, silence feels safer than honesty. But here’s the cost: - Leaders make decisions without critical information. - Teams repeat the same mistakes. - Opportunities get lost. But here’s the paradox: what feels safe for the individual is unsafe for the team. Neuroscience explains why: when we prepare to share uncomfortable truths, the amygdala - the brain’s threat detection system - activates. It interprets honesty as danger: the risk of rejection, conflict, or loss of status. So silence feels like self-protection. How can leaders mitigate this effect? 👉 1. Redefine what “good” means in your team Say explicitly: “Being good here means raising risks early, even if you’re not 100% sure.” 👉 2. Reward the messenger, not just the message Thank people for speaking up, regardless of whether the risk turns out real. This rewires the brain to see honesty as safe. 👉 3. Ask better questions Replace “Any questions?” with “What’s the toughest risk we might be overlooking?” or “What would you challenge if you were in my seat?” ✨ This is exactly what I work on with leadership teams in my Safe Challenger program and workshops, helping leaders unlearn compliance-based leadership and build cultures of courage. Because the biggest risk in teams isn’t mistakes. It’s silence. P.S.: What’s do you think is harder: speaking up with uncomfortable truths or hearing them?

🤔 Can a company be radically transparent internally while being more selective in what it shares externally? At Alan, we believe the answer is yes. 🙌 We strive for ultimate transparency and trust among our team, giving Alaners access to all decisions and projects. This empowers them to make better choices with more context. However, we also recognize that some information, if disclosed prematurely, could put us at a competitive disadvantage. 🤐 That's why we rely on the good judgment of our people to know what to share externally and when to ask for guidance. 🗣️ Our approach: • Always consider the value and risks of external sharing • Check if the company has already communicated about a topic publicly • Ask on dedicated channels when unsure The goal is not to create more rules or processes, but to foster an environment of mutual trust. 🤝 We want Alaners to have the information they need to excel, without requiring everything to be labeled for external sharing. Ultimately, if you're uncertain, the simplest guideline is don't share. 🙊 We have faith in the critical thinking skills of our team to strike the right balance between transparency and discretion. What are your thoughts on this approach? How does your company handle internal vs. external communication? 💭 Let me know in the comments! #transparency #communication #alan

Every time we share data, we walk a tightrope between utility and privacy. I have seen how the desire to extract value from data can easily collide with the need to protect it. Yet this is not a zero-sum game. Advances in cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies are making it possible to reconcile these two goals in ways that were unthinkable just a few years ago. My infographic highlights six privacy-preserving techniques that are helping to reshape how we think about secure data sharing. From fully homomorphic encryption, which allows computations on encrypted data, to differential privacy, which injects noise into datasets to hide individual traces, each method reflects a different strategy to maintain control without losing analytical power. Others, like federated analysis and secure multiparty computation, show how collaboration can thrive even when data is never centralized or fully revealed. The underlying message is simple: privacy does not have to be an obstacle to innovation. On the contrary, it can be a design principle that unlocks new forms of responsible collaboration. #Privacy #DataSharing #Cybersecurity #Encryption #DigitalTrust #DataProtection

Failing Is Good. Sharing Failure Is Great—Here’s Why (and the Difference) There’s a saying in leadership: “Fail fast, learn fast.” It’s useful, but here’s a more brutal truth I see every day as an executive coach—failing is good, but sharing your failure? That’s where greatness lives. Why? Because when you keep your setbacks to yourself, you learn and (hopefully) adapt. Good leaders do this all the time: they make mistakes, reflect quietly, and get a little bit better. But great leaders zoom out. They turn their tough moments—botched launches, missed deals, the uncomfortable conversations—into teachable stories for their teams. They debrief openly, admit what went sideways, and let others in on the real lessons. That’s not just transparency—it’s leadership with leverage. It shifts a culture from “hiding shortcomings” to “shared growth.” From my coaching chair, here’s what I see: → Teams led by “silent learners” improve slowly and in silos. → Teams led by “story-sharers” (even the humble, unpolished ones) build trust and adapt at light speed. My best work isn’t about helping leaders hide their failures. It’s helping them find language, timing, and confidence to share it: “Let’s dissect this together. Here’s what I missed, what I learned, and what I want us all to watch for next time.” The difference? Good leaders bounce back. Great leaders multiply learning. If you want to unlock not just your own growth but your entire team’s potential, start here: → Normalize quick, safe failure debriefs after every big project. → Model vulnerability. Admit you miss first. → Ask your people: “What would you do differently?”—and listen, really listen. → Set the expectation: we’re here to share learnings, not to get it perfect the first time. In leadership, it’s not how you fall that changes your culture; it's how you respond. It’s who learns—and how many—from how you get back up. Coaching can help; let's chat. Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Joshua Miller for more tips on coaching, leadership, career + mindset. #executivecoaching #leadership #professionaldevelopment #growthmindset #careeradvice #learning #success

"My door is always open" is the laziest leadership advice ever. You think it makes you accessible. You think it builds trust. You think people will come to you when they need help. They won't. Here's why your open door isn't working: • People still worry about "interrupting" you • They don't want to seem needy or incapable • They can't tell if you're genuinely available or just being polite • They assume you're too busy for their "small" concerns The result? Hidden problems. Silent struggles. Missed connection. Leadership isn’t about waiting for people to walk through your door — it’s about pulling them in. Here's what actually works: 1. Practice Active Promotion → Publicly recognize when someone brings up issues → Share how their feedback led to improvements → Thank people for trusting you with their concerns 2. Remove Status Barriers → Join team events → Spend time sitting with the team → Show up early to meetings for casual chat 3. Make Personal Connection Explicit → "Tell me about your weekend" isn't small talk—it's leadership → "How are you handling the workload?" shows you see them as people → Share your own struggles to model vulnerability 4. Follow Up Consistently → Remember what people tell you → Check back on issues they mentioned → Take action to show their concerns matter 5. Build Multiple Listening Channels → Walk the floor → Collect anonymous questions/feedback → Travel for site visits → Schedule "skip-level" meetings If people aren't coming to you, it's not because they don't need help. It's because you haven't made it safe enough to ask. Your job isn’t to be passively open. It’s to be actively available. Pick ONE from this list. Try it this week. Reply and tell me which one.

If You Have Never Failed, You Have Never Really Led. Every leader faces moments that break the script.   Colleagues who resist.  Projects that collapse.  Crises that shake confidence.   And yes, failure that stings. But failure is where leadership truly begins. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple and returned years later to build it into the world’s most valuable company. Elon Musk came close to losing Tesla and SpaceX more than once. Those moments became the turning points that pushed him to think bigger. Failure is not a detour. It is the classroom where leaders are forged. → It forces you to stop, reflect, and find smarter solutions. → It exposes blind spots you could not see when everything was going well. → It builds resilience that no theory can teach. → It opens the door to honest feedback that sharpens your vision. The best leaders I know are not the ones who avoid failure. They are the ones who turn every setback into fuel for growth. The question is not whether you will fail. It is whether you will use it to become the leader your team actually needs.

There’s a huge gap in how we learn about leadership. When we’re young and inexperienced, we tend to reach for the stories of the Great Leaders. We read the biographies of Elon Musk or Alan Mulally—the visionaries who turned companies around and built empires. Those stories inspire us, no doubt. But we rarely ask ourselves a critical question: What about the leaders who didn’t make it? You won’t find those stories in books. (No one’s giving a book deal to the CEO who only lasted 18 months.) But those failures? They might just be the most valuable stories of all. Why? Because failure teaches what success often hides—unchecked ambition, broken trust, and toxic cultures that implode from the inside. It’s in the wreckage that you learn the most. Take some well-known leaders: 1.Adam Neumann (WeWork): Taught us that unchecked ambition, without structure, can lead to unintended consequences. 2.Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos): Showed us the critical importance of transparency in maintaining trust and credibility. 3.Travis Kalanick (Uber): Reminded us how vital a healthy culture is to long-term leadership success. These aren’t just cautionary tales—they’re vital lessons in leadership. We glorify success, but failure has just as much, if not more, to teach us. And sometimes, the greatest lessons aren’t from the hero stories—they’re from the stories that didn’t get told. So as we continue to learn and grow as leaders, let’s start looking at both sides. It’s not just about what went right—it’s about what went wrong and how we can avoid making the same mistakes. That’s how we build better leaders—and better teams.