Nugget 12: When demanding truth of people who work for you, consider how much truth you give your boss’s.
Explanation:
Another really obvious one. But watching the puzzlement on people’s faces, particularly relatively senior management, when they don’t get completely honest and open statements from their team members, when they themselves guard and only pass out limited information to their own boss’s or bosses bosses really shows that people don’t think this way.
As always with this kind of thing, it’s quite simple. Just put yourself in someone else’s position. If you will not tell your boss or your boss’s boss the complete and open truth. How can you expect your team members to do that for you? What makes you special?
Don’t think that suddenly you are one of the gang. or are somehow exempt from human behaviour. It only takes one rant, when you’re having a bad day or one act of taking it out on someone else. and suddenly you’re a boss and you’re a boss forever.
You can’t get it back, so if you want total truth from the people who work for you you will need to either PROOVE you are someone that can be trusted, or be as truthful to others as you want them to be to you.
Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.