According to a survey by Catalyst, in which 12 thousand employees from around the world took part, only 39% of respondents consider their managers to be open always or often. Such a low figure shows that not all managers understand: their sincerity affects the productivity of the team directly.
The results of the survey show that employees are more likely to be creative, dedicated, and willing to go above and beyond if their leaders are more open with them.
Why is it impossible to innovate without a culture of openness and how has a leader's vulnerability become a new trend? Based on Catalyst, Forbes, Open Source, and Culture Amp.
Open leaders, who are they?
They are such leaders as partners, supporters, coaches, but by no means commanders. In an organization built on a culture of openness, information flows freely and collective decision-making is encouraged. In other words, employees take on part of the leadership role.
The open leadership style sharply contrasts with a more authoritarian approach when power is used for coercion. The team looks at the dictatorial leader with suspicion. Employees assume that he does not really care about them, does not deserve their trust and efforts.
Leaders who find themselves in a cycle of antipathy have to use coercion more and more often. However, it kills the motivation even more.
Where to start building an open relationship with the team:
- Show that you are comfortable talking about emotions at work, as well as dealing with interpersonal problems.
- Find out how your colleagues live, what difficulties they face at work. For example, the department has grown significantly and the team has become cramped in the office. Who, if not the head, will discuss with HR the move to a more spacious office?
- Remember that being open with employees does not mean being too curious about their personal lives. Work and personal boundaries remain in place.
What does it have to do with open source?
The culture of openness came from the realm of technology. Open-source (Open-source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance) teams have translated the principles of source code into their corporate culture. What are these principles? Transparency, inclusiveness, communication, and commitment to common goals.
Founded in 1993, the American IT company Red Hat was one of the first to realize that open source can be a successful business model. By the way, Linux was developed there. Since 2019, Red Hat is a subsidiary of IBM, with more than 13 thousand employees. Its market value is estimated at $80.7 million.
Red Hat found out that the traditional top-down hierarchical leadership did not work in their organization. Therefore, leaders began to act in the spirit of open source.
Jim Whitehurst, a former Red Hat CEO, and IBM president since 2020 believes it is impossible to persuade employees to innovate. The task of an open leader is to provide context and space. Such a leader combines passion with purpose - and this creates a culture in which people feel inspired and ready to do their best.
Open leadership involves joint participation in the development of a solution. In other words, employees are not static performers, they can influence the direction of their work.
Why open leaders need to be vulnerable
It is natural to experience emotions, but sadness, fatigue, anger, and insecurity are considered weaknesses. According to Catalyst, only 24% of employees surveyed said that their leaders often or constantly show vulnerability.
Brené Brown Research Professor of Social Work at the University of Houston has researched this quality for decades and has written several books on why it is an integral part of success. Brown's research led her to an unexpected conclusion that vulnerability underlies human relationships.
Being vulnerable does not mean being weak and submissive. On the contrary, it is the courage to be yourself. Calling a colleague whose child is ill, sympathizing with an employee who has lost a family, asking for help, admitting a mistake, and being willing to take responsibility are all examples of workplace vulnerabilities that strengthen the bond between team leaders and their team.
A leader who is not afraid to show vulnerability gives employees a sense of security: they are not afraid of uncertainty, ready to learn and take risks. Without this quality, we lose the opportunity to truly innovate.
Confidential! Do not disclose?
A recent study by the Limeade Institute found that if employees experience free information flow in the organization, they:
- are 3 times more likely to feel connected
- trust their company 4 times more
- feel valued 3+ times more often
In such circumstances, employees do not need to constantly request the necessary data from the leader as a central source - people freely exchange information with each other.
How does information flow affect employees?
Openness is an integral part of Netflix's corporate culture: employees can request feedback on their work at any time and are free to express their opinions regardless of their position in the company. Moreover, if a person does not share his doubts, it is considered that they failed the organization. However, in terms of free information flow, Netflix has gone even further: all employees, without exception, have unlimited access to financial indicators and other data.
Reed Hastings, founder and CEO at Netflix, introduced the practice a year after the service was launched. He hoped that such transparency would help the team feel its share of responsibility for the company's success.
Every week, the staff gathered at the parking lot (the only place having enough room for everyone) where Hastings handed out a copy of the profit and loss statement to everyone, as well as a summary of weekly figures - how many orders were delivered, what the average revenue was. The consolidated document, which in no case should have fallen into the hands of competitors, was posted on a bulletin board near the coffee machine.
In his book No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention Hastings also says that such an approach had another significant effect. When employees receive confidential information and are able to analyze it (they need to understand what the documents are about - this is an important condition), people become more independent. They do not have to spend time consulting with multi-level supervisors and undergo access procedures. At the same time, the atmosphere of trust generates enthusiasm and willingness to take the initiative.
A leak of financial data can turn into a catastrophe for a public company - shares can collapse. But even when Netflix went public in 2002, they decided not to change their rule - no secrets from employees. In March 2014, Netflix's director of content purchasing, who left for competitors, took away a huge amount of confidential data. This led to a lawsuit but did not affect the level of openness at Netflix.
