Importance of Candor in creating a successful Organization

A leader energizes people, guides them to move on the path of excellence and finally helps the company to succeed. “Candor” holds a central position in leadership. Many a time leaders believe in giving positive feedback to employees and abstain from being straight and candid on difficult issues. Leadership is not mathematics. But if one looks at the success stories of legends like Jack Welch, one will find that Candor played a central role in his leadership style. It is worthwhile to look at a few quotes from his famous book: “Winning”.

“My bosses cautioned me about my candor. Now my GE career is over and I’m telling you that it was my candor that helped to make it work.”

“From the day I joined GE to the day I was named CEO, twenty years later, my bosses cautioned me about my candor. I was labeled abrasive and consistently warned that my candor would soon get in the way of my career.”

Leadership is based on trust. If you are able to create trust amongst your people, even a tough message is taken positively. Everybody is intelligent; he understands the positives and negatives of their actions. Sometimes, one might get derailed. If the bosses communicate straight and is concerned about well being of his manager; the message gets across. “Candor” is the key.

Candor leads to many positives in the team:

1. Builds Trust: I have discussed about the same in foregoing paragraph. I believe Candor is the key for creating a team based on trust. Sugar-Coating a difficult message does not convert a failure to success, or an unpleasant situation to a pleasant situation; it just creates a pseudo feeling of cohesiveness.

2. Candor brings more people in the conversation. This leads to a lot of thoughts and ideas. People express themselves.

3. Candor leads to quick action.

4. Candor creates transparency. We all talk about transparency.

5. Finally, candor helps reduce cost. Time is not wasted; expectations in the organization are clear. Decision revolves around facts and communicating the same straight. Hence it leads to savings.

If Candor has so many positives let us look at why it is not the most accepted “Word” in the corporate world. Some of the inhibitions are:

1. I think the first and foremost reason is our belief that respect comes from not telling unpleasant truth. We speak pleasant ones but shy away from the unpleasant ones.

2. Our upbringing plays important role too. We have been taught to soften bad news. It is hard to change the style once we come in professional career.

3. Candor comes from Confidence. Sometimes lack of confidence and perceived risk in being candid is also the reason for lack of Candor.

Having discussed the inhibitions, let us spend some time talking about the steps in bringing Candor in a set up. Ideally, leadership styles flow from top. Sometimes bringing candor at a lower level of leadership chain can create a little bit of conflict. However, if one is careful and works towards bringing a balance one can bring a candid culture in a section of the organization as well. What you need to do is to align ‘Candor’ in your management style. It means:
• Reward it
• Praise it
• Spread it
• Declare winners out of people who demonstrate it.
• Keep on trying. Change takes time. Once people learn it and internalize it, change becomes self sustaining

There is a fine line between Candor and treating people with respect. I think a balance is necessary. To conclude, whenever you read stories of successful organizations, you will find “Candor” as the nucleus.