Honest Communication: How to Build Trust and Transform Your Team
- Shenandoah Chefalo
- Jun 3
- 6 min read
Table of Contents
You are constantly communicating. Whether through writing, body language, conversation, or the way we spend our time, our choices communicate to others what we value, intentionally or not. The question isn't whether you're communicating, but how to communicate with honesty and intention.
Honest communication means being aware of what you signal to others through your choices and ensuring your message is accurate. It isn’t sugarcoating or half-truths, because you trust your audience to listen with openness, maintain confidentiality, and persevere through tough times.
As a core element required for building a people-centered culture, let’s explore what honest communication looks like and the benefits received.
Honesty and Trust are Foundational
How do you describe trust in an organization? We often know when it's there, and we definitely feel its absence when it's not. In the workplace, trust is more than just a nice-to-have; it's the foundation for collaboration, innovation, and resilience in the face of challenges. Without trust, teams falter; with it, they endure.
Honesty and trust are mutually reinforcing. The more honest you are, the more trust you build; the more trust you build, the more honest you can be. This creates an upward spiral that strengthens relationships and improves organizational culture.
Courageous Honesty Reaps Benefits
Often, we want the benefits of trust without the vulnerability that comes with honest communication. We want psychological safety and authentic relationships without the discomfort of real human emotions that come when addressing difficult issues.
True transparency requires the courage to be vulnerable, admitting when you don't have all the answers, acknowledging mistakes, and sharing information even when it might be uncomfortable for people to hear.
Avoid secrecy within an organization. This means among employees, both top-down and bottom-up, as well as with clients and partners. If you speak only in generalizations or try to spin a message, your audience often quickly senses it. If partial sharing is necessary for privacy, respect, or legal reasons, or simply because you don't have complete information, share these limitations. Without clarity, your audience (staff, partnering organizations, or clients) may worry, speculate, or engage in counterproductive gossip.
This doesn't mean sharing everything with everyone, which would be overwhelming and inappropriate. It means being clear about what you can share, what you can't share and why, and avoiding the tendency to sugarcoat difficult realities.
Consider the workplace problems that often stem from poor communication: people not knowing what's expected of them, feeling left out of important decisions, wondering about job security, or having to guess at leadership's priorities. Most of these issues could be addressed through more honest, direct communication.
Honesty and trust are mutually reinforcing. The more honest you are, the more trust you build; the more trust you build, the more honest you can be.
Creating Space for Difficult Conversations
One of the hallmarks of an organization with a culture of honest communication is the ability to have difficult conversations well. They don't avoid conflict, but address it directly and respectfully, without fear of the outcome.
A culture that demands transparency must also tolerate its potential emotional and challenging responses it may provoke. Understand that while this may prove difficult initially, a culture of honest communication allows issues to be raised and resolved more efficiently. Boundaries become easier to draw and respect, and mutual accountability to the mission is more readily maintained.
This requires developing both individual and collective skills in having hard conversations about how to:
give feedback constructively
receive criticism without becoming defensive
express disagreement while maintaining respect, and
work through conflict productively.
It also requires creating systems and structures that support honest communication. This might include regular feedback sessions, anonymous suggestion boxes, town halls where leadership answers questions directly, or conflict resolution processes that prioritize understanding over being right.
Honesty Requires Self-Awareness
Developing self-awareness, curiosity, and acceptance are critical in cultivating a culture of honest communication. You must constantly assess what your behavior communicates and remain willing to see situations from alternative perspectives.
Before you can communicate honestly with others, you need to be honest with yourself. This means developing the self-awareness to recognize your own emotions, motivations, and biases. It means being curious about your own assumptions and open to the possibility that you might be wrong.
This level of self-awareness isn't easy to develop! It requires ongoing reflection, feedback from others, and a willingness to examine uncomfortable truths about yourself. But it's essential for honest communication because you can only share what you're aware of, and you can only receive feedback about what you're open to hearing.
Especially as a leader whose every action is analyzed, notice what you communicate through your tone, your body language, your timing, and your word choices. Pay attention to the messages you send through what you pay attention to, what you ignore, how you spend your time, and what you celebrate or criticize.
Honesty Prevents Stress, Rumors, and Wasted Time
One of the clearest signs of poor communication culture is widespread gossip and speculation. When people don't have access to accurate information, they fill in the gaps with their own assumptions, fears, and rumors. This creates exactly what we don’t want – an environment where misinformation spreads, trust erodes, and people spend more time managing relationships than focusing on their work.
Clear and honest communication is not only respectful, it saves time and prevents unnecessary stress. When people know what's happening, why decisions are being made, and how changes will affect them, they can focus their energy on productive work rather than managing anxiety and uncertainty.
As a leader, be proactive about sharing information that affects staff, clear about timelines and expectations, and make regular opportunities for questions and clarification. Similarly, with your clients, be proactive about sharing information that affects them, clear about timelines and expectations, and provide ample opportunity for them to ask questions.
Before you can communicate honestly with others, you need to be honest with yourself.
Listening with Curiosity
Honest communication isn't just about sharing information, it's also about how we listen and respond to others’ honest sharing. This is where curiosity becomes crucial. Instead of approaching conversations with the goal of being right or defending your position, approach them with genuine curiosity about the other person's perspective.
Say things like, "Help me understand your thinking on this." Or ask, "What am I missing?" "How does this look from your perspective?" and "What would you need to feel comfortable with this decision?" These questions convey respect and openness, and they often reveal information that leads to more effective solutions.
Curiosity also helps us navigate cultural differences, generational gaps, and different communication styles. Instead of assuming that someone who communicates differently than you is wrong or problematic, you can get curious about what their approach offers and how you might bridge any gaps in understanding.
Skill-Building for Honest Communication
Invest in removing barriers to honest communication, like a lack of communication skills or opportunities. Organizations with strong communication cultures don't just expect people to communicate well; they invest in developing these skills. They provide training on difficult conversations, feedback, and conflict resolution. They model good communication from leadership down, and they create opportunities for people to practice these skills in lower-stakes situations.
Consider implementing regular communication practices such as:
Check-ins that go beyond project updates to include how people are feeling and what support they need (try using the structured Community Meeting approach)
Feedback sessions that are structured, regular, and focused on growth rather than judgment
Transparent decision-making processes where people understand how and why decisions are made
Conflict resolution training that gives people tools for working through disagreements productively
Communication style assessments that help people understand their own preferences and adapt to others
The Ripple Effects
When organizations commit to honest communication, the effects extend far beyond just better information sharing. Trust deepens, which makes collaboration more natural and effective. Problems get identified and solved more quickly because people aren't afraid to raise concerns. Innovation increases because people feel safe to share creative ideas and take risks.
People also report higher job satisfaction and lower stress levels when they work in environments characterized by honest communication. They don't have to spend energy trying to decode hidden messages or navigate office politics. They can focus on their work and their relationships, knowing that people trust and respect them enough to be truthful.
Assess Your Communication
Start by examining your own communication patterns for what you’re doing well and where you can improve. Are you saying what you mean? Are you addressing issues directly rather than hoping they'll resolve themselves? Are you asking for what you need? Are you sharing information appropriately? Are you listening with genuine curiosity?
Then look at the systems and structures around you. What communication practices are working well? Where are the gaps? What would make it easier for people to communicate honestly and effectively?
Remember that honest communication is both a skill and a choice. The more you practice it, the more natural it becomes, and the more it creates the conditions for the people-centered workplace we’re striving for.
We can help boost your team's skills and strengthen your culture of honest communication. Schedule a 30-minute discovery call and find out how!
コメント