Honesty in teamwork is crucial to building a solid, reputable business. It’s a core value that can dictate how employees function within the team, how leaders interact with their employees, and how the company is viewed by others in the industry. However, as I have learned through twelve years as a leader, honesty isn’t always a good thing, and you must know exactly when to hold back.
Honesty becomes destructive in teamwork when it puts you at risk of burning bridges, being viewed as troublesome, or when it offers no benefit at all. Sometimes, it might even get you fired. However, honesty is vital when it can help improve the team and save the company from avoidable snags.
In this article, we’ll talk about why honesty in teamwork is important and what benefits you can enjoy when you create a culture of transparency in your business. We’ll also briefly discuss certain scenarios when honesty may be destructive, why it is sometimes best to keep your thoughts and ideas to yourself, as well as some of the more common misconceptions people have about honesty in the workplace. Let’s start!
Why Is Honesty Important in Teamwork?
Honesty is important in teamwork because it helps create an atmosphere of transparency, a vital element in business. Honesty is one of the cornerstones of trust and, therefore, is also needed for an efficient team. It allows individuals to build solid relationships and work harmoniously and synergistically toward common goals.
What Is Honesty in the Workplace?
Honesty is more than just always telling the truth. In the workplace, honesty constitutes trust, authenticity, ethics, transparency, and integrity. It’s a core value that all organizations must uphold to ensure the business thrives, grows, and succeeds.
Honesty is the driving force in these scenarios:
- Providing constructive feedback to a coworker.
- Confronting an employee about unfavorable behavior, then offering support for their self-improvement.
- Acknowledging shortcomings to a client and offering ways to compensate.
- Navigating conflicts within the team without losing respect for each other.
- Owning up to your mistakes and being open to your team’s criticisms, suggestions, and assistance.
When Is Honesty Destructive?
Honesty will not always be advantageous for the team and the business. Sometimes, being too open and transparent can put you and the business at risk, and always doing what’s good will not consistently reap rewards for you. The bottom line is, honesty is a choice. Sometimes, it’s better to be honest because you want to be, and not because you simply have to be.
Contrary to popular belief, honesty may not always be the best policy, and here are some instances when being transparent might do you more harm than good:
- Honesty can cost you your job. Sometimes, being too honest about how you view your job and what you think about your coworkers can get you fired. Especially if you need the money, there are times when facing the music is the smarter option.
- Honesty can ruin relationships. Some people can’t handle criticisms even if they are given constructively. At times, it’s better to keep your thoughts to yourself to keep professional relationships afloat.
- Honesty can be irrelevant. Certain situations are way beyond anyone’s control that no amount of collaboration, adjustments, and innovations can save the day. In these cases wherein transparency will benefit nobody, it’s best to keep your ideas to yourself.
- Honesty can be misconstrued as insubordination. Power dynamics play a big role in teams. If your superior is someone who doesn’t appreciate input from their team , you might want to think of other ways to get your message across. Sometimes, it’s best to forget about speaking up altogether and just let things unfold on their own. But remember, when you have something important to say, silence is a lie!
When Is Honesty Vital?
Honesty is vital when the team and the business are at risk of committing grave mistakes, making uninformed decisions, or falling into utter failure. During these crucial times, openness, transparency, and integrity will be the company’s saving graces. Honesty can ultimately save a business from ruin and collapse.
When you have something important to say, silence is a lie!
Here are 5 other key benefits of honesty in the workplace:
Checks Needless Conflicts
Honesty paves the way for healthy discussions and constructive criticisms. When communication lines are open within the team, everyone gets to share their ideas, opinions, and suggestions without fear of being ostracized, ridiculed, or shunned. The more productive interaction there is within the team, the more the business progresses, especially when everyone is working toward the attainment of shared objectives.
Learn how to quickly Build Trust and Communication in the Workplace!
Fosters Loyalty
Among your crucial roles as a leader is to ensure the retainment of the most efficient employees in your team. By cultivating an open, transparent culture in the workplace, the team becomes more focused on the tasks at hand rather than having to waste time on unproductive pursuits. Good employees thrive in a positive, productive atmosphere where teamwork and collaboration are the predominant driving forces.
Employees also tend to stay loyal to a company when they feel that they can trust their co-workers and leaders. Loyalty is a worthwhile consequence of having a transparent culture within the team. The more transparent the business is, the easier it is for employees to develop confidence in their co-workers and leaders, making them feel more satisfied in the workplace. The more satisfied and happy employees are, the more productive they become.
Read why Leadership Can’t Be Highly Effective Without Ethics!
Fosters Integrity
Integrity is about having strong ethical and moral principles, and one of its cornerstones is the virtue of honesty. When honesty and openness are prevalent within the team, the business can efficiently grow and evolve because employees are focused on achieving objectives together. They develop a sense of ownership and accountability for their work, so they aim to always deliver quality results.
Paves the Way for Ethical Decision-Making
Upholding strong moral and ethical standards helps make a business more robust. When there is a culture of honesty within the team, leaders and employees are better able to make sound, ethical decisions that will ultimately benefit the business. This can result in driven employees, empowered leaders, and a satisfied clientele.
7 Powerful Ways Honesty and Integrity Impacts Leadership!
Establishes a Good Reputation for the Business
Having honesty as one of your core values will also help establish your business’ reputation as a reliable, upstanding organization. This will attract more first-rate individuals to join your team, hence making your workforce even more efficient, productive, and loyal. Having a solid company image will also encourage others to engage in business with you since they know they’ll be dealing with an open, transparent team.
Here are 5 simple strategies to Increase Team Honesty (No More Lies)
Misconceptions About Team Honesty
Since we were kids, the value of honesty has always been ingrained in us as somewhat of a benchmark for building good character. Back then, honesty was simply about not telling lies. However, as we mature, honesty takes on a deeper meaning, especially in the workplace, where it takes on a crucial role in ensuring the efficiency and productivity of a business.
People have many misconceptions about honesty. As a leader, you must get down to the bottom of these to ensure smooth-sailing progress for your team.
Here are some of them:
Honesty Is All About Following Rules
Some people equate honesty with simply knowing what they should and should not do, and always choosing to go down the right path. In the workplace, this can easily be achieved by setting clear rules and guidelines that employees are expected to adhere to. However, often, leaders focus too much on ensuring these rules are always observed, sometimes resorting to micromanaging employees.
The truth is, honesty has a lot to do with trust. Policing your employees sends the message that you don’t trust them and are not confident that they will do the right thing. When there’s a lack of trust, employees might begin to adopt the habit of always delivering only what’s expected of them, nothing more nothing less. This is a type of behavior that impedes productivity and progress.
Showing your employees that you trust them encourages them to act with integrity. This will motivate them to step beyond their comfort zone and strive to go above and beyond what is expected of them. When they sense that you’re confident in their capabilities, they will develop a sense of ownership and be more inclined to always do what’s best for the team and the business.
Why It’s So Important to Trust Your Employees?
Honesty Is Solely an Employee Core Value
Effectively leading and managing a team calls for leaders to create an open, transparent atmosphere in the workplace. As discussed above, they must learn to encourage honesty and develop trust and confidence in their employees to motivate them to always aim for excellence and advancement.
However, some leaders tend to forget that honesty is a 2-way street, and they need to demonstrate the same level of honesty toward their employees. Don’t hesitate to voice out concerns, show vulnerability, or ask for help when you need it. Being truthful and transparent makes you more relatable and shows your team that you are one with them in the pursuit of success.
Signs that your employees trust you or not?
Final Thoughts
Leaders need to ensure that an atmosphere of honesty, trust, and integrity is enforced in the workplace. Honesty, in particular, lays the groundwork for employees to raise the bar and go beyond their comfort zone to deliver quality results.
However, honesty is not always a good thing. Sometimes, it can burn professional bridges, cause you to be labeled insubordinate, and it might even cost you your job. Honesty is actually a decision — it’s something you exhibit because it will be beneficial to the team, and not something you have to display no matter what the cost.
