Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor [Hardcover]

Warren Bennis (Author), Daniel Goleman (Author), James O'Toole (Author), Patricia Ward Biederman (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 13, 2008

In Transparency, the authors–a powerhouse trio in the field of leadership–look at what conspires against "a culture of candor" in organizations to create disastrous results, and suggest ways that leaders can achieve healthy and honest openness. They explore the lightning-rod concept of "transparency"–which has fast become the buzzword not only in business and corporate settings but in government and the social sector as well.

Together Bennis, Goleman, and O'Toole explore why the containment of truth is the dearest held value of far too many organizations and suggest practical ways that organizations, their leaders, their members, and their boards can achieve openness. After years of dedicating themselves to research and theory, at first separately, and now jointly, these three leadership giants reveal the multifaceted importance of candor and show what promotes transparency and what hinders it. They describe how leaders often stymie the flow of information and the structural impediments that keep information from getting where it needs to go. This vital resource is written for any organization–business, government, and nonprofit–that must achieve a culture of candor, truth, and transparency.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...would not be out of place in the executive reading room." (Edge, October 2008)

From the Inside Flap

Transparency

In a time when the reputation of an organization or a leader can be shattered by the click of a mouse, transparency is often a matter of survival in a world of global competition. But as stakeholders in different organizations increasingly clamor for transparency, what are they truly asking for? What is the promise of transparency? What are its very real risks? And why is it essential that leaders understand it? In this book, distinguished authors Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and James O'Toole explore what it means to be a transparent leader, create a transparent organization, and live in an ever more transparent world culture.

In three interconnected essays, they examine transparency from three different vantage points—within and between organizations, in terms of personal responsibility, and finally, in the context of the new digital reality—all with an emphasis on how these relate to leaders and leadership. The first essay explores an urgent dilemma for every contemporary leader: how to create a culture of candor. The second essay—with the provocative title "Speaking Truth to Power"—discusses a prerequisite for transparency and a responsibility we too often fail to fulfill. The final essay explores how digital technology is making the entire world more transparent.

Combining theory and experience, this book offers both a long view of transparency and a wealth of practical advice. The ideas in each chapter will make anyone both a better follower and a better leader.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (June 13, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470278765
• ISBN-13: 978-0470278765
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.6 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Warren Bennis (Los Angeles, CA), born in 1925, is an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, who is widely regarded as the pioneer of the contemporary field of leadership. He is University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California. In the past decade, he served as chairman of the Advisory Board of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, working with David Gergen.
Bennis has consulted for many Fortune 500 companies and served as adviser to four U.S. presidents. He has served on the faculty of MIT's Sloan School of Management and was Chairman of the Organizational Studies Department. He is a former faculty member of Boston University, former Provost and Executive Vice President of State University of New York at Buffalo and President of the University of Cincinnati. His global experience includes teaching at the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, INSEAD, the London Business School, and IMEDE (now IMD). In 2007, Business Week called him one of ten business school professors who have had the greatest influence on business thinking. He has received 20 honorary degrees and has served on numerous boards of advisors.
Bennis has written or edited 30 books, which have been translated into 21 languages, and many articles on three of his passions-leadership, organizational change, and creative collaboration. The Financial Times recently named Leaders as one of the top 50 business books of all time.
Bennis is proud of the four years he served in the U.S. Army, 1943-1947. At the age of 19 he was one of the youngest infantry commanders in Germany and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. His dream remains: to write a terrific one-act play.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing book of little value June 16, 2009

By Steven Kirkpatrick

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am rarely disappointed with a book as much as I was with Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor. This short book is a series of three essays that might be well described as philosophical meanderings about the virtues of being truthful, honest, and open in dealing with others. It offers little in the way of insight, and even less in terms of wisdom. We learn, for example, how the internet makes it more difficult for governments, as well as political and business leaders to keep secrets (!). The book also has a heavy political bias, which is neither informative nor persuasive.

For example, readers are given numerous examples of how republicans are not open and forthright in their dealings with the public, but democrats generally are honest and reliable. Oh, please! Such is the extent of the authors' scholarly work. For example, readers are treated to a story about how the Board of Directors of Hollinger International spent $8 million to purchase papers relating to Franklin D. Roosevelt; this was indeed a very questionable transaction of dubious value to Hollinger's shareholders. But only one board member is identified by the author, and is singled out for his failures: Henry Kissinger, a stalwart Republican.

Other examples of political bias abound: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld are also harshly criticized in the first essay, along with Henry Kissinger and the CIA, while Bill Clinton is praised for his open leadership style. The source notes in the back of the book are also somewhat revealing. The most frequently cited source is The New York Times, not exactly a bastion of conservative thinking.

While the book's political bias greatly dilutes it message as well as its credibility, the biggest problem with this book is that is has so little message in the first place. In addition, the overall tenor of the book is very negative - there is little discussion from an upbeat, positive vantage point about creating a culture of candor (in spite of the book's title), and much more in the way of bemoaning the lack of candor throughout the world. This makes the book rather tiresome, and a bit of a downer to read.

Ironically, this book fails to live up to its own premise of transparency. It is so loaded with political bias that the authors appear fundamentally incapable is seeing their own lack of objectivity. But what I find most disappointing of all is simply that the book offers the reader no insightful, useful, or practical advice of any significance. Readers looking for a good foundation on transparency would be far better off reading All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, by Robert Fulghum.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Truth and Trust, the shaping tools of the Leaders-followers Link May 31, 2008

By Errol D. Alexander

Format:Hardcover

This book takes on the difficult task of explaining the links between the reality- truth of a situation, cohesiveness of a group to accept truth, the abilities of leadership to embrace candor, and the perceptions of followers to create a culture of trust. A well researched book and a good read for indicating how the culture of being open in a group must be created and maintained. After all, trust and truth are the building tools in any relationship.

To that aim, the writers attempt to explain how in a mini-second that a conflict of differing views arises either from within or outside the leader-follower structure, must be dealt with promptly. It outlines as a test of leadership why and how certain strategies and tools should be considered. Lying, denying to confessing are some options leaders have used in the past. But how should one as a leader deal with the unvarnished truth is the question? Above all, the emotional feeling of trust must be maintained or the leader-follower relationship is damaged.

This book gives examples how leaders (in business, and in government) need to create a culture of candor amongst their followers. The old saw that good and honest managers are the last to know when there is a serious problem, is regrettably too accurate. Yet, the bad managers or deniers of the truth are the first to know as they often created the problem. When humans make an error, the key personal questions of ethics and integrity facing all members in a group are... should they tell others about it or cover it up? Why should they?... as generally there are no emotional or financial guerdons in telling the truth. Unfortunately most culture in organizations allow the creators of a problem either to deny it existence or to downplay its importance. Few humans have the abilities or courage to openly admit to making errors and that is the rub. Thus, an organization must design such fail safe system.

In the final analyis, this book is about leadership and controlling one's emotions within a group. Foremost,as a preventer to open and trusting group collaboration,it is the negative emotional reactions of leaders when they encounter criticism. First, most leaders' egoes do not allow them to easily embrace an unflattering truth or admit to an error in judgement. Also many view candor as expression of the disloyal. Strange as research indicates that followers of fallen leaders will trust them again if the leader admits freely that there was an error in judgement. One of the behaviors that create intergroup conflicts is how leaders often indicate by words and action over time that loyalty at any price is better than a grain of truth.

Second, in most cases,there is an emotional tendency for leaders to view messengers carrying such truth as foes and to negatively over-react when hearing any bad news. Thereby creating interpersonal conflict of either rage, fear, anger, delusion, expressed in an emotional list of reactions (Is he/she one of us or one of them? What is he trying to say now? Can't they keep their mouth shut?)- followed by a destructive behavior of concealment. These are uniquely human traits that leaders must learn to control I discovered in my years doing applied management research as a consultant and teaching leadership as a professor of organizational psychology. This book attempts to deal with those human traits and is highly recommended, just for that reason alone.Dr. Errol D. Alexander

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Technologies change. Human nature doesn't." June 24, 2008

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and James O'Toole are three of the most influential business thinkers in recent years and, with Patricia Ward Biederman, collaborated on this book that consists of three separate but related essays: "Creating a Culture of Candor" (Bennis, Goleman, and Biederman examine transparency with and between organizations), "Speaking Truth to Power" (O'Toole shares his perspectives on transparency in terms of personal responsibility), and "The New Transparency" (Bennis explains how digital technology is making the entire world transparent). According to Thomas Friedman, the world has become flat as a result of forces that "are empowering more and more individuals today to reach farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before, and that is equalizing power - and equalizing opportunity, by giving so many more people the tools to connect, compete, and collaborate." Bennis, Goleman, O'Toole and Biederman agree. The first essay suggests how the same "flattening forces" to which Friedman refers also have a profound impact on relationships between and among organizations throughout the world. In the second essay, O'Toole eloquently as well as convincingly stresses the importance of responsibility and (yes) accountability of everyone who is involved in those relationships. Then in the third essay, Bennis shares his insights concerning the most significant consequences of technology, given the fact that "leaders are losing their monopoly on power, and this has positive impacts - notably the democratization of power - as well as some negative ones."

In the Preface, Bennis notes that this book really isn't about technology. "It is about the things that have mattered since the new technology was the flint and the longbow - courage, integrity, candor, responsibility. Technologies change. Human nature doesn't." That is the core concept in O'Toole's essay and wholly consistent with the core concepts in his previously published books, notably The Executive's Compass, Leading Change, and Creating the Good Life. I agree with him that "speaking to power is, perhaps, the oldest of all ethical challenges." He briefly discusses several plays (Sophocles' Antigone, John Osborne's Luther, and Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons) who protagonist offers a reminder to leaders in our own time of the responsibility to create a transparent "culture of candor." O'Toole also cites FedEx, the Cowles Media Corporation, GM, and Motorola as examples of organizations that do -- or do not -- have such a culture, those whose leaders are - or are not -- "constantly willing to rethink their most basic assumptions through a process of constructive dissent...about such often-taboo subjects as the nature of working conditions they offer employees, the purposes of their corporation, and their responsibilities to various stakeholders." Whatever the size and nature of an organization may be, O'Toole insists, it must be one "one in which every employee is empowered to speak the truth." Trust must be the essential ingredient to its effectiveness [and is] the most elusive and fragile aspect of leadership" because it is so difficult to earn but so easy to lose and, once lost, nearly impossible to regain.

I highly recommend this book to those in senior-level executive positions as well as to others whose ambition is to ascend to that level. Speaking directly to the reader of this review, I urge you do everything you can to help establish and then support a transparent culture of candor. If you find yourself in one in which you cannot "speak to power" despite your best efforts, seek another culture in which you can. Meanwhile, keep in mind that Dante reserved the last and worst ring in hell for those who, in a moral crisis, preserved their neutrality.