TL;DR: Transparent leadership is not about saying more. It is about removing uncertainty so people can act. The best leaders share what helps others decide, withhold what creates noise, and carry what cannot yet be said without leaking it emotionally.

Why Do We Want Transparent Leaders?

You say you want transparency.

Your team says they do too.

Boards nod in agreement. Parents echo the sentiment. Staff meetings quietly orbit the word as if it were self-evidently good.

And yet, for something so universally praised, transparency is remarkably poorly practised.

A startling research finding reveals that almost 60% of employees feel their leaders lack transparency.

So, which is it? Are leaders withholding too much… or is something else going wrong?

 What is a Transparent Leader, Really?

The popular definition suggests openness. Share more. Reveal more. Say the quiet part out loud.

But that definition collapses the moment it meets reality.

A leader who shares everything creates noise. A leader who shares nothing creates suspicion. Neither builds trust.

A transparent leader does something more precise. They remove uncertainty so others can act.

That is the work.

Not openness for its own sake. Not conscience-cleansing honesty. Not a performance of vulnerability.

Clarity. Under pressure. In moments that matter.

 People Don’t Want Transparency. They Want Certainty.

When a staff member asks for transparency, they are rarely asking to see every internal debate.

They are asking: Can I make decisions without being blindsided?

When a board asks for transparency, they are not requesting operational detail.

They are asking: Will there be surprises that create risk?

Parents are more complicated. They do not want false reassurance. If a school is not stable, they would rather know. But they also do not want a running commentary of uncertainty.

Same word. Different needs.

This is where leadership transparency becomes difficult. Because what people say they want is not always what actually helps them.

The Train That Wouldn’t Move

A train pulls into a station. It stops. Five minutes pass. An announcement arrives: there is an issue further up the track.

People wait.

Ten minutes. Another announcement. Still no clarity. Some passengers leave. Others stay, hoping the delay is temporary.

Twenty minutes in, more people abandon the train.

The problem was not the delay.

The problem was uncertainty.

The announcements were technically transparent. Something had been said. Information had been shared.

But nothing had been clarified.

No timeframe. No range. No guidance for action.

So people guessed. And guessed differently.

This is what poor transparency looks like in organisations. Information is shared, but decisions are not enabled.

The Other Extreme: Oversharing

Transparency has a twin problem. When leaders sense they may be under-communicating, they often swing too far the other way.

They share everything.

Which sounds admirable until it isn’t.

A leave form states the reason as surgery. Clear. Sufficient.

Another states the exact medical detail. Unnecessary. Distracting. Slightly confronting.

Both are technically transparent. Only one is useful.

Transparent leadership is not about volume. It is about relevance.

Is Transparency Good?

Yes. And no.

Transparency that removes uncertainty is good. Transparency that creates noise is not. Transparency that reassures falsely is worse.

The real question is not whether transparency is good, but whether it is useful.

This is where most leadership advice falls short. It treats transparency as a virtue. Something to maximise.

In practice, it is a tool. Something to calibrate. 

The Emotional Burden No One Talks About

There is a deeper challenge here.

Leaders often know more than they can say.

And that creates pressure.

As one article puts it, there is a significant skill that is often less discussed and even more difficult to learn: managing your emotions as someone in a position of power with access to more information than others.

This is the hidden work of leadership transparency.

Not just deciding what to say. But deciding how to carry what cannot yet be said.

If a leader leaks anxiety, even while withholding information, the organisation feels it. If they project false certainty, the organisation senses that too.

Transparency, then, is not only about words. It is about emotional discipline.

How to Be a Transparent Leader

There is no checklist. But there are filters.

First, the uncertainty test. Will sharing this reduce uncertainty in a way that helps people act?

Second, the “better off overall” test. Not in the next hour, but over time. Will people be better positioned because they know this?

Third, the relevance filter. Is this information necessary, or merely available?

And finally, the quiet backstop. The pub test. Would this decision, explained simply, feel defensible to reasonable people?

These are not rules. They are judgments.

These judgments must be based on values. Personal values and school values.

Principle and Judgment

Transparency sits in an uncomfortable place.

It is both a principle and a judgment call.

As a principle, it pushes leaders toward honesty. Toward resisting the temptation to protect themselves through silence or spin.

As a judgment, it recognises that not all truth should be shared in the same way, at the same time, or with the same level of detail.

Apply the principle blindly, and you create harm. Ignore it entirely, and you create distrust.

The work is in holding both.

Subscribing to Kant’s philosophy always demands truth. Now imagine you’re harbouring Anne Frank in your basement with the Gestapo pounding on the door.

How does transparency work in this scenario?

The Real Purpose of Transparent Leadership

Transparency is not for the leader's benefit.

It is not a way to feel honest. It is not a personal cleansing exercise.

It is for your people.

Because you care about their success.

Because you want them to act, not in rumour.

Because you trust them enough to handle what matters.

Transparent leadership is not about being seen as open.

It is about making others strong enough to act.

And that, inconveniently, requires less performance… and far more judgment.