Why honesty isn't always the best policy

The most admired characteristic in a leader according to my favourite piece of leadership research (Kouzes and Posner's The Leadership Challenge), is honesty.

When I first saw that, I thought it was a problem.

The truth about the truth is that as a leader, it isn't possible to be 100% honest 100% of the time. More than that, it isn't desirable.

You will know things you cannot share. A restructure that isn't confirmed. A departure that isn't announced. A commercial position that would damage the business if it leaked. A view about a colleague that would be corrosive if said out loud. Blurting all of it out in the name of honesty wouldn't make you a better leader. It would make you a reckless one.

So how do we square that with research that says honesty matters more than anything else?

I think the answer is that what people actually want isn't total disclosure. It's congruence. Authenticity. The sense that what you say and what you do line up, and that you're not pretending to be something you're not.

That's a different thing from telling people everything.

A leader can be entirely authentic and still say "there are things I can't share with you right now." In fact, that sentence is often more honest than a convenient half-truth dressed up to fill the silence. People can handle not knowing. What they can't handle is being misled.

So what do you do when you can't fully disclose the truth?

First, be honest about your honesty. "I can't get into that yet" is a complete and respectable answer. It tells people you're not hiding the fact that something exists, even if you can't share the detail.

Second, be careful about saying things you don't believe. Sometimes you'll have to. A message from above that you're required to deliver and support is part of the job, even when you don't fully agree with it. But there's a difference between supporting a decision you'd have made differently and asserting something you know to be false. The first is leadership. The second erodes trust the moment it's found out.

Third, avoid the unhelpful truths. Not every true thing needs saying. "I don't think much of your predecessor" might be honest, but what does it achieve? Authenticity doesn't require you to voice every passing judgement. Discretion isn't dishonesty.

The leaders people trust most aren't the ones who tell them everything. They're the ones whose words and actions never contradict each other.

So the question isn't whether you're being completely honest. You can't be, and you shouldn't try.

The question is whether you're being congruent. Do your words and your actions tell the same story?