Openness & Honesty

Note:

In this series of brief articles, we explain the basic work skills every team member must develop and practice if they want to be engaged and effective at work. If you are a manager, during the annual review process we ask you to rate your team members on these competencies. Use the following brief description...

to solidify your understanding of the skill,
to recall specific examples of your team member's behavior that either exemplify or betray the skill in focus, and
to think of concrete steps they can take to grow in this specific skill.

What is it?

A team member high in openness and honesty consistently seeks input from others and conveys the truth frankly.

Openness

Openness is the willingness to allow someone to provide you with input that may affect your thinking.
Openness considers the possibility that someone else understands or sees something you do not. It is the willingness to accept the idea that you could be wrong.
Openness is conveyed just as much by body language as it is by words. There is no substitute for old-fashioned “face time.”

Honesty

Honesty is the ability and desire to convey truth.
Honesty has a reciprocal relationship with openness. Without openness, the willingness to be honest decreases.
Constructive honesty requires courage and a deeply held belief that it is in everyone’s best interest to understand what is true.
Honesty can bring short-term pain – but experience teaches that the alternative leads to greater pain later.
Organizations cannot be healthy over the long term without openness and honesty. Openness and honesty are the oxygen of productive relationships and genuine trust.

How to rate it

Here is a guide to help you rate your team member using our standard 5-point scale.

Tip:

The general descriptions below can give you a mental picture of the variance between the different result options, but, because team members and scenarios vary so widely, you should not rigidly rely on them.

Not Met - the team member is typically shut down to others, does not want to hear input, and/or is often dishonest.
Partially Met - the team member will occasionally shut down if someone disagrees with them; they also communicate their ideas indirectly, which makes you question their truthfulness.
Met - for the most part, the team member is open to critiques and differing opinions; they also share their ideas when asked.
Exceeded - this team members candid truthtelling has an obvious positive effect on the team; they also actively seek out input and others' opinions
Far Exceeded - the team member is an example to other team members on how to be open to others' ideas and to share their thoughts candidly. Not only are they a good example, but they also help others learn to do the same. On top of that, their openness and honesty have led to obvious positive business results.