Do you cultivate trust in the information you share? You should.
Think of the last piece of information you sat on — what emotion was driving that decision, and what did it cost your team?
We have all been there. We need to share critical information with our team, and we are unsure about how deeply the information will impact the team. For us, this news was the reorganization of the team and the reassignment of the work to another department. Across the team, each member received the information differently, with emotions ranging from resentment to outrage. Some members of the team submitted their resignations. This story is not unique, but as a manager in a situation such as this one, how do you manage the impact, honor the relationships across the team, and continue to cultivate trust in each other and the organization? In these moments, some of us might wring our hands, wondering how to best tell your team of news like this. We are here to help.
So how does information sharing engender trust or erode it? Why does this happen? What can we do instead?
First, we should define what we mean by trust. For our purposes, we will use Charles Feltman’s model of trust as a decision rooted in four distinctions:
Sincerity - you are honest; you say what you mean and mean what you say.
Reliability - you meet the commitments you make; you keep your promises.
Competence - you have the ability to do what you are doing or propose to do.
Care - you have the other person’s interest in mind, as well as your own, when you make decisions and take action.
In this model, individuals will examine these four distinctions in relation to another person/group/organization and make an active decision to trust (or not trust) along a continuum. When information is being shared, especially critical information, this model is amplified, and the decision to trust or not trust becomes an explicit assessment of the other person/team/organization and an assessment of self.
Second, we acknowledge that there are laws governing what can and cannot be shared. We recognize and respect these laws and boundaries. This is not the topic of this newsletter. Instead, we are talking about the information that you, as a leader, are required to share with your team that might negatively impact their trust in you and the organization. In these circumstances, we suggest you grab a trusted colleague and ask them to serve as a partner (or mirror) to help you think through three reflective exercises:
Examine what is actually happening inside you. What is my relationship to this information?
Consider who you are sharing the information with. What will each team member need in order to receive this information?
Consider how you share the information. How should I deliver this information?
What is actually happening inside you?
Let’s start at the moment of the handwringing.
Before you can manage information wisely, you have to understand your own relationship to it. When you first heard the news of your department’s reorganization, how did you make sense of it? Leaders must first make sense of how they are experiencing a piece of information. Do you feel threatened? Scared? Excited? Anxious? Hopeful? Curious? Angry? Joyful? These emotions serve as data for you. They are telling you something important about your relationship to the information and whether you trust both the information and the messenger (cue Feltman’s framework).
Additionally, the leader's internal experience is almost always different from what their reports will feel. There is a gap between your experience of information as a leader and the experience of those with less or different power and privilege in the organization (i.e., your direct reports). Spend time in this space with your colleague and examine your own reaction to the information, before you start managing the messaging to your team.
Who are you sharing this information with? It goes without saying that as a leader we are constantly creating, cultivating, reinforcing, and leveraging relationships rooted in trust. Sharing critical, possibly negative information will certainly test the trusting relationships you have with your direct reports. Using our definition of trust from Feltman, share with your trusted partner/colleague how each of your direct reports might react to the information you plan to share. Explicitly articulate their reaction and, most importantly, why you think they'll respond that way. What do their responses tell you about their needs, fears, and/or history? Do you draw a blank on some of your direct reports? What does that tell you about your relationship with them? Consider the best way to deliver the news to each of them, ensuring the same information but tailored to meet their needs, fears, and/or history. Vet your approach with your partner.
How are you sharing this information? The obvious question you might ask yourself and your trusted colleague is whether the news should be delivered in a group setting or 1:1 or both. This is your decision. You know your team best. We do have a few questions and wonderings to help you make the decision.
The immediacy of the information. Is it urgent, ambiguous, final, or still evolving? In our earlier situation, the information is immediate, comprehensive, partially final, and still evolving for the team. There are known answers and unknown answers. In this situation, we would encourage 1:1 conversations first to ensure folks have the opportunity to ask “what about me” questions, and then a group discussion later to consolidate the questions raised in 1:1 conversations, as well as offering an opportunity for the group to come together and “norm” given the new information.
The power dynamics at play. Who holds unofficial, informal power within the group? What power, outside of authoritative power, do you hold in the group? Has power been ceded to different members of the group based on systemic factors unrelated to position? Understanding the power dynamics in the group allows you to think strategically about how you might engage team members and the types of configurations you want to employ.
The communication dynamics of the group. Is the team young or well-established in the organization? How does information typically ripple through the team? As the team leader, you know best whether news of a reorganization could be catastrophic and will travel quickly or not. The question is whether there is a need to tell everyone at the same time or whether 1:1 conversations with tight communication structures will be sufficient. At the end of the day, remember - once you tell one team member, you have told all your team members. “Keep this close to the chest” and “Please don’t share this” are myths that you cannot reasonably rely on as a strategy.
In sum, a leader who is self-aware, trust-focused, and deliberate about how they share information becomes a transformer of their teams, cultivating trust both when sharing positive news and critical information.
As always, this section is about unlocking/disrupting your thinking. As you read, think about the ways in which your current models of leadership are serving (or not serving) you well!
The Ripple: Who holds the stone?
Jonas knew the moment he told Marcus.
Not because Marcus said anything — he didn't. He nodded slowly, thanked Jonas for telling him, and walked back toward the dock. But Jonas watched him go and felt the particular sinking feeling of a man who has just tossed a stone in a lake, and he cannot call it back.
By the next morning, the other fishermen already knew.
No one had been careless. No one had gossiped with any malice. But the harbor was small, the boats were close together, and the night had been long. Information moved through a place like this the way water did — finding every crack, filling every low space, arriving somewhere new before you thought to wonder how it got there.
Jonas had told himself it would be fine. Just Marcus. He had told himself that Marcus could hold a confidence, that the others would hear it soon enough anyway, that there was no real harm in one quiet conversation on the edge of the dock at dusk.
What he had not accounted for was that Marcus had a brother. And the brother had said nothing wrong, only something small and sideways to his wife. And she had said nothing at all — just paused a half-second too long when old Petra asked her directly the following morning at the market.
Petra, who noticed everything, had needed nothing more than that.
Jonas stood at the water's edge and watched the rings from a single dropped stone move outward in every direction — clean, indifferent, unstoppable.
He thought: I should have told everyone at once. I should have been the one.
The water didn't disagree.
Apply the Learning - A Case Study: The Announcement That Wasn't Ready
Solène is a Senior Director of Operations at a mid-sized financial services firm. She has led her team of eleven for nearly six years. By most measures, she is an effective leader — her team has consistently high performance reviews, low turnover, and a reputation across the organization for reliability and cohesion.
Three weeks ago, Solène was called into a meeting with the Chief Operating Officer and informed that the firm would be restructuring its operations division. Two of her team's core functions — compliance monitoring and vendor management — would be absorbed by a newly formed centralized unit reporting directly to the COO. The transition timeline is aggressive: ninety days. Some roles will transfer. Others will not. Final decisions about personnel have not yet been made.
Solène was told she could not share the news until the executive team finalized the communication strategy — a process that could take another two to three weeks.
She left the meeting composed. By the time she reached her office, she was not.
Since then, Solène has said nothing. She has continued her weekly one-on-ones, run team meetings, and approved project timelines — some of which she knows will be irrelevant in ninety days. Her team has noticed something is off. Two of her strongest performers, sensing a shift in her energy, have already begun quietly networking internally. One team member, who has historically been the first to hear hallway news, has started asking pointed questions in team meetings that Solène has deflected.
Case Study Questions
The executive communication strategy is still not finalized. Solène has been told: "Soon."
Before Solène considers how to communicate with her team, she must first examine her own relationship to this information. What emotions might she be carrying — and how could those emotions be shaping her behavior with her team, even in silence?
Solène has eleven direct reports. Choose two or three members of her team described implicitly in the case. What do you imagine each person needs in order to receive this news in a way that preserves trust?
Given what is known and unknown, how should Solène structure the delivery of this information — and what does she do about the timeline she cannot control?
