Article archive / October 1, 2014
Originally published: . Volume 5, No. 14. Source pages: 2.
It was another one of those months where I could find no one in government who was willing to talk to me on the record. Boards & Commissions blew off all my requests for an interview. And, while the public relations person at DHH was one of the nicest I’ve run into, ultimately the questions were ignored. The psychology board first said that a request was denied because it was “excessive” but then when I rewrote it, they said there was nothing to report. To top that off, I’d been asking for an interview for months and they gave me a “regret to inform you” letter. It looks like no way is their final answer.
I’m not surprised. However, I also believe that we are in a critical time in our society where leaders need to be open, honest, and non-defensive. It has been a central tenet in organizational psychology since some of the early writings, such as Rensis Likert and his New Ways of Managing Conflict, where he points to “open, candid, and unguarded” styles in leaders and groups as a predictor of effectiveness.
While ruminating about all the rejections, I began to catalogue reasons why leaders, and especially psychologist-leaders, should discipline themselves to be open.
1. Because APA ethics say so. “Psychologists establish relationships of trust with those with whom they work,” and “Psychologists seek to promote accuracy, honesty and truthfulness … ,” and “Psychologists respect and protect civil and human rights and the central importance of freedom of inquiry … .”
2. Answering questions promotes trust. Trust is the profound glue in social exchanges and human relationships, the proxy for “I will not cheat you.” It has deep psychological and evolutionary foundations. Trust is hard to build and easy to destroy. To refuse to answer a question indicates, even if it is not the case, that there is something to hide. Stephen Covey, in The Speed of Trust, says it is the one thing that changes everything else.
3. Openness and answering questions allows a check on group-think. Groups are vulnerable to confirmation bias and all sorts of other errors in judgment, and outsiders asking pointed questions allows for improved insight. If a group is truly open, they will invite the opportunity to have this double- check on their logic. Yes, it does take more time and some people ask questions just to be nags. But even given the drawbacks, better decisions are worth the trouble.
4. Inviting questions helps reduce self-deception, blind spots, and arrogance for those in power. An open exchange promotes a more egalitarian tone or climate, respect for others, and suggests shared power. When individuals in authority discipline themselves to hear dissent and remain open to criticism, it is an antidote for over- confidence and arrogance, which automatically happens when humans are placed in roles of power.
5. Being open fosters individual maturity. Being open to questions and feedback is also developmentally valuable for the individual. It pushes the person to deal with resulting emotions––the fears, insecurities, and suppressed themes that they typically avoid. This tension is like confession, it is good for the soul.
6. You get to feel good about yourself. Promoting and striving for openness, truth, and accountability allows you to feel morally superior. You can flaunt it to your friends, preach about the value of honesty, openness, and even cite evolutionary psychology.
You can quote the First Amendment, John Adams, and “Vox popui vox dei,” because sometimes the voice of the people really is the voice of God.
So, it’s comforting to be able to stand on a universal, transcendent value. As the classical scholar Edith Hamilton once wrote, right before the outbreak of WWII:
“When the world is storm-driven and the bad that happens and the worse that threatens are so urgent as to shut out everything else from view, then we need to know all the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages.”
Openness, like truth, is one of those fortresses.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.