Communication & Transparency: The Leadership Competency That Makes Everything Else Work
How clearly and honestly you share information with your team is the foundation of their ability to do their jobs. This competency measures the specific behaviours behind that.
What Communication & Transparency means as a leadership competency
Communication is not a general skill. In a leadership context, it refers to a specific cluster of behaviours: sharing relevant information proactively rather than waiting to be asked, explaining the reasoning behind decisions rather than just issuing them, being consistent in what you say to different people rather than adjusting the message by audience, and being honest about uncertainty rather than projecting false confidence.
The transparency component is the harder half. Leaders who communicate well in the sense of being articulate, clear, and engaging often still score low on transparency — because transparency requires sharing information that may be uncomfortable, uncertainty that may reduce your apparent authority, or reasoning that may invite challenge. Most communication training focuses on clarity. Transparent leadership requires something different: the willingness to share what is actually true, not the version that is easiest to deliver.
Underdeveloped communication and transparency typically produces teams that operate on incomplete information, that make unnecessary mistakes because they couldn't see the wider context, and that lose trust in leadership over time — not through any single incident but through the accumulated pattern of finding out things later than they should have.
The indicators — what we measure
Proactive information sharing
This leader shares information relevant to their team's work without waiting to be asked. Team members don't need to chase context or discover changes to direction after the fact.
Reasoning transparency
When this leader makes a decision, they communicate the business context and trade-offs that drove it, not just the outcome. Team members understand why, not just what.
Consistency across audiences
This leader communicates the same core message to different stakeholders rather than calibrating what different audiences hear to manage reactions. People who compare notes are not surprised by the differences.
Honest uncertainty
When this leader doesn't know, or when something is still being decided, they say so rather than offering premature confidence. The team can calibrate their planning based on accurate signals.
Why this competency matters at manager level
For a first-time manager, communication and transparency is the competency most directly responsible for team trust in the first 90 days. New managers often undershare because they are still processing information themselves, or because they confuse keeping information to themselves with appearing more senior. The effect on the team is the opposite of what's intended: teams that can't see the picture fill the gap with assumptions, and the assumptions are rarely optimistic.
For senior managers and directors, the stakes are higher. The team is larger, the decisions have more downstream consequences, and the information asymmetry between the leader and the team is greater. The specific failure mode at senior levels is selective transparency — sharing information that supports the narrative and withholding information that complicates it. Teams notice this pattern within weeks, and once they do, trust in other communications degrades.
How the Tryitowl assessment measures this
The Tryitowl leadership competency assessment measures Communication & Transparency through situational judgement items — realistic leadership scenarios where you make a decision and observe its consequences. You are not asked to rate your own communication skills. You are asked what you would actually do, and your responses are mapped against the behavioural indicators above.
The free assessment includes Communication & Transparency (alongside three other competencies). The full report covers all eight competencies and includes a development plan with specific recommendations for the gaps the data identifies.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Communication & Transparency competency in leadership?
Communication & Transparency in leadership refers to how clearly, consistently, and honestly a leader shares information with their team and stakeholders. It covers proactive information sharing, explaining decision reasoning, being consistent across different audiences, and being honest about uncertainty. It is assessed as a behavioural competency — the specific things a leader does, not their general communication ability.
- Why is transparency specifically included with communication as one competency?
Communication and transparency are distinct behaviours but they share the same output: teams that have the information they need to operate effectively and to trust their leader's intentions. Communication without transparency produces a leader who is articulate but withholds relevant context. Transparency without communication produces honesty that is poorly delivered. The competency is designed to capture both dimensions.
- Can someone be a good communicator but score low on this competency?
Yes. Leaders who score high on general communication ability — they speak well, write clearly, present confidently — sometimes score surprisingly low on this competency. The assessment focuses on transparency, proactiveness, and consistency rather than on articulation or persuasiveness. A leader can be very good at the latter and underdeveloped in the former.
- How is this competency different from the Communication & Transparency corporate training programme?
The Communication & Transparency programme is a facilitated learning intervention. This competency assessment is a diagnostic tool that identifies where the gaps are. Many organisations use the assessment first to identify individual development priorities, then the programme to build the capability. They are designed to work together but both can be used independently.