If there is one thing I cherish above all else at this point in my career, it is transparent leadership. I have worked at some institutions where there was the illusion of transparency. In truth, cinder blocks offered better transparency than some of the leadership I encountered in the academy.

Call it work-related trauma, but I learned a long time ago to fortify myself against shenanigans at the workplace. This distrust didn’t start in the academy; I quickly realized this at my first job as a teenager (fast food is bad for your health in more ways than one). I’ve had so many horrific experiences with bad leadership that trusting any administration member is difficult. It was so bad that I started writing an entire book series on the subject.

The school that inspired me to become a novelist seemingly operated in the shadows. Nobody wanted to answer directly about anything happening on campus, either good or bad. The most reliable source of information was the rumor mill. Much of my perception comes from the fact that many administration members would seldom say anything coherent or concise in meetings. They used that delightful business buzzword talk that sounded important but didn’t say anything. Besides, how can they fill an hour-long meeting without burying us under platitudes? Even during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, they spoke vaguely about plans for handling the problem. It is never comforting when leadership can’t provide details about measures that could potentially affect your health.

After losing my job twice at that institution (that is a story for another time), I moved on to a more stable (a very subjective term) campus that appears to have things better organized and under control. We recently met with the school president about our five-year plan to brace for the population decline. People quit having babies after the housing market tanked in 2008, and competition is about to get stiff when it comes to recruitment. The presentation was straightforward, with no fluff, as they discussed recruitment strategies. They even broke out the financial numbers, which was a first for me. I felt like I was looking at phone numbers, but they were actually budget lines because little dollar signs were attached to them.
I rarely, if ever, feel good about leadership after coming out of a meeting. This time I felt okay, almost reassured. It was nice to hear honesty for once. There was nothing grandiose or superfluous. The conversation felt grounded and sincere. It was what I needed to hear.

Remus College had some of the worst leadership I ever encountered in my life. There was so much deceit and exploitation happening there that I cannot blame some of my old colleagues for thinking that the administration was monitoring their phone calls and text messages. The worst example of this was leadership’s claim to have a “high wall of separation” when we went to distance learning. During our virtual faculty meetings, this one mystery account was always hanging around without the camera on. It turned out to be the president lurking during our sessions. Dude didn’t even have the courtesy to have a burner account to do his snooping.

I think I tripped over that high wall of separation a couple of times while I was still at Remus. If I ever asked questions that bristled leadership, the response would typically be a pseudo-professional “STFU” retort. Since leadership kept everything a mystery, I wondered if I needed to buy a van and adopt a Great Dane to discover what was happening on campus.

Now that I am somewhere that values this transparency, I don’t know how to behave or react. I remember telling a former coworker I wanted to cry because my first all-faculty meeting didn’t involve angry threats about job security. Sure, faculty have quirks and problems, but that happens in groups of people with too many fancy pieces of paper. Leadership here values our opinions and trusts us to handle our responsibilities. They treat me like an adult. I feel more productive when not under the scrutiny of micromanagement and when I am bestowed some autonomy.

I don’t know what your workplace is like, but this is the kind of situation we all should have.