More than a million people in the Rakhine state of Myanmar are unaware of the coronavirus pandemic because of an internet shutdown. To make things worse, 100,000 of them are tightly packed in camps.
Withholding information can put lives at risk. In the case of Myanmar, it is a deliberate attack by a Buddhist majority against a Muslim minority. In other non-nefarious cases, even an unintentional lack of information is likely to lead, at the very least, to poor decisions.
Are there parts of your organization that are at risk because of a lack of information? Are you being as transparent as you can? Do your direct reports, peers and bosses know everything that you know? Do you have a column in your company’s newsletter? Do you post on Slack or Teams or Yammer? Do you speak at all-hands meetings? Do you encourage your colleagues to connect with you if they have questions?
If you don’t do some of these things, make sure you ask yourself this question the next time something goes wrong: Is there something I knew that, if properly shared, could have prevented this?
The Ethical Leader 