Every Leader Wants Trust. Few Earn It This Way.
By: Marc Sanderson
Transparency is one of the few competitive advantages available to every leader. It doesn’t require venture capital, breakthrough technology or a patent—yet remarkably few companies consistently practice it.
We all value transparency when we receive it. We expect it from our leaders, our colleagues and the companies we buy from. But valuing transparency and practicing it—especially when it’s uncomfortable—are two very different things.
In business, transparency feels risky because it exposes imperfection. Yet, that’s precisely when it matters most. At INNERGY, transparency isn’t just something we try to do. It’s one of our core values. We expect every employee to pursue it—with one another and with our customers. We’ve learned that transparency doesn’t weaken relationships; it strengthens them by reducing uncertainty, building trust and accelerating learning.
Over time, I’ve come to think about transparency through three distinct forms of trust:
1. Operational Trust: People believe you’ll tell them what’s happening.
2. Relational Trust: People believe it’s safe to tell you what’s happening.
3. Strategic Trust: People understand why decisions are being made.
Those three forms of trust reinforce one another and become a lasting competitive advantage. Here’s how they play out practically:
1. Build Operational Trust: Show the bruised side of the apple.
Every company celebrates wins. Few celebrate bruises. Yet bruises are where learning happens. Our team often talks about showing the “bruised side of the apple.” If leaders only share victories, people quickly learn that mistakes aren’t acceptable. Problems get hidden instead of solved.
I intentionally admit my own mistakes, big and small, because every time a leader goes first, someone else gains permission to speak up. Research by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson found that the best-performing teams weren’t making fewer mistakes, they were reporting them more openly. Their advantage wasn’t perfection. It was faster learning: fail fast, fix fast.
The bruises aren’t the problem. Hiding them is.
2. Build Relational Trust: Go first with vulnerability.
Transparency requires vulnerability, and someone has to take the first step. Make it you.
Many people don’t struggle with transparency because of the current experience, they struggle because of their previous one. They’ve worked in organizations where admitting mistakes meant embarrassment, blame or even termination. They bring that baggage with them.
I’ve learned that building a transparent culture isn’t simply telling people it’s safe. It’s proving it over and over again. I seek to model it consistently, in all aspects of my life. I protect people when they tell difficult truths. I don’t punish honesty (bad news doesn’t get better with age). Over time, people believe what they experience instead of what they hear.
When leaders go first, innovation follows because people feel safe enough to keep swinging.
3. Build Strategic Trust: Make your motives known.
People rarely question decisions as much as they question intentions. Every decision tells a story. If you don’t explain the “why,” people will often write their own version.
I recently spent an hour with a customer who was convinced we intended to raise prices simply because we could. He was new to our company through an acquisition and didn’t yet understand who we are. I explained that we can demonstrate that an average customer using our platform operates with about 4.5 fewer employees than similar businesses in the industry.
Share the Journey (Not Just the Victory)
Relational trust is the hardest to build and sustain. People can handle slow progress. They struggle with hidden progress. Transparency isn’t simply announcing the breakthrough. It’s about being open about the process and what it takes to improve.
I recently spent significant time in Australia meeting with customers because of technical support challenges. Those conversations led us to identify an AI solution that will dramatically improve support with the focus on achieving RAVING FANS. It would have been easy to announce the exciting part and stop there.
Instead, we also need to explain the harder truth. Deploying AI is only one step. Fully solving the problem requires planning, implementation, change management—and time. Transparency sometimes means asking customers or colleagues for patience while you earn back their confidence.
The Trust Equation
We experienced this firsthand during an unexpected company-wide outage. What stood out wasn’t the outage—it was our culture. Before anyone assigned responsibilities, employees instinctively ran toward the problem. One person launched a communication channel, another rerouted our support line, many others contacted customers, and we published updates every ten minutes.
We didn’t need a detailed disaster recovery playbook. We had a shared commitment to creating RAVING FANS, and everyone knew that taking care of customers came before protecting appearances.
During our planned product release two business days later, we addressed the outage head-on. Customers thanked us—for communicating openly, acting quickly and demonstrating that we cared. They knew we were running to the problem and respected our transparency.
That experience reinforced an important lesson: Transparency isn’t valuable because it makes people feel better. It’s valuable because it reduces uncertainty. And when uncertainty declines, trust grows. Every transparent conversation is another deposit into the trust account.
Trust behaves like compound interest. Every transparent conversation adds a small amount. Every mistake that’s hidden withdraws a much larger amount. Over time, organizations—and leaders—with high trust move faster because they spend less time overcoming skepticism.
Transparency isn’t always comfortable. It isn’t always convenient. But it’s always worth it because it is a competitive advantage.
Marc Sanderson is the CEO of INNERGY and former President/Owner of Wilkie Sanderson. He began in the millwork industry 20 years ago with a small cabinet shop and built it into one of the most profitable operations in the country. A Harvard MBA and 2024 Wood Industry Market Leader, Marc is known for transforming complexity into clarity through data-driven strategy and culture first leadership. Equal parts analytical operator and motivator, he’s just as comfortable refining strategy as he is rallying a room around a shared vision.