As a leader, I am keenly aware that I need to know what is going on inside of my department and inside of the business. It's often easy to know about the positive things that are going on ... people naturally want to share their successes and victories. It is much more difficult to ferret out the darker side of the environment - mistakes, failures and errors - "bad news".
I always tell my teams, "Bad news should travel fast!", because, as a leader, I often have resources and options that may not be readily available to my team members. Additionally, I can help manage customer expectations by resetting delivery dates or negotiating a compromise. And, finally, I don't want to get blindsided by bad news from a CXO.
It is easy to say "Bad news should travel fast", but it is difficult to implement. The conduit that bad news travels upon is trust. In order to hear bad news, I need to engage with my team in a way that builds and maintains trust. If I drop the ball while managing my relationships within the team, I can easily lose their trust, and therefore be cut out of the information loop.
In the end, it's Leadership 101 as defined by John Maxwell. Invest in relationships, treat everyone with respect, be honest and expect honesty. And never, ever punish someone for bringing you the truth!
