How do you and/or your company ensure employees are informed and can trust leadership? I'm part of the leadership team at my company and we need to improve our internal communication and work intentionally to build trust after unfortunate layoffs in 2020. We're a series A startup with <40 employees so we have the opportunity to be more transparent than a larger organization with more layers.
For instance:
- Do you share burn rate and remaining capital at your all-hands meetings? (risk with confidential info leaking?)
- Customer stories (good and bad) shared at all hands?
- Effectively disseminating information from leadership meetings to your team meetings
- How do you deal with communication around cuts or people leaving? (We have had to make more than one cut over the past year and I believe this is a source of stress for people. Uncertainty around why cuts were made or their own job security. We did write internal communication about cuts and discuss at the all-hands but I don't think it was enough).
- Any rules of engagement for Slack?
- Anything CEO-led that you think is effective?
- Being genuine, listening, and demonstrating empathy
I want our company to innovate around transparent leadership and this is a great group to ask!
Thank you
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Kelly Hook
Head of Customer Success | Orderful
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