A lot of leaders will talk about transparency but it’s ironic really because the more you talk about it the less you actually have to do it.
Transparency to some -usually narcissistic people whether covert or overt- means “you tell me everything but I only tell you on a need to know basis. And only I get to decide when that is.”
This is a #LeadershipCrisis.
I’ve seen this happen in multiple settings: churches, parachurch ministries, nonprofits, businesses, large and small. Just because you say you’re being transparent or value transparency doesn’t mean you demonstrably DO the thing.
When you have a Board, whether it’s a corporation or a church, you can run into this issue on transparency in other ways. GroupThink takes over and a team of otherwise capable people become contingent on each other’s integrity. Suddenly it becomes a more hive mind than a group of conscientious individuals who will speak out when something isn’t sitting right.
Here are some questions to start:
- Does the board think they know more than anyone else involved?
- What do other stakeholders know that the board does not?
- Have they asked the paid staff or had any meaningful interaction? What about volunteers?
- How do they know anything? Where does the information they do know come from?
In a corporate setting, those giving you money have a right to know about what their money does and how decisions are made about it. When trust breaks down, it’s an integrity issue. When rumors fly, it means stakeholders are in the dark. The stance from decision makers cannot be silence. Stakeholders will revolt. Or just take their money and run.
In a church or ministry setting, I believe, the stakes are even higher.
Accountability for money is only one metric for integrity. Transparency also means spiritual vulnerability where no one is posturing or performing a role. Those behaviors are false witness. Leaders who feign sorrow or guilt or pay some shallow tribute to repentance when things go badly are often rewarded for performative grief. They often are also the only ones who get a seat at the table where they can construct any narrative they want. No one else at the table has the data to refute it.
In public relations we call it Spin. I’m a writer and I can Spin anything. I attribute it to having a strong imagination and seeing multiple perspectives from multiple angles. It’s a skill I’ve developed for lots of reasons. In ministry, I tamper this skill with Truth.
If I ever lose sight of Truth and my own integrity, it is disaster. It’s happened in my life. It brought me to the brink of utter destruction and caused great pain for all those watching. I wish this reality on no one.
The light of Truth will always sting at first, believe me I know. But we must cling to Truth or we have lost so very much of our souls.
Transparency then cannot be veiled by Lies. What we see when the veil comes off will set up a series of events that we can act upon with integrity and justice, or we can make all the attempts to re-veil as quickly as possible. But woe to those who do so. Transparency IS Truth and it will always out.
In my search for an image to go with this post, I came across this famous statue, The release from Deception.
The Release from Deception depicts a scene that is both biblical and allegorical. It features two subjects: an angel and a fisherman. The angel stands on a globe as he untangles the man from a net and floats above exquisite drapery. According to the Museo Capella Sansevero (“Sansevero Chapel Museum”) the net symbolizes sin. As the angel sets the man free, he rids him of his wrongdoings and introduces him to the Bible, which rests at his feet. In order to emphasize the idea of liberation, Queirolo adorned the open pages of the book with a Latin passage that reads: “I will break thy chain, the chain of the darkness and long night of which thou art a slave so that thou might not be condemned with this world.”
https://mymodernmet.com/francesco-queirolo-the-release-from-deception/
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the wife & times of Reverend Wootton 