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Bad news doesn’t improve with age, or so I learned in a leadership training program I attended some years ago.

And it doesn’t, even though modern business leaders have learned another important lesson: If they hide bad news — or hide from it — for a few fiscal quarters they can bank a big enough bonus to retire, while the consequences become someone else’s problem. Yours, for example.

If you hide from bad news, though, it will simply get worse, so you need to find out what’s really going on in your organization in time to prevent minor glitches from becoming crises. That isn’t easy, because once your career has progressed beyond a direct supervisory role to middle management, every bit of information that reaches your desk has been filtered. That filtering takes two forms: Hiding bad news to stay out of trouble, and accentuating bad news to get someone else into trouble. Straight information is hard to come by. How can you maximize your chances of getting some?

First and most important, make sure of your facts. Just because someone reports a problem doesn’t mean there is a problem. Especially if the news is about someone else, make sure you ask the responsible party directly.

Next, don’t punish any bearer of bad tidings, even if the bearer is also the responsible party. If your first reaction to bad news is anger, you’re reinforcing exactly the wrong behavior. Your first reaction should be to ask the responsible party what’s being done to fix the problem. Figure out if you need to make a personnel adjustment after the problem has been dealt with, based on how it happened and how the responsible party dealt with it.

Nearly as important, surround yourself with people who aren’t impressed with you or your title. If the people who report to you try to curry favor as a career advancement strategy, they’ll tell you what they think you want to hear, not what they think you ought to hear.

Your direct reports also should understand the value of making their staff look good. When the time comes to present information, do they deliver it themselves, or do they bring along the staffers who know it best? If they present it themselves, by themselves, it’s a strong indicator that they want to control the information you receive and act on.

These pointers are a good start. Next week’s column will contain more straight information about getting straight information.

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

Why do you have two ears but only one mouth? Not, as the cliche would have it, so you’ll listen twice as much as you talk. It’s so you can experience Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in stereo, of course.

Not that listening more than talking is a bad thing — far from it. This should be every leader’s constant goal. You can hear your own ideas any old time. Sadly, when many managers try to do just that, they find themselves doing all the talking anyway. Here they’re trying to involve their staff in decisions, and their staff just sits there. What’s wrong with them?!?!

Usually, the problem is that nobody wants to be the first to speak up, probably because they are insecure about sharing ideas others might not accept. Consequently, they worry about feeling foolish in front of the group.

There’s nothing you can do about this “trust gap,” but don’t give up. You can get ’em talking despite their reticence, which will end up building trust in the bargain. Just use these simple techniques, cadged from the IS Survivor Training Center’s Meeting Facilitation Research Institute:

1. Get everyone to the table. That means (a) getting a big enough table, and (b) if someone takes a seat along the wall, being as direct and insistent (but not unpleasant) as your authority allows that they join everyone else.

2. Set phasers off — don’t just set them on stun. A Blackberry set to vibrate won’t disrupt the meeting, but by leaving it on the owner has made it clear his e-mail is more interesting and important than your meeting. (On the other hand, sometimes it is more important: A server crash might take precedence over your weekly staff meeting.)

3. Don’t ask the room for ideas. If everyone is doing their best impression of a bivalve, “What does anyone think?” won’t pry their lips open. Instead, ask questions of individuals: “Barb, what do you think we should do?” will probably get Barb talking. If she declines, encourage her: “Just give us your first impression.” When Barb is finished, ask another individual: “Ralph, what do you think? Do you like Barb’s idea, or do you have an alternative you like better?” And if someone raises a hand, tell them to just talk. You’re running a meeting, not a schoolroom, after all.

Beyond the obvious benefits of getting a team talking, there’s a fringe benefit as well.

By orchestrating the conversation, you’ve done far more to establish your leadership than you’d ever achieve through a monologue.

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