--- title: Truth in Business Leadership Matters More than Ever description: Advantexe presents a list of effective business leadership approaches that can help create a culture of honesty, authenticity, and strong ethics. image: https://www.advantexe.com/hubfs/Blogs/business-leadership-truth-2.jpg --- [![logo-advantexe-150.png](https://www.advantexe.com/hs-fs/hubfs/logo-advantexe-150.png?width=150&height=123&name=logo-advantexe-150.png "logo-advantexe-150.png")](https://www.advantexe.com) ![blog-banner-2022](https://www.advantexe.com/hs-fs/hubfs/blog-banner-2022.png?width=973&name=blog-banner-2022.png "blog-banner-2022") ### The Advantexe Advisor Blog - providing a deep and applicable understanding of the system of business. # Truth in Business Leadership Matters More than Ever By Robert Brodo | Mar 22, 2018 9:28:43 AM | [![Share on Facebook](https://static.hubspot.com/final/img/common/icons/social/facebook-24x24.png)](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.advantexe.com%2Fblog%2Ftruth-in-business-leadership-matters%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dfacebook) [![Share on LinkedIn](https://static.hubspot.com/final/img/common/icons/social/linkedin-24x24.png)](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.advantexe.com%2Fblog%2Ftruth-in-business-leadership-matters%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dlinkedin) [![Share on Twitter](https://static.hubspot.com/final/img/common/icons/social/twitter-24x24.png)](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.advantexe.com%2Fblog%2Ftruth-in-business-leadership-matters%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dtwitter&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.advantexe.com%2Fblog%2Ftruth-in-business-leadership-matters%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dtwitter&source=tweetbutton&text=Truth%20in%20Business%20Leadership%20Matters%20More%20than%20Ever) [![Share on Pinterest](https://static.hubspot.com/final/img/common/icons/social/pinterest-24x24.png)](http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.advantexe.com%2Fblog%2Ftruth-in-business-leadership-matters%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dpinterest&media=) [![Share on Email](https://static.hubspot.com/final/img/common/icons/social/email-24x24.png)](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.advantexe.com%2Fblog%2Ftruth-in-business-leadership-matters%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Demail%20&body=Check%20out%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.advantexe.com%2Fblog%2Ftruth-in-business-leadership-matters%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Demail) Responsibility and accountability are much more than business leadership jargon; in some cases, they![business-leadership-truth-2.jpg](https://www.advantexe.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Blogs/business-leadership-truth-2.jpg?width=240&height=240&name=business-leadership-truth-2.jpg) may mean life or death.  Last week, news came out that Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos - a one-time Silicon Valley darling of Wall Street - was charged with “[massive fraud](https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-charges-theranos-and-founder-elizabeth-holmes-with-fraud-1521045648)” by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for deceiving investors and lying about a “revolutionary technology” that would have disrupt the process of testing blood samples and changed the course of medicine for years to come.  As a direct result of the false claims and deception, the value of Theranos reached $9 billion in 2016 and Ms. Holmes owned more than half the shares of the company making her for the moment a very rich person.  Clearly, the seduction of fame, money, power, and everything else she was striving for superseded fundamental values of human decency, values, and business ethics. The reason why I’m raising this as an issue in today’s blog is that we had an interesting scenario occur in one of our [Business Leadership](https://www.advantexe.com/business-leadership-development-programs) scenarios last week when we discovered one of the competitors of a five-company [business simulation workshop](https://www.advantexe.com/the-power-of-practice-business-simulations) went into another company’s break-out room in the evening when most participants were sleeping and took pictures of the competitor’s strategies, market assessments, product plans, pricing plans, human capital plans and then used that information to manipulate the results and create an unfair advantage.  Worse yet, when confronted by one of the teams, the President of our simulated company denied any knowledge of this act even though print-outs of the competitor’s strategy was found in the trash of their breakout.  The President of the simulated company claimed the copies were “planted” to make his team look bad. We used the incident as a learning opportunity and I took some notes from the debriefing which we turned into a list of effective things business leaders should do to create a culture of honesty, authenticity, and strong ethics: **Just Tell the Truth; You Can’t Go Wrong** One of the first things innovators learn is that innovation is never right the first time.  It takes many failed experiments to figure out the right solution. What if Theanos has told the truth about the failed experiments and either figured out how to fix them or move on to something else? Ms. Holmes wouldn’t be going to prison and the company could have found that ultimate blood test technology. **Be Authentic** Bullshitting can only get you so far as a leader. At some point the truth and doing things the right way must be the drivers of success because when people in the organization follow the bullshit and don’t do the right things, it turns bad very quickly. **Demand High Ethics from Yourself and Your People** This sounds like a line out of our [Fundamentals of Business Leadership simulation](https://www.advantexe.com/new-manager-business-leadership-simulation) (which it is) but it’s also core to being a leader.  Having strong ethics isn’t a goal; it’s the entry ticket to the party called leadership and is has to be demanded, refined, and supported over time. **Don’t Hide from Bad News** There’s a business leadership fable called “Ostrich Leadership” that is based on the notion that ostriches bury their heads in the sand or hide in the bushes when predators come to eat them.  And by just sticking their heads in the sand and avoiding the bad news, they get eaten.  Business leaders who hide from bad news are going to get eaten.  Lying about bad news as was done at Theranos just makes it exponentially worse. **Have Brutally Hard Dialogues** The follow-up to hiding from bad news is to have brutally hard dialogues with people about what’s going on.  Did the technical lead at Theranos tell Elizabeth Holmes the blood testing technology failed or did he hide in the sand?  Did Elizabeth Holmes have a brutally hard dialogue with her investors or did she tell them the tests worked and they are all going to be billionaires? Leadership is hard and sometimes it really sucks because you must have painful dialogues. But you must do it. **There is a Solution to Every Problem** To me this is the most important learning to come out of the discussion.  There is always a solution to every problem; leaders need to figure out which solution is best and execute it.  In the case of Theranos, perhaps they could have conducted different experiments based on the feedback.  Or the solution could have been to admit failure and move into something else Sometimes recognizing the hard truth and moving on is the best solution and in this case it would have saved a lot of pain of everyone involved from the investors who invested Grandma and Grandpa’s retirement account to the employees who left other jobs to join what they thought was a great company and a great leader. [![why-does-leadership-matter-infographic](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/1153922/cbfef0cf-e318-4874-9de0-2e7fe97a1463.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/1153922/cbfef0cf-e318-4874-9de0-2e7fe97a1463) ![Robert Brodo](https://www.advantexe.com/hubfs/Blogs/rob-brodo-author.png) **About The Author** Robert Brodo is co-founder of Advantexe. He has more than 20 years of training and business simulation experience. [**](https://www.advantexe.com) [**](https://twitter.com/robrodo) [**](https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rob-brodo/0/334/574) COMMENTS ### SUBSCRIBE VIA EMAIL ### About Advantexe Advantexe is a gold medal winning training and performance improvement organization specializing in the development and delivery of interactive learning journeys using computer-based business simulations as the catalyst for learning and change in the areas of: Business Acumen, Business Leadership, and Strategic Business Selling learning solutions. 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