When to Open Up at Work—and When Not To

Every day, leaders face a deceptively simple trade-off: how much should I reveal about myself? Disclosing intimate details can build trust and connection—but it can also backfire. Thus, leaders often err on the side of caution, knowing that they are held to a high standard. They worry about saying the wrong thing and being perceived as incompetent, foolish, or generally unprofessional. I’ve been studying disclosure decisions—the choices people make about whether to open up, hold back, or shade harsh truths—for nearly two decades. Across settings and stakes, the most consistent pattern I’ve found is this: leaders under-share. They default to silence even when openness would serve them, their relationships, and their organizations better. That doesn’t mean leaders should bare their souls. But it does mean they should bring more awareness to what’s often an unconscious omission. In many cases, people in positions of authority don’t even register the possibility of sharing something personal or uncertain. The goal should be to notice those moments—to pause, consider revealing, and decide more deliberately. Because while projecting total confidence—and keeping secrets to oneself—can feel safe, it can quietly erode trust, which is the currency of leadership. Trust, after all, underpins the unspoken contract that makes people willing to follow. Why We Hide More Than We Should In a leadership context, trust depends on two beliefs: that leaders have good intentions (what psychologists call “warmth”) and the ability to deliver on them (“competence”). While leaders often worry that admitting doubts or weaknesses will erode their perceived competence, research shows that thoughtful candor—acknowledging uncertainty or missteps—can actually strengthen both warmth and competence, increasing others’ trust. That’s not a fact that leaders typically appreciate. In one study, my collaborators and I asked more than 100 managers to write down three facts they might share when introducing themselves to a new hire: a workplace strength (e.g., “I’m great at strategic planning,” or “I stay calm under pressure”); a neutral fact (e.g., “I love to run marathons,” or “I have two kids”); and a weakness (e.g., “I tend to overcommit” or “I’m not great at delegating”). Then we asked which they’d include in a spoken introduction (they could choose more than one). Almost everyone included a strength (~96%). About two-thirds included the neutral fact. Only one-third mentioned a weakness. In a follow-up experiment, we decided to find out if this reticence was helping or hurting the leaders. To do this, we asked a senior executive to record two short introductions. In one, he did what most managers do: highlighted his career achievements. In the other, he also revealed something less-than-glamorous: that before he was hired into his current role, he’d applied unsuccessfully to an enormous number (36!) of other jobs. The results were striking. Prospective employees didn’t see him as less capable for sharing his struggles on the job market. They trusted him more—and were more likely to choose to work for him over someone who only touted their strengths. We observed the same pattern with male and female leaders. Why We Undershare If revealing too little costs us trust, why do we keep doing it? A powerful culprit is omission bias—our tendency to judge harmful actions more harshly than harmful inactions. We have a natural inclination to avoid screwing up—but we overlook that avoidance can in itself cause damage. In disclosure dilemmas—those moments when one must decide whether to open up or hold back—this bias makes saying something feel inherently riskier than saying nothing. Picture a newly promoted executive who feels in over her head. The idea of admitting it may never cross her mind—or if it does, her brain instantly lists reasons not to: I’ll seem unqualified. My team will lose confidence. Those are vivid “sins of commission.” What gets ignored are the quieter “sins of omission”: the stress of hiding it, the isolation that follows, and the risk her distance reads as aloofness. Because those costs are invisible and delayed, the leader routinely underestimate them—and thus she under-shares. Of course, this is not to say that disclosure doesn’t carry risk. There is such a thing as oversharing. And the line—between “TMI” and what I call “TLI” (too little information)—is often gossamer thin. That’s why disclosure dilemmas often keep leaders whom I work with up at night. So, what separates disclosures that deepen trust from those that undermine it? Part of the answer lies in what kind of information you share. Transparency vs. Vulnerability One key question executives must consider when deciding what and how much to reveal is what kind of revelation they are withholding. The crucial distinction is between transparency and vulnerability. You can think of transparency as a form of cognitive openness—revealing how you think, decide, or learn. It might sound like, “I like to run early drafts by colleagues because I think better through conversation.” Vulnerability, on the other hand, is a kind of personal exposure—admitting fears, insecurities, or weaknesses—in the workplace. In the context of leadership, you can think of vulnerability as the kinds of reveals that might invite questions about your competence. Almost without exception, both transparency and vulnerability make you come across as warm and likeable. And transparency rarely undermines competence. So, it’s fairly low-risk and tends to reliably build trust. When leaders get vulnerable though, they are entering high-risk, high-reward territory. The upside, when it’s handled well, can be extraordinary. Consider Warren Buffett’s admission in his 2007 shareholder letter about his purchase of Dexter Shoe Company: “To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I’ve made,” he wrote, explaining that what he had assessed as a “durable competitive advantage vanished within a few years.” By any financial measure the mistake was massive. Yet his unvarnished acknowledgment of error, paired with clear analysis of why he’d misjudged it, seemed to actually strengthen investors’ faith in him. Shareholders and commentators pointed to the letter as evidence of Buffett’s integrity and realism—the very traits that underpin long-term credibility. His candor didn’t just preserve confidence; it became part of his legend. Vulnerability, handled this way—bounded, purposeful, and tied to learning—can turn a potential liability into an enduring source of authority. Contrast this with BP CEO Tony Hayward’s 2010 remark amid the Deepwater Horizon crisis—“I’d like my life back.” The comment was a candid disclosure, but it centered the leader’s burden rather than the victims’, drawing swift backlash, prompting an apology, and further eroding credibility; amid broader criticism of his crisis response, he was soon replaced as CEO. While vulnerability is high risk, there are ways to maximize the upside while minimizing the downside. One place to start is in understanding the type of vulnerability you share. Revealing moral violations—lying, cheating, or harming others—is almost guaranteed to erode trust. (Best not to violate your morals in the first place). This follows directly from the logic of warmth and competence: admitting a moral failing (“I took credit for someone else’s idea’) is tantamount to saying “I don’t have good intentions.” By contrast, small admissions of lapses in competence (“I completely underestimated how long that would take”) or sociability (“I can be awkward in new groups”) tend not to damage warmth—and can even enhance it. In a recent series of studies, people trusted communicators who admitted competence or sociability flaws more than those who confessed moral ones. The latter disclosures didn’t backfire because they were “too personal,” but because they contradicted warmth itself. Certain weaknesses make you human; moral ones make you suspect. While the kind of vulnerability matters—so does its dose. Even the right kind, shared in the wrong amount, can backfire. The very same disclosure can build trust in small doses and undermine it in large ones. In one experiment, my collaborators and I tried to pinpoint where candor starts to cost competence. We presented people with a series of increasingly personal introductions from a manager—each upping the dose of vulnerability—to see where impressions would tip. At first, vulnerability helped: a leader who said, “I sometimes get nervous before big talks,” was rated as more trustworthy than one who stayed silent. But as the admissions deepened—“When I speak to large groups, my mouth gets dry and I lose my train of thought”—the ratings flipped. Beyond a certain point, what had humanized the leader now made them seem less capable. The “tipping point” varied across people and contexts, but the pattern was clear: a little vulnerability warms; too much erodes perceived competence. Choosing the Right Time A complicating factor for leaders considering self-disclosure is that the line between TMI and TLI isn’t fixed; it shifts constantly with context—who’s listening, what’s at stake, even the mood in the room. What reassures a long-standing team can worry new hires; what bonds peers can unsettle a board. Context isn’t static, and neither is the right amount of candor. So, how do you calibrate when the ground itself keeps moving? One way is to zoom out and ask a deceptively simple question: Why am I thinking of revealing this? Getting clear on purpose—what you hope to achieve—anchors the decision in something stable when everything else feels situational. From there, you can weigh the potential benefits and risks with a little more perspective. I adapted a simple but powerful tool from decision science—the Decisional Balance Matrix—to help aid the decision. Consider a four-quadrant grid that helps you map not just the upsides and downsides of revealing, but also those of not revealing. Most of us can easily list the first three boxes—benefits of revealing, risks of revealing, and benefits of concealing. The fourth box, costs of concealing, often goes blank. That’s where omission bias hides—and where this tool earns its keep. See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals Rather than handing you the “right” answer, the matrix helps you build one tailored to this audience, this moment. By separating action (reveal) from inaction (conceal) and surfacing the hidden toll of staying silent, it turns a fuzzy intuition into a more deliberate choice. Imagine again the newly promoted executive. She worries that admitting she’s still learning will make her seem uncertain, so she keeps it to herself. But when she fills out the full matrix, a different picture emerges: keeping quiet means ongoing stress, fewer feedback loops, and a risk of appearing aloof. A brief, bounded admission—“I’m excited about this role, and I felt the first week’s learning curve, so I’ll be drawing on your expertise as I get up to speed”—signals both confidence and humility. The same framework can clarify when not to share. Suppose a senior leader is frustrated with a peer and feels tempted to vent to the team. The short-term release might feel satisfying, but the matrix exposes the hidden cost: it breeds gossip, erodes professionalism, and signals that private matters aren’t safe with you. What feels “real” in the moment often reads as indiscretion later. By forcing both action and inaction into view, the matrix expands the frame. It reminds us that disclosure decisions aren’t just about whether to speak—they’re about why, for whom, and at what cost to stay silent. To be sure, taking the time to fill out the matrix is not always feasible. When a leader faces a disclosure dilemma in the moment, I recommend that they pause for 10 seconds of reflection, considering a micro-version of the matrix: What are the benefits and risks of saying this—and of not saying it—to this audience, right now? Because most of us under-share, aim to stretch just past your instinct, and only withhold when the evidence for doing so is overwhelming. Revealing Wisely Let’s say you use the matrix and decide to reveal something. How can you best do so? The payoff now rides on delivery—how you frame and phrase the reveal. Keep it real. Delivery matters. Even when the content is identical, the language you use—namely, small connective “glue words”—can make openness sound more candid without revealing more. Research by Celia Moore and colleagues shows that people who come across as authentically candid don’t just disclose more—they sound different. Their speech includes more of the small connective “glue words” that make language feel fluid and spontaneous: what, then, from, just. These subtle cues convey presence and ease rather than performance, signaling warmth without eroding competence. Consider these side-by-side examples. The words convey the same meaning; only the connectors change: Polished: “I approach problems by defining success and reverse-engineering the steps to reach it.” Real: “I usually start by asking what success would look like and then work back from there—that’s just how my brain works.” Polished: “I get nervous before presentations.” Real: “I just get nervous before presentations, you know, when I’m about to start.” The “real” versions sound like thought in motion—slightly messier, more conversational, and therefore more credible. You don’t always have to reveal more to come across as open; sometimes, it’s the way you sound. Pair weakness with a way forward. When you share a weakness, don’t just stop there—show what you’re doing about it. For example, you might say, “I overcommitted last quarter, so I’ve added buffer time this cycle.” This approach lets people see that you’re aware of your limits and actively working to improve, which builds trust and confidence. Invite feedback by going first. Model vulnerability. A leader may ask a subordinate: “I tend to rush decisions—so I’d love your take on what might happen if we waited another week before acting.” Going first normalizes candor and builds reciprocal trust. In field research by Constantinos Coutifaris and Adam Grant, leaders who shared some of their areas of development fostered trust; in turn, their teams responded with more honesty. Sharing first signals that you can handle the truth, which is the best way we know of to get honest feedback from your employees and team members. In this way, vulnerability can even enhance your effectiveness, by unlocking the candid feedback you need to improve. Beware of venting. When we talk about other people, listeners unconsciously associate the traits we describe with us. Psychologists call this “spontaneous trait transference.” Say you call a colleague arrogant or unreliable behind their back (ouch!)—some of that impression ends up sticking to you. Gossip, then, is misplaced vulnerability—exposing hidden negative feelings about others quietly leaks trust by making you look bad. Keep disclosure focused on your work and your process, not on others’ character. Share your positive impressions, too. Revealing your genuine admiration or appreciation for others is a form of disclosure—it lets people see what moves you, what you value, and who you trust. Praise feels good to give and to receive. It uplifts others, reinforces what’s working, and strengthens relationships. Yet many of us hold back kind words because of an unspoken, zero-sum bias: the belief that admiring someone else will diminish us. It won’t—at least, not in most cases. Thanks to spontaneous trait transference, those positive qualities tend to rub off. When you describe someone as insightful, generous, or hard-working, listeners unconsciously associate those traits with you. Of course, there are rare moments when it can feel risky—say, when a promotion, raise, or scarce opportunity is explicitly on the line. But those truly zero-sum situations are less common than we imagine, and even then, generosity often plays better than guardedness. A leader who praises peers with genuine respect tends to look confident, collaborative, and secure—the very qualities people want to promote. . . . Disclosure isn’t a one-shot choice; it’s a campaign. Calibrating between openness and restraint, candor and composure, takes practice—and missteps are part of it. Each conversation offers another rep in the skill of revealing wisely. Have some self-compassion as you do. Every day we face quiet, constant choices about when to open up and when to hold back—and how to do both with intention. My research and others have found that in general leaders have more room to reveal than they think. Most leaders overestimate the cost of small admissions and underestimate the trust they create. In practice, the competence hit is negligible; the warmth gain is outsized. But in the end, the goal isn’t to reveal more—it’s to reveal on purpose, and correctly. That’s how a leader can reliably turn openness into trust.

When to Open Up at Work—and When Not To

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