Tell the truth early (even when it’s uncomfortable)

Bad news ages poorly.

I've learned this the hard way (and imagine you have, too).

Earlier in my career, I was prepping for an all-day offsite with many moving parts - catering, room reservations, handouts, your standard full-day training. But when we got to the training site, the room was all wrong. Not just this-isn't-how-we-imagined-it wrong, but we-won't-all-fit-in-this-room wrong. I asked my team what happened, and the one who had booked the site told me she thought this might be a problem, but she figured they'd have another room we could use if need be.

But they didn't. And we were stuck with 25 people in a room meant for 10.

We scrambled to find another room, another site, another day, another planet for me to move to before the leadership team arrived, but there was nothing to be done.

That’s when I told my team: bad news doesn’t disappear when you delay it - it compounds.

Share concerns before they become crises

My team member wasn't withholding the challenges of this room because she was dishonest. She was trying to be helpful. Or competent. Or optimistic. Or low-maintenance. Or a super-star. Or whatever.

But silence has a cost.

When you raise concerns early, you give people options and signal that you’re paying attention not just to outcomes, but to reality. Waiting until something breaks removes choice and often puts others in a position they didn’t consent to (which usually costs money, too).

Early truth sounds like:

• “I’m noticing a risk I think we should look at.”

• “This isn’t a problem yet, but I don’t want it to become one.”

• “Here’s what I’m seeing, even though I’m not sure what it means yet.”

I've talked about this before as it relates to giving corrective feedback. It's important to bring something up before it becomes a crisis,

so people have as many options to move forward as possible.

Admit mistakes without excessive justification

When my team finally acknowledged their role in the training room failure, they did something interesting (and frustrating) - they overexplained and justified their decision.

What they didn’t realize was that the justifications diluted their accountability and eroded my trust. I get that they wanted to save money and book a room using a time-restricted coupon. I even appreciate that! But booking the wrong room in the end cost us money. And blaming a mistake on anything, rather than owning it, costs trust.

Trust isn’t built by proving you had good reasons. It’s built by clearly owning your impact. A simple, grounded admission - "I should have mentioned this sooner” - creates far more credibility than a five-minute explanation of why you didn’t.

Early honesty builds credibility - even when the message is hard

That training didn’t go perfectly. But it taught us all something, and my team started raising concerns earlier and letting me know bad news as soon as it happened. We instituted a new practice of stating the issue, explaining what's being done, and staying in touch. It's not enough to say there's a problem coming - it's important to share what you're doing (or planning to do) about it so the pressure for solving the problem doesn't sit solely on the shoulders of the person who gave you the task in the first place.

Think about the people you work with - isn't it more comfortable and reliable to work with someone who will raise issues before they become colossal? Honesty - especially uncomfortable honesty - signals respect. It tells people you trust them with reality. And most people would rather work with the truth than be protected from it.

Hard truth doesn’t get easier with time. It gets heavier.

And saying it early (and clearly) is one of the best ways I know to build trust that lasts.