Student Question
Hello, Master Chi. I was recently promoted to supervisor, and I’ve been reading quite a few books on management. I’ve come across two schools of thought. The first says a manager should openly share their thoughts and intentions with subordinates — full transparency. The second says you should never let them know your true thinking, keeping subordinates guessing. Which strategy is actually better for a manager?
Master Chi’s Response
Let me give you my view upfront: both positions have merit, and each has its proper emphasis. That’s because the relationship between a manager and their subordinates contains two sides — areas where their interests align, and areas where those interests conflict. The fundamental challenge of management is to minimize the damage from that conflict while amplifying the power of that alignment.
On the first approach — sharing your thinking openly with subordinates:
When a manager plays games and keeps subordinates in the dark, people lose their footing. Suspicion grows on both sides, internal friction escalates, and subordinates have no clear sense of standards or where the lines of right and wrong are drawn. Inevitably, they fall into a mindset of “better safe than sorry” — not striving to succeed, just trying not to fail. To protect themselves, they form factions and cliques, and learn to say one thing to your face while doing another behind your back.
On the second approach — maintaining an air of inscrutability:
When a manager keeps their inner thoughts hidden, subordinates have nothing to read. That uncertainty makes them cautious and conscientious. On the other hand, if subordinates can read you clearly, some will simply work to flatter and ingratiate themselves — playing to your preferences, cutting corners, and deceiving those above them while exploiting those below. Once that dynamic sets in, the hierarchy inverts and chaos follows.
In today’s organizations, the mainstream approach favors strong systems over political maneuvering. Systems mean fairness. Maneuvering, by contrast, means operating in the shadows — placing personal interests above organizational ones.
Here’s the basic judgment we need to make: there are real, objective differences between a manager and their team — in individual capability, access to information, and positional interests. Acknowledging those differences honestly is the starting point for finding the best management approach.
So the real question isn’t whether to reveal your thinking or keep subordinates guessing. The answer to that, once you frame it correctly, becomes self-evident.
Treating this as a binary choice is never the right move. What matters is understanding what specific situation you’re dealing with, and what degree of openness or reserve is appropriate in that moment.
More importantly — and this is the root question — from whose standpoint are you approaching this, and whose interests are you ultimately trying to maximize? That’s what everything else hinges on.