Beyond Transparency: Why narrative and listening determine trust when certainty isn’t possible

I have spent more than 15 years leading communications, much of it in industrial and manufacturing businesses — sectors where change is constant and rarely gentle. For the past few years, I have led communications through one of the most demanding periods of my career: prolonged financial uncertainty, and everything that comes with it. This article is drawn from that experience.

I used to believe that being honest and transparent during a company crisis was enough to sustain employee trust and morale.

In practice, I learned it was not.

In many organisations, transparency is treated as synonymous with trust-building: if leaders share information openly and frequently, trust will follow. However, during periods of profound uncertainty, stakeholders are not only seeking information. They are seeking meaning.

When the future is unclear, facts alone do not resolve anxiety. They satisfy the rational need for updates — but not the deeper questions: What does this mean for us? Is there still a future here?

That is why transparency is necessary, but not enough.

In my experience, trust during uncertainty is sustained not by information alone, but by the combination of three things: honesty, narrative leadership and organisational listening.

Transparency provides facts. Narrative provides meaning. Listening provides legitimacy.

The transparency paradox

Across my career, in more than one organisation facing financial instability, I have seen the same pattern. Employees receive regular updates. Local leadership teams meet with trade unions and employee representatives, share what little they know, and repeat a message familiar to many communicators: there are no changes yet, but we will let you know as soon as we know more.

On paper, this is transparency. In practice, it produces mixed results.

Time and again, trust in local leaders strengthens — not because they have answers, but because they are honest about not having them. They do not pretend to know more than they do. They do not over-promise. They meet people face to face, acknowledge uncertainty and stay visible.

By contrast, communication from more distant senior leadership is often seen as overly polished, over-reassuring and detached from the reality employees are living through — which breeds frustration and erodes trust. The words are more carefully managed but feel less credible.

This helps explain why transparency can fail despite the best of intentions. In prolonged uncertainty and change, employees are not processing communication casually. They are scrutinising it against what they see, hear and experience every day.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), developed by Petty and Cacioppo, shows that high personal stakes trigger central processing — people test message logic against lived reality, not just tone or format.[i] That is why detached or over-managed messaging can quickly lose credibility: the issue is no longer whether leaders are communicating, but whether what they are saying stands up to lived reality.

Why information is not enough

Uncertainty is not just an information gap. It is a meaning gap.

When people cannot fully understand what is happening, they do not passively wait for the next corporate update. They interpret and speculate. They make sense of events through conversations, experience and emotion. In other words, communication during uncertainty is not simply about message transmission. It is about meaning making.

Many organisations fall short at exactly this point. They treat communication as a delivery mechanism rather than a sensemaking process. The result is predictable: more updates, but no reduction in anxiety.

That is especially true in long-running, unresolved situations. Acute crises often demand immediate instruction and clarity. Prolonged organisational uncertainty is different. When there is no definitive answer yet, leaders cannot rely on facts alone to sustain confidence. They have to help people interpret what is happening.

This is where sensemaking becomes strategically important. Karl Weick’s work suggests that in uncertainty people do not simply wait for the organisation’s “official version”; they construct meaning collectively through informal conversations, memory, observation and comparison.[ii] If leadership does not provide a coherent interpretation, others will fill that gap through rumour, worst-case assumptions or fragments of incomplete information. Narrative leadership matters because it offers a frame through which uncertainty can be understood.

The role of narrative leadership

Narrative leadership is not decorative corporate storytelling. It is the strategic ability to frame events within a coherent story about identity, purpose and future direction. It helps people understand not just what is happening, but why it matters and how they relate to it.

Stephen Denning argues that leaders use different types of stories to spark action, communicate identity and transmit values.[iii] In practice, this matters most when organisations are under pressure. During uncertainty, people do not simply want more numbers about restructuring or production levels. They want a believable story about what happens next.

In my experience, the turning point in situations like this comes when communication shifts from isolated updates to a more coherent narrative. Faced with uncertainty and no concrete answers, the most effective response I have seen is to draw deliberately on an organisation’s history and identity. People are reminded why they joined, what they value about their work and colleagues, and how the business has weathered difficult periods before. Long-serving colleagues sharing stories of past challenges and recovery can reinforce continuity at a time when little else feels certain.

A long and proud history stops being heritage content and becomes a source of continuity and legitimacy.

Denning’s idea of the springboard story — a practical way of helping people imagine change — is especially useful here, because it creates a credible pathway from crisis to recovery. Paul Smith’s CAR framework gives communicators a simple structure: Context (who we are), Action (what we are facing and doing), Result (future direction). That is far more powerful than presenting uncertainty as a list of process steps.[iv]

The effect can be tangible. Where this works, even the hardest news lands differently: the end of prolonged ambiguity can be easier to bear than the uncertainty that preceded it, and the narrative shifts from inevitable decline towards the possibility of renewal.

That shift matters. People can endure difficult realities more than leaders sometimes think. What they struggle with most is incoherence — the absence of a believable thread connecting past, present and future.

However, this also raises an important ethical boundary. Narrative can build trust, but it can also become manipulative if used to soften or obscure reality. In periods of organisational distress, communicators have a responsibility to ensure that stories of resilience or renewal do not drift into false reassurance. The point is not to replace hard facts with hopeful framing, but to connect honesty with a credible sense of direction. Narrative is most powerful when it helps people face reality with clarity, rather than escape it.

Listening as the missing capability

However, narrative alone is not enough. A significant part of rebuilding trust comes not from what leaders say, but from how well they listen.

Jim Macnamara’s work on the organisational ‘listening deficit’ warns that organisations tend to over-invest in speaking and under-invest in listening.[v] In my experience, his seven canons of listening — recognition, acknowledgement, attention, interpreting, understanding, consideration and response — offer a practical way to test whether listening is genuinely happening or merely assumed.

In practice, that means recognising trade unions, employee representatives and colleagues as legitimate voices. It means acknowledging concerns in written and face-to-face updates, rather than brushing them aside. And it requires taking rumours and media speculation seriously, because in environments shaped by repeated upheaval, scepticism is not irrational; it is a reasonable reading of experience.

Most importantly, it means responding in ways employees can see. That does not always involve granting what people want. But it does involve showing that what has been heard is being considered. Where I have seen this done well, employee feedback has gone on to influence real decisions — on training, on communication rhythms, and in some cases on wider operational choices. Communication becomes less of a broadcast exercise and more of a relationship.

More than that, listening changes the nature of communication itself. Without it, transparency remains transactional: leaders disclose information and stakeholders react. With it, communication becomes relational. Employees are not simply told what is happening; they are recognised as participants whose interpretations and concerns matter.

That shift is particularly important in change communication, where trust depends not only on message clarity, but on whether people feel they have been taken seriously within the process.

Why this matters in persuasion and issues management

ELM and Aristotle’s ethos-pathos-logos help explain why this approach works.[vi] Transparency provides logos through facts and process. Narrative engages pathos through emotion and identity. Listening strengthens ethos by demonstrating credibility and respect.

ELM suggests that high-stakes uncertainty triggers central processing, meaning employees test communication against lived experience rather than accepting it at face value.

Griffin’s issues lifecycle framework helps explain why situations like this are often not acute crises, but prolonged issue phases.[vii] Unresolved concerns — uncertainty, rumour, weak trust — quietly become reputational threats. Treating it as a messaging problem misses the point: stakeholders test organisational credibility, not just information quality.

Taken together, these theories show that trust is not a messaging problem — it is a perception, processing and credibility problem.

Lessons from organisations in transition

This pattern is not unique, or even unusual. Insolvencies, restructurings and prolonged sale processes have become a familiar feature of organisational life across many sectors, not just one. Whatever the context, the same lesson recurs: where employees and their representatives are engaged visibly and early during a transition, organisations are more likely to stay stable; where engagement is perceived as inadequate, the communication consequences and the organisational consequences become inseparable.

In moments like these, communication is not a parallel workstream running alongside operational decision-making. It is part of how stakeholders judge whether an organisation is credible and worth believing in. In that sense, communication does not merely report the future; it influences whether people believe a future is still possible.

The pattern — uncertainty, sensemaking and stakeholder scrutiny — holds across all high-change environments, whatever the industry.

Practical implications for communication leaders

For communication leaders advising organisations through uncertainty, four implications stand out.

First, move beyond information to meaning. Facts matter, but they must be framed within a coherent narrative that helps people understand what is happening and why.

Second, treat listening as infrastructure, not sentiment. If there are no clear mechanisms to recognise, acknowledge and respond to concerns, trust will remain fragile no matter how transparent the updates appear.

Third, anchor communication in identity and continuity. In the absence of certainty, people look for what remains true: who we are, what we stand for, and what kind of future is still possible.

Fourth, empower credible internal voices — particularly those whose legitimacy comes from lived experience rather than hierarchy. Time and again, long-serving colleagues and employee advocates carry more persuasive power than formal executive messaging. Their stories give the organisational narrative credibility precisely because they are rooted in lived experience.

What this means for the PR/IC profession

Communication leaders must position themselves as narrative strategists and listening architects, not just message managers. Our role is to help organisations test narratives against stakeholder reality (ELM), operationalise listening systematically (Macnamara), and anticipate issue escalation (Griffin). These are core strategic capabilities that differentiate senior practitioners.

References

[i] Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1986) Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change. New York: Springer.

[ii] Weick, K.E. (1995) Sensemaking in Organisations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[iii] Denning, S. (2005) The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

[iv] Smith, P. (2012) Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire. New York: AMACOM.

[v] Macnamara, J. (2016) Organizational Listening: The Missing Essential in Public Communication. New York: Peter Lang.

[vi] Aristotle. Rhetoric. Various editions.

[vii] Griffin, A. (2014) Crisis, Issues and Reputation Management. London: Kogan Page.

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Tetiana’s perspective on studying for the CIPR Professional PR Diploma 

Tetiana prepared this article for a CIPR Professional Diploma assignment while studying with PR Academy.

What do you see as the key benefits of studying the CIPR Professional PR Diploma?

After more than 15 years in the profession, I went back to study — not because I needed another qualification, but because I wanted to be better at what I do. Over the years I had learned to make good decisions, but I couldn’t always explain why they were the right ones, beyond experience and instinct. I wanted more rigour, more structure, and more confidence that what I believed was supported by evidence rather than pattern recognition built up over time.

That, for me, has been the real benefit. The biggest change isn’t that I’ve learned more communication theory — it’s that I’ve learned to think differently. I used to know when something felt right; now I can show why. The Diploma has taken me from instinct to judgement: from relying on experience alone to connecting practice with evidence, testing my own assumptions, and advising with greater confidence, even when there are no certain answers.

It has also changed how I’m perceived and how I contribute. Being able to ground my recommendations in theory and evidence has made me a more credible voice in senior conversations — which matters enormously when you’re advising leaders through uncertainty.

What has been your favourite part of the course so far?

Honestly, my favourite parts were also the most demanding — the ones that forced me to reflect on my own practice. It would have been easy to treat the assignments as academic exercises, but I chose to ground them in what I was actually living through at work: a business facing prolonged uncertainty, liquidation and a sale process.

Writing about it made me stop and properly examine what had worked, what had not, and why. That was uncomfortable at times, but it was where the real learning happened. Discovering theory that gave a name to things I had previously understood only intuitively, such as Macnamara’s work on organisational listening, was genuinely satisfying. That link between my practice and Macnamara’s research became the heart of my thought leadership article — and the feedback meant a great deal: my assessor wrote that Professor Macnamara himself would welcome hearing about my experience and insights. I read that line more than once.

Have you been able to apply any of the learning, and if so, how?

Constantly — the course and my day job have run in parallel, so the learning went straight into practice. The clearest example is listening. Macnamara’s idea of the “listening deficit” made me realise that inviting people to speak isn’t the same as genuinely responding to them, and that changed how I approached engagement during a period of real uncertainty. I’ve also become more deliberate about narrative — using an organisation’s history and identity to give people a sense of continuity when the future is uncertain. The theory didn’t replace my experience; it sharpened it, and made me more confident advising leadership on decisions that go well beyond messaging.

About the CIPR Professional PR Diploma 

The PR Diploma is a Master’s level qualification for more experienced practitioners who are looking to underpin what they do with theory and contemporary models.  Topics include PR strategy and planning, content management, media and engagement, measurement and evaluation, and PR leadership and process improvement. 

You have two years to complete it, but with PR Academy you set your own study pace, and many students finish in about ten months. 

Read our Complete Guide to CIPR Qualifications