Information As Inspiration: A Truth For Professional Development

This capstone poses a very important set of basic organizational questions centered on why we do or do not openly share information when we are at work. Many lenses are used to view this topic: a leadership or followership perspective, information dissemination techniques, the accuracy and timeliness of those techniques, psychological deterrents to effective communication such as cognitive biases, and professional development’s direct correlation to the amount of information provided to an employee. This document begins with a pair of professional stories depicting these workplace dynamics and then moves into a research literature review, which explores how the availability of information in and of the workplace affects employees’ professional performance and development. More specifically, leaders’ dissemination or withholding of information can also greatly influence the workplace. The research question becomes, what impact does leader dissemination of accurate and timely information have on follower effectiveness? The document interprets the literature and presents a series of short interviews with a small group of participants on the topic. The interviews validate or, at the very least, strongly suggest that the research question would be worth pursuing with a larger study.