Many years ago, I watched a senior leadership team make a decision that was operationally convenient, but symbolically disastrous.
They booked an offsite at an expensive retreat. The intent was good: get away from the noise, focus on strategy, and make important decisions. The agenda was packed, and the stakes were high because they were staring down a restructure and, quietly, preparing redundancies.
Inside the room, the team talked about clarity, compassion, and “bringing people with us”. Outside the room, a different story was forming.
Word travels fast in organisations. Someone had seen the booking details, while someone else knew the accommodation cost. Consequently, the offsite became a symbol of an out-of-touch leadership team: “They’re off at a luxury retreat while we’re about to lose our jobs.”
What struck me was not malice. It was thoughtlessness, misalignment, and poor judgement.
The leaders thought they were doing serious work in a quiet place. Their teams read it as an unspoken message about priorities, empathy, and fairness. The optics created a narrative, and once the narrative took hold, every subsequent communication was filtered through it.
Leaders are visible, whether you want to be or not. People are constantly taking cues from you: what you do and what you avoid, how you show up, what you wear, where you choose to be, how you spend money, time, and attention, and what you let slide.
None of that is neutral. It all signals what matters to you. And those signals either build trust or quietly drain it.
Why optics matter more than you want them to
Most of us don’t want to be judged on appearances. It feels shallow and unfair (and that’s true). But it’s also human.
We are visual, social creatures who form impressions rapidly, often from “thin slices” of behaviour, and those impressions influence how we interpret everything that follows1. Under time pressure and uncertainty, we lean even more heavily on fast, intuitive judgement.
Then, when we lack full information, we look for clues to fill the gaps and make sense of what is going on. This is sensemaking in action. Remember, your brain is a meaning-seeking machine.
Professor Karl Weick describes organisations as settings where people continually construct reality from partial and ambiguous information2. In the absence of complete context, visible cues become data, behaviour becomes evidence, and silence invites interpretation. Optics are not decoration; they are inputs to the story people tell themselves about what is happening and whether you can be trusted.
Trust, in turn, is not a warm feeling but a judgement about risk: Can I rely on you when it matters?
One influential model of organisational trust published in the Academy of Management Review by Professor Roger Mayer and colleagues argues3 that people assess trustworthiness through three dimensions: ability, benevolence, and integrity. Optics shape perceptions of all three:
- Ability: Do you appear prepared, disciplined, and consistent?
- Benevolence: Do your choices suggest you care about people, not only outcomes?
- Integrity: Do your actions align with what you say you stand for?
Leaders often focus on what they intend to communicate. Your team members and colleagues, however, respond to what they observe.
Optics isn’t image management
If the word “optics” makes you think of PR spin, you’re not alone.
Many leaders hear it as “be more polished” or “control the narrative”. However, that framing is unhelpful because it tends to produce brittle leadership. Your team members and colleagues see that as disingenuous, inauthentic and even unethical.
A better frame is signalling.
In signalling theory, when one party has more information than another, they send observable signals to reduce uncertainty4. The receiver interprets those signals to decide what’s true and safe. In organisations, leaders often have information that others don’t, and that information gap leads team members and colleagues to scan for signals.
Your signals are not only your words. They include:
- Resource signals: What you spend money on. Where you travel. What you prioritise. What you measure. What you reward.
- Identity signals: How you present yourself. How accurately your digital presence matches the reality. The consistency between your stated values and your visible choices.
- Behavioural signals: Tone, pace, responsiveness, attention, emotional control, humility, fairness. The micro moments people use to decide whether you are safe to follow.
For example, a leader can deliver the perfect speech on cost discipline while flying business class to a sporting event amid economic challenges. The words may be coherent, but the optics will still become the headline, because the signal contradicts the story.
And when signals contradict what you say, people will trust the signals.
Mismatch = expectancy violations
People carry expectations about what leaders will do, how they will behave, and what is appropriate given the context. When behaviour violates those expectations, it creates a jolt, triggering scrutiny. People ask: “What else are they not telling us?”. That’s why seemingly small things matter.
Consider the leader whose LinkedIn photo bears little resemblance to the person who walks into the room. It may be an old image, a flattering angle, a professional shoot from a decade ago. The intent might be harmless, yet the impact can be immediate… a flicker of distrust. People think: If this is curated, what else is curated?
Congruence matters. You want alignment between who you are in practice and who you say you are.
When people experience you as coherent, trust becomes easier. When they experience you as inconsistent, they start doing detective work and are more likely to assume negative intent.
The fairness caveat (because this is not equally distributed)
Sadly, optics are not judged evenly.
Bias and stereotyping mean some leaders are penalised more harshly for the same signals. Gender, race, age, disability, and cultural background shape how behaviour is interpreted. That unfairness is real. It doesn’t disappear because we prefer a meritocratic story or because we’ve hung a DEI poster in a room.
But there is a second truth alongside it: leadership is still a visible role, and people still construct meaning from what they can see, whether we like it or not.
The practical question is: Given that people will read signals anyway, how do you lead in a way that is both principled and intentional?
A practical way to lead with optics
The goal is to reduce unhelpful ambiguity and increase value alignment.
Here are six moves that work because they are practical and grounded in congruence.
1) Do a “signal audit” before big moments
Before a restructure, a strategic shift, or any high-emotion announcement, audit the signals you are sending. Ask yourself:
- What will people observe about where you are meeting and why?
- What will they notice about timing, travel, and spending?
- Who is in the room, and who is not?
- What are you asking of others, and are you living under the same constraints?
This is not image management. It is smart risk discipline: don’t give people reasons to doubt you.
2) Treat “symbolic choices” as real choices
Some decisions are operational, while others are symbolic.
For example, the offsite venue is symbolic, as is the executive carpark; who you call first after a mistake; how you spend company resources; and how you celebrate success. Symbolic choices shape culture because they demonstrate to those around you what matters.
You want to choose symbols that communicate respect, benevolence and integrity.
3) Update your “public self” so it matches your real self
Your digital footprint is a leadership signal. Outdated photos, exaggerated titles, and performative posting create small cracks in credibility.
A simple rule: make sure your LinkedIn presence is recognisably you, now. Not you at 32, pre-pandemic, with a different haircut and a different life. Keep it current and credible, so people are not distracted by the mismatch. That way, they spend less time recalibrating and more time listening to what you’re saying.
4) Make your values observable
Values that exist only on posters don’t survive the day-to-day pressures of the working world.
Consider this question: If someone were to watch your calendar for a week, what would they conclude you value?
If the answer does not match your stated principles, you have work to do.
One way to anchor this is to create explicit “I do / I don’t” commitments. For example:
- I do front up early when decisions will affect people.
- I don’t outsource hard conversations to email or delegate to someone else.
- I do keep spending disciplined when I am asking others to do the same.
- I don’t treat exceptions as my entitlement.
This reduces the gap between what you believe and what people experience about your leadership.
5) Explain decisions in a way that closes the story gap
When your team members and colleagues don’t have context, they invent it. This is where leaders inadvertently create chaos: they share a decision without the supporting logic.
You don’t need to disclose everything. You do need to explain enough that the people around you don’t fill the gap with rumour, suspicion and an unhelpful story.
A clear rationale supports perceptions of fairness and competence and reduces the temptation for people to interpret optics in the worst possible light.
6) Build feedback loops for how you land, not just what you mean
Your intent is private, while your impact is public.
It can be helpful to create ways to test how your signals land. For example, you can check in with trusted colleagues, “What story could someone create about this choice?”
Also, encourage people to surface misalignments early by making it normal to challenge the optics of decision-making. Having someone say to you, “This might land badly, even if it is operationally sound”, gives you the chance to stop, reflect and then course-correct if needed.
The question that keeps you honest
Optics are not the enemy; unexamined optics that become damaging signals are.
A helpful question to reflect on: If someone who does not know your intent watched what you did this week, what would they conclude about what you stand for, and is that the message you want to send?
Leadership always leaves a trail of signs. The crucial consideration is whether the trail is accidental or aligned.
For insight on how communication itself sends signals that shape perception and influence, see Is Your Communication All About You?.
Getting you ready for tomorrow, today®
Award-winning author and global workplace expert, Dr Michelle Gibbings, helps leaders, teams and organisations unlock strategic influence to accelerate progress.
References
- Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1992). Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111(2), 256–274. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.111.2.256
- Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Sage Publications. https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/2195233
- Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734. https://www.jstor.org/stable/258792?utm
- Connelly, B. L., Certo, S. T., Ireland, R. D., & Reutzel, C. R. (2011). Signaling theory: A review and assessment. Journal of Management, 37(1), 39–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206310388419