As everyone knows, Norway was struck to a homegrown terrorist this summer. The damage and death he managed to cause, seemingly alone, is beyond belief. The Norwegian summer idyll was shaken to its roots.

In the weeks since this tragedy the news papers have been in overdrive, sometimes investigating and other times sensationalizing the events of 22 July. I’ve been struck by the lack of openness coming from the government throughout this process – most specifically the police and secret police.

This would be possible to debate if the statements made by the leaders of these organizations held true over time. That’s not what’s happened. Initial claims that everything was done as it should have been done have been disproven over and over again.

Just days ago the newspapers reported that the police had never used their helicopters as sharpshooter platforms. Today the papers report multiple examples of them being used for exactly that.

I’m not writing this post to criticize the police or talk about helicopters. I have a tremendous amount of empathy for what many individuals must be going through as they process the things they did and saw on that horrible day in July.

What I’m writing about is Leadership and vulnerability and truth. In today’s day and age, the truth often comes out and the press & public jump on situations that smell fishy or not authentic. This is exactly what has happened here. Leaders who are unable to admit mistakes may have been made in the heat of the moment during the course of an event no one could have imagined are like divers throwing chum in the water around them. The sharks will come.

I hope that leaders in the police and elsewhere will learn from this experience and choose to be more authentic and maybe even more vulnerable in the future. That might make things easier on all of us.