Keep your intentions clean and your strategy difficult to predict.

There is nothing dishonest about being hard to predict, as long as what you are pursuing would not embarrass you if stated. Clean intentions mean you are not trying to harm anyone; unpredictable strategy means you are not handing other people the ability to work around you. Confusing the two leads either to naivety or to scheming. Held together, they are simply competence with integrity.

Test your plans against a simple question: would you be comfortable if the person affected knew your aim. If yes, you are free to be as quiet as you like about the method. If no, the problem is the aim rather than the secrecy.