Greg Stevenson on why people stop giving leaders honest feedback once they reach the top. As you rise, teams start managing up with polished versions of reality. The best leaders fight this by deliberately building relationships where they still hear the unvarnished truth.
Nobody warns you that the top job is lonely. The moment you become the leader, the honest feedback quietly dries up. People start managing up. They tell you a slightly edited version of the truth, because now you are the one who decides their future. And the higher you climb, the further you drift from what is really happening on the ground. The best leaders I know do one deliberate thing about this. They build a relationship where they still get told the truth completely unedited, because the day everyone agrees with you is the day you stopped leading and started being managed.
