Greg Stevenson explains why honest feedback disappears as you climb the ladder. It's not that people lie, but that truth becomes costly for subordinates, so they soften bad news and save real concerns for hallway conversations. Leaders end up making major decisions on filtered information.
The higher you climb, the less truth reaches you. And nobody warns you it is happening. It's not that people start lying. It is just honesty starts costing them something. So the hard news gets softened before it reaches you, and the concern gets raised in the corridor instead of actually in the room. You end up making the biggest calls of your career on the most filtered information you have ever had. If you wait for the truth to find you, it will not. You have to go and build the conditions for it. Subscribe if you lead at this level. This is a conversation most leadership content avoids.
