Surrounded By Yes People? Fix Your Feedback Loop.

If you’re a leader of any sort, then the odds are you’re not hearing the truth. At least, not all of it. Not often enough. And not soon enough. Because the moment you become the boss, people start editing and curating what they say to you and how they say it. They may nod a little quicker, smile a little more often, be a little faster to agree with you—and a little more careful about not.

Even if you wield it lightly, the power and authority you hold make people more cautious around you, more agreeable with you, and less likely to challenge your thinking or tell you uncomfortable truths. Not because they’re liars, but because they’re human. And either through respect or self-preservation, they don’t want to upset or disappoint you. Yet as good as this can feel, for you—as a leader—it can be toxic, and nothing short of poisonous for your decision-making.

The risk here is twofold.

First, it can create blind spots. What makes this curated version of reality you are given so dangerous is that it can be impossible to tell when it is happening. Spotting when someone is editing their words or just not saying something is tough. Yet, it will almost certainly already be happening to you to some extent, and you will almost certainly underestimate just how often it happens. And that inevitably means that you will have gaps in your knowledge and flaws in your reasoning, which you don’t know you have, but that can fundamentally undermine your judgement.

Second, it can reduce your openness. The lack of genuine feedback and challenge can start to feel like validation. The confidence that creates in you can undoubtedly be useful, too. But over time, it tends to turn into overconfidence. And as that happens, leaders become more likely to rely on their experience than evidence and tend to think they are correct more often than they really are. Which is why leaders who feel more powerful tend to listen to fewer people and learn less from failure. Because, propped up by overconfidence, they start to interpret feedback through the lens of what they already believe. If it fits their worldview, it’s smart; if it doesn’t, it’s dismissed. In other words, the issue is not just that people become less open with you, but that the more senior you become, the less likely you are to be open to them, as well.

Nik Kinley's latest book is The Power Trap. 

Together, these two risks are part of what I call “The Power Trap.” An intoxicating and toxic loop where a lack of challenge feels like validation, validation feeds overconfidence, and overconfidence reduces openness. Add to that our natural human biases—filter bias (preferring familiar voices) and confirmation bias (prioritizing agreeable facts)—and we can all too easily end up stuck in self-made echo chambers. We stop hearing dissent. We stop seeking it. And eventually, we stop recognizing what it sounds like.

To be clear, this is nothing personal—it’s just a natural drift in behavior that happens to almost all leaders. Just part of the challenge of being the boss. It does, however, appear to be getting worse. For starters, increasing job insecurity and higher levels of employee stress and tiredness (compared to 25 years ago) make people more cautious about risking speaking up. Social media and cancel culture have heightened people’s awareness of the need to not say the wrong thing. And the recent behavior of high-profile political and business leaders, openly encouraging ingratiation and publicly attacking those who disagree with them, is likewise changing people’s unconscious ideas and expectations about how they should behave.

So, what can you do? Evidence suggests that three key things in particular can help.

Break Your Information Bubble. An excellent starting point is to assume you are in an information bubble (because you probably are) and then use your team to break it. Ask questions. Lots and lots of questions. Seek out different views and opinions as if they are essential nourishment. Because for you, as a leader, they are. For many years now, I have tried to make a discipline of watching a news channel that approaches things from the opposite end of the political spectrum to me. It really does take discipline, too, because I find it really irritating. But I do have a better understanding of how others think as a result.

Actively Discourage Ingratiation. An excellent rule of thumb, for life as much as work, is to treat ingratiation like poison. Do nothing to encourage or countenance it. A neutral response or making a point of ignoring it often works best. Other times, you can say something like, “I appreciate your support, but I’d really like to hear your honest thoughts—what do you really think?” This is especially important if someone is ingratiating in front of other people. Because if the people around you perceive you as enjoying ingratiation, then more of them will probably start behaving that way. And that can be toxic, because ingratiation creates distance, feeds overconfidence, and reduces openness.

Talk About Uncertainties. The world is rarely black-and-white. Yet, as leaders, we’re often expected to sound certain. Unfortunately, every time we do this, we imply that there are right answers and wrong answers, and when we do this, it can evoke anxiety in people that they’ll say the wrong thing. So, as much as possible, try to use qualifiers. Rather than saying, “It is like this,” try saying, “The most likely thing is this.” And as a build on this, where appropriate, ask people to give you confidence levels (e.g., “I’m about 80 percent sure that…”) and explain where the uncertainty comes from. Because in doing this, you’ll make it easier for people to raise concerns, as they can position what they say as a small percentage risk rather than an outright disagreement with you.

These are not a complete solution, but they are a good place to start. Tools you can use to cut through the toxic feedback loop that is rarely mentioned but nonetheless comes gift-wrapped with your leadership role. Because it is a grim reality that the higher you rise, the less truth you’re told. And what you don’t know will hurt you. And if you don’t believe that, ask someone who disagrees. If you can find one.

About The Author

Nik Kinley is a leadership consultant, assessor, and coach based in London, with over 35 years of experience working with some of the world’s largest companies. As an award-winning author, he has written eight books, the most recent of which is The Power Trap: How Leadership Changes People and What To Do About It.