The Solitude: The Hidden Loneliness of Leadership (3)

Building further on the theme of loneliness in leadership - this article explores some of the challenges of information asymmetry and navigating the complexity of interactions. Two of them are about input signals and one is about (un)Intended consequence of opinions shared.

See previous articles Article 1: Context and Article 2: Paradoxes here.

Navigating Hidden Agendas: The Complexity of Interactions

Another factor contributing to leadership loneliness is the complex nature of interactions at the top. People approaching leaders often have underlying motives due to the leader's decision-making power.

This creates a dual nature in many interactions:

1. Wariness of the leader's authority: People may be cautious in their communications, filtering what they say to avoid potential negative consequences.
2. Desire to leverage the leader's influence: Interactions may be colored by individuals' attempts to gain favor or influence decisions.

This dynamic can make it difficult for leaders to form genuine connections or to trust the information they receive. The constant need to decipher hidden agendas can be mentally taxing and emotionally isolating.

As Philip W. mentioned in the comments to the previous article, there are mechanisms (e.g. building leadership communities inside organisations) to support, but as you get towards the singular CxO levels the agenda navigation gets more complex.

A quick read on this could include "The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture," Boris Groysberg and colleagues discuss how organizational culture affects interactions and decision-making processes.

They emphasise the importance of understanding these underlying dynamics to navigate them effectively. This can be a challenge for a leader who is new into the organisation and still to understand and get embedded with / understand the culture in the organisation.

The Filtered Reality: Challenges in Obtaining Transparent Information

One of the most significant challenges leaders face is obtaining a clear, unbiased picture of organizational realities. Information often reaches leaders after passing through multiple filters, each layer potentially adding its own bias or agenda to how the information is presented (or not).

This filtered reality can leave leaders feeling disconnected from the true state of their organization. It becomes challenging to make informed decisions when the information received is incomplete or skewed. Moreover, encouraging honest, unfiltered feedback can be difficult when team members are aware of the potential repercussions of delivering bad news or contradicting the leader's viewpoint.

Sadly i have seen many a stellar organisation fall victim to the challenge of executives either not wanting to hear bad news or not wanting to be the bearer of news that may (or may not) be accepted by a leader.

Having structured dashboards, ideally as automated as possible, collating information that is as reflective of the ground reality is one way to overcome the filtered reality. It is one way to avoid the presentational and selective biases that creep in either consciously or unconsciously as information gets filtered up to leaders. I often refer to the information that tells you the proactive "pulse" of an organisations performance as the "organisational telemetry".

But what if the organisation does not (yet) have the ability to have organisational telemetry that can be trusted. Is there no way to solve this? One answer is provided by an interesting article I read over the summer.

Laura Huang's HBR article "Can You Really Trust Your Gut?" examines the role of intuition in leadership and the importance of diverse information sources - both quantitative and qualitative through dialogue and instinct.

A conclusion could be that leaders must actively seek out varied perspectives to counteract the natural tendency for information to become filtered as it moves up the organizational hierarchy.

The Signal Amplification Dilemma: When Open Questions Become Directives

So a natural conclusion for leaders could be to hold decisions close to the chest until they have both data and intuition aligned on a way forward. Until such time the status quo pervades. Is that fine? Well there could be (unintended) signal amplification even when there are no decisions or decisions have been made but not yet communicated.

Leaders often find that their words carry more weight than intended. Even casual inquiries or open-ended questions can be interpreted as signals or directives by their teams. This phenomenon, which we might call the "signal amplification dilemma," can have unintended consequences and further isolate leaders.

For example, a leader who casually mentions interest in a new technology might return to find their team has already begun implementing it, misinterpreting the leader's curiosity as a directive. This over-interpretation can make leaders hesitant to think aloud or explore ideas openly, further contributing to their sense of isolation. That can lead to inherent biases that needs to be avoided.

John S. Hammond et al discuss cognitive biases in their HBR article "The Hidden Traps in Decision Making."

Having a mechanism to have multiple inputs to avoid biases acts many a time counter to the signal amplification of any discussions led by or involving the leader. A hobsons choice if there was one.

Next (most likely final) article on this theme will explore what might be ideas to handle the dilemmas and challenges posed in the three posts to date.