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Filtered feedback is one of the least visible shifts that comes with authority. The higher you go, the wider the gap between what you hear and what is unfolding around you.
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The Feedback You Stop Getting When You Get SuccessfulThere was a time when people told you what they thought. Not what they thought you wanted to hear. What they thought. Your mentors were direct. Your peers pushed back without thinking twice. Your clients gave it to you straight. The information was uncomfortable at times, but you could trust it. And because you could trust it, you grew. That changes once you hold the authority. The people around you start to manage up. Not with intent. Authority tends to shift what people are willing to bring to you. They begin editing what they bring to you. Adjusting the weight of it. Choosing which version of a problem to present. And the picture you start receiving of yourself and your organisation becomes more curated, more affirming, and further from what is happening. You may not have noticed when it started. Most leaders do not. Because it does not feel like something has shifted. It feels like things are going well.
The Filtered Feedback You Do Not Feel BuildingIt is gradual. You hear what people think you want to hear. Challenges lose their edges before they reach you. Difficult discussions happen about you rather than with you. And the business you think you are running is not the one people inside it are living. The information that would have added dimension, the blind spots, the friction, the things that have gone unsaid, stops surfacing. Not because people are withholding. Because the environment has learned to prioritise stability over transparency. And the way you are leading starts to drift without you feeling it move. The filtering serves a function too. It protects your focus. It reduces noise. It allows you to operate without being pulled in every direction. It is not accidental. It is the system doing what systems do around authority. And it has a cost. Both are true at the same time.
The Filtered Feedback That Looks Like SuccessYou are surrounded by people. But the information you need to lead with full clarity is reaching you less and less. And the loneliness of that is hard to put words to, because from the outside it looks like you have a full organisation, a strong culture, and a business that is working. The way people experience you and the way you see yourself start to pull apart. And because it is not being pointed out, you have no way of seeing it from where you are. This is where the Success Persona takes over. You keep being the version of yourself that the environment rewards. And it continues without anything to interrupt it. Not because you are unwilling to look at it. Because the filtered feedback that would have shown you a fuller picture of yourself is no longer reaching you. If that resonates, stay with it for a moment.
The Leaders Who Choose What Reaches ThemThe leaders I work with who navigate this well did not push through it. They did something that required more from them, not less. They started choosing what reaches them rather than letting the environment choose for them. A trusted peer who is not invested in agreeing with them. A coach who is outside the business and sees what the people inside it cannot. And underneath that, they shifted the question they ask. Not what is going well. But what has gone unsaid around them. That question shifts things. It brings forward what the leader already felt but could not get anyone to say back to them. The filtered feedback did not disappear because you stopped being worth telling the truth to. It disappeared because the system stopped delivering it.
The Full PictureWhen you start choosing what reaches you, the full picture starts to form. The parts that affirm and the parts that stretch you. The parts that stabilise and the parts that disrupt. Decisions get clearer because they are based on a fuller picture. Relationships shift because the performance becomes less necessary. And the leadership that emerges is not more exposed. It carries more depth. The question is not whether filtered feedback exists at your level. It does. And it serves a purpose. The question is whether you are choosing what reaches you, or whether the environment has been making that choice on your behalf.
If the feedback reaching you is not what it used to be, that is worth sitting with. Book a 15-minute Strategy Call and explore what shifts when you start choosing what reaches you rather than having the environment choose for you.
To your brilliance, Tanya Cross Industry Leader Coach & The Coaches’ Coach BAppSoSc (Counselling) |
