The Power Line: How Authority Can Distort the Truth

When we talk with our clients' direct reports, there's a common theme we see every time: they share information with us that they would never share with their boss.

It happens in nearly every organization we work with. An employee will sit across from us and, within minutes, tell us something true and important, something real about how they are actually doing or what is actually happening on their team. Then, almost in the same breath, they will say some version of, "But please don't tell my boss I said that."

We call this barrier The Power Line: the place where authority distorts honest communication.

Whenever you have two people with different levels of authority, this barrier will always exist. It is not a flaw in a particular company or a particular relationship. It is simply what happens whenever power is unevenly distributed between two people.

Employees withhold information from the people above them for a number of reasons. There is a fear of punishment or job loss. A fear of being judged. A concern about risking a promotion or a bonus. A need to please the boss. And, underneath much of it, a simple unwillingness to be seen as a failure. None of these reasons make an employee dishonest. They make an employee human, responding rationally to the risk that comes with speaking freely to someone who holds power over their livelihood.

This barrier doesn't only exist because employees withhold information. It also exists because leaders aren't fully transparent with their subordinates.

There may be a distrust of the team present. A fear of losing authority or receiving backlash if the truth comes out. Sometimes there is a pride that makes a leader believe they are above explanation, that their decisions don't require context or justification. And there is the constant pressure to make everyone believe that everything is under control, even when it isn't.

The Power Line, in other words, runs in both directions. Employees hide the truth from leaders, and leaders hide the truth from employees, and both are protecting themselves from the same discomfort: the vulnerability that comes with being fully known by someone who has power over you, or someone you have power over.

This power line isn't only present in business. It also shows up in the family.

Oftentimes, kids will tell each other, or even their mom, things that they would not tell their dad, simply because of the authority the father holds in the home. The dynamic is the same one at play in a boardroom: wherever authority exists, some information will quietly reroute around it.

No leader, and no father, can erase this power line. When there is authority, there is natural separation. That much cannot be undone.

But every leader can choose how far they reach across this line to connect with their team, employees, or their kids. The line cannot be erased, but it can be crossed, again and again, through the small, consistent choices a leader makes to invite honesty instead of guarding against it.

At Boaz Strategic, we give leaders and their teams someone safe to tell the truth to, and help facilitate transparent communication in the workplace and in the family.

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