A colleague came to me with a problem in a recent discussion. He was calm in the way he approached it, measured tone, steady pace, neutral expression. Not resistant, not emotional, simply thoughtful, and clearly intending to improve a decision I had made.
I responded in the moment, explaining the reasoning behind my decision. It felt clear to me, but it did not fully land with him in the way I expected.
The conversation moved on shortly after.
It was a routine interaction, until I found myself returning to it hours later. Not the decision itself, but the moment of exchange. I started to reflect on how easy it would feel for him to challenge me again in the future. I want challenge to feel easy in those moments. But I was aware that because I had not shifted my position, there is always a risk that a moment like that subtly affects whether someone feels it is worth doing so again.
That question lingered, not what was said, but what it might mean for what is said next time.
Power as a Filter
I frequently return to Joe Kirby’s blog on upward feedback and the ways in which power distorts what leaders are able to see. In this piece, he notes that “your perspective is inevitably distorted by your power. And the more visible your power, the greater the distortion.”
This is not about intent. It is structural. Power changes what people are willing to say to you.
People do not simply speak to leaders, they calibrate around them. They edit their thinking before it is fully formed. They remove uncertainty, soften edges, and present only what feels safe enough to survive the interaction.
Over time, you stop receiving the rough draft of reality. You receive a carefully edited version of what people believe you are willing to hear.
I would like to think that I have created a culture with the people I work with where that distortion is reduced. In reality, you can never be certain of that as a leader. The very fact that you hold positional power means you are never fully outside of the system you are trying to shape.
Psychological safety is often treated as the goal. But it is only the threshold. We have reduced the fear of speaking up, but not increased the likelihood that it leads anywhere.
The Rise of Futility
This has got me thinking more deeply about upward feedback, and the unintended consequences it can have on organisational culture. In particular, the way well intentioned attempts to create openness can still result in people gradually feeling that their voice makes less difference over time.
Over time distortion does not just shape what people say. It changes whether they believe it is worth saying anything at all. This is a subtle shift in behaviour that is easy to miss, because it rarely announces itself directly.
Futility in this lens is when people stop speaking in ways that can still change anything. It does not arrive suddenly. It builds through repetition.
It forms when input is gathered but not visibly acted on. When decisions are made but never revisited. When feedback disappears into systems without explanation or closure.
It is reinforced when leaders ask for views but rarely show what changed as a result or why nothing did.
Over time, people learn that voice is still possible, but no longer consequential. So they adjust not by falling silent, but by changing when and how they speak. Ideas arrive later, safer, or more extreme, at points where they are least likely to shape anything.
Futility often emerges not from silence, but from the absence of visible response.
In these conditions, staff quickly learn the real rules, contribution is not influence, it is performance. And before long, hierarchy does the filtering for you. People calculate the cost of speaking before they speak at all.
Once established, futility spreads. People stop offering early thinking. They stop refining half formed ideas. Some withdraw completely. Others speak only at extremes, silence or frustration.
Even visible frustration can be misread as safety. But often it is not engagement, it is the final signal from someone who has already stopped believing that careful feedback lands.
In stronger cultures, the pattern is almost invisible in its simplicity. A half formed idea is voiced early, before it is fully polished or safe. It is met with curiosity rather than closure, and shaped in real time rather than parked for later validation. Nothing dramatic happens in those moments, but the effect is cumulative, people stop rehearsing their contribution and start thinking aloud. Voice becomes part of the work, not a performance around it.
The Theatre of Input
Chris Argyris described defensive routines, systems that allow organisations to appear open while avoiding genuine challenge.
This is where input becomes theatre.
A leader invites views, but the decision is already effectively set. Discussion is welcomed, but only within a narrow range. Questions are asked, but disagreement is absorbed rather than acted on.
Nothing is explicitly shut down, but nothing moves.
People notice this pattern quickly. They learn which ideas travel and which disappear. So they adjust. They stop offering raw thinking and instead offer what is safe, polished, and survivable.
It begins to look like alignment. It is actually adaptation.
Over time, organisations confuse managed consensus with genuine agreement. Improvement slows, not because people lack insight, but because they no longer believe it will travel anywhere useful.
From Listening to Inviting
The shift required is not simply to listen better, but to make disagreement consequential.
High performing teams are not defined only by psychological safety, but by a shared belief that speaking up can change outcomes. Safety without impact is performative. It creates conversation, not contribution.
I cannot assume challenge will appear naturally. If I do, I will only hear from those who are either confident enough to ignore risk, or frustrated enough to override it. Everyone else will optimise for harmony.
The most dangerous signal in leadership is not conflict. It is its absence.
Because absence tells you something precise, people have already decided what is worth saying to you.
My responsibility is not to remove that calculation. It is to change it.
To make it rational to challenge me early, imperfectly, and without rehearsal.
Because if the best thinking in the room is only ever partially spoken, leadership is not unlocking intelligence. It is managing its decline.
As Satya Nadella argues, leadership is about intentional openness. In practice, that means deliberately drawing in quieter perspectives, not as inclusion, but as decision quality.
If I am not making it worth the effort to challenge me, I am not building openness. I am presiding over its appearance.
The question is not whether people speak.
It is what they feel is worth saying to you.
Reflective questions for leaders
This raises a set of questions I need to keep asking myself and I think all of us do.
How would I know if people are calibrating their voice around me more than I realise
When people do speak up, what actually changes and how visible is that change to them
Am I hearing ideas early enough to influence them, or only once they are already formed
What signals do I give, intentionally or unintentionally, about what kinds of challenge are worth offering
Great piece. I think that leaders need to listen, think, refine and communicate. We do not need futility in our schools.
This is so real. Building psychological safety is an ongoing practice, as you've identified-- and structures aren't enough. We need small, daily mindset shifts and habits like pausing and posing questions. The most important work is the internal work, the small shifts that add up to something big. Thanks for writing about this.