Based on Research published by Ashridge Associate Professor Megan Reitz and Independent Researcher and Consultant, John Higgins.

Most leaders are blind to the fact that people cannot speak up to them, and as a result are missing out on vital intelligence which could affect their company’s success or even survival.

This is one of the key findings from a new research report, ‘Being Silenced and Silencing Others: Developing the capacity to speak truth to power’, published today by Ashridge Executive Education at Hult International Business School.

The research suggests that people at the top of organisations often have an inflated idea of how easy it is for others to speak honestly to them.  They naively assume that well-meaning initiatives, such as leadership lunches, or phrases like ‘my door is always open’, will encourage employees to tell them what they need to know.

Read the rest of the article on Harvard Business Review or download the report.

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