“A good leader encourages followers to tell them what they need to know, not what they want to hear,” says leadership guru John Maxwell.
The year was 2018. I had just been hired to facilitate a culture change program for a new client. The leader—let’s call her Mary—was frustrated and confused. “People praise me to my face,” she told me, “Yet there is a pulse of disloyalty behind my back. I want to get to the root of this.”
I told her the only way forward was through the truth. “I will gather anonymous feedback from your team and bring it back to you,” I asserted.
“Do what you have to do, Sudesh,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “You have my full support.”
Two weeks later, I sat in her office. “Your people say you come off as aloof,” I began, reading from the report.
The transformation was instant. The support vanished. “Who said that? Why would they think that? I have done so much for these people! Some of them came from nothing…” Mary lamented. Shortly after that meeting, she terminated my contract.
Mary asked for the truth, but she wasn’t ready to own it.
In my fifteen years of coaching, I have encountered many “Marys,” but I have also walked alongside leaders who chose a different path. These are the leaders who become my closest partners over the years. They are the ones I can look in the eye and say: “You’re better than this. I won’t let you off the hook. No excuses. It’s time to pay the price for your growth.”
Holding someone to a course of radical responsibility—forcing them to live with the full consequences of their actions—is often a defining, life-changing moment. It is hard for the coach, and harder for the leader, but it is the only way to shatter a glass ceiling.
Giving negative feedback is perhaps the most difficult form of communication, yet it is the most vital. We often choose to compromise our integrity rather than “take on” a boss. We label them as “insecure” in our minds and live in a compromised state for years, making excuses until the day we quit. Only then, during the exit interview, does the truth finally come out: “You were too insecure to lead us.”
The best way to deliver feedback is not to attack, but to describe. Don’t label the person; describe your perceptions, your concerns, and the impact of the behavior. This lowers the defenses and opens a door to the “blind spot” without threatening the person’s intrinsic worth.
If you are in a position of authority, you must make “pushing back” legitimate. You must turn feedback into a social norm. When you receive a hard truth, you must explicitly express gratitude for it—no matter how much it stings.
If you don’t, you inadvertently create a culture where silence is seen as loyalty and honesty is seen as insubordination.
We all have tender areas of weakness that we naturally want to defend. But true personal growth happens when we realize our worth doesn’t come from being perfect—it comes from being brave enough to listen.
Are you ready to look in the mirror?
