One of the strange realities of leadership is that the more responsibility an executive has, the easier it can become to lose sight of what is actually happening below. Employees may fear the boss's reaction, dislike delivering bad news, or simply believe that handling the problem themselves is exactly what they were hired to do. Executive coach and former senior media executive Joel Berman has seen that tension from both sides of the desk.
Berman, who spent years as a senior executive at Paramount Pictures, explains that employees often think, "This is my responsibility. I'm supposed to fix it." They want to be viewed as somebody who has a good handle on the business and gets things done. To a point, that is exactly what a leader should want. Nobody wants an organization where every problem immediately gets pushed up the ladder. If someone is responsible for an area of the business, Berman expects that person to think through the issue and come prepared with a plan.
The problem comes when "I'll handle it" becomes "I'll wait to tell anyone until I've handled it." Because sometimes it doesn't get handled. And by the time the leader finds out, the choices available may be very different.
Berman draws an important distinction between keeping a leader informed and handing the leader responsibility for solving the problem. Ideally, the conversation isn't simply: Here's what's wrong. What do you want me to do? It's closer to: Here's the issue. Here's what we're doing about it. Here's what I think we should do next. That allows the leader to ask questions, challenge assumptions, provide resources or offer experience without taking ownership away from the person responsible for executing the plan.
Consider something as basic, and consequential, as revenue. If a business is likely to miss its revenue expectations and senior leadership learns about it early enough, there may still be choices. Expenses can potentially be adjusted. Resources can be moved. Leadership may be able to intervene in the underlying business issue, manage expectations or prepare the CEO or board for what may be coming. None of that guarantees the problem gets fixed, but knowing earlier provides an opportunity to act. Finding out after the fact does not. In practical terms, bad news becomes more expensive as the time available to respond to it disappears.
This is where Berman's view becomes less comfortable for the person sitting at the top. Yes, the employee who withheld important information may have made a mistake. But that doesn't necessarily let the executive off the hook. Imagine sitting in front of a CEO or board after a significant revenue miss and explaining that the reason you didn't warn them was that your people didn't tell you. That answer creates another question: What is it about your leadership that may be discouraging open communication from your direct reports?
Berman doesn't approach leadership as someone claiming to have executed it perfectly. "I think I've made every mistake there is to make," he said. That experience is part of what informs the way he coaches executives today. He also acknowledges that during his own years as an executive, he wasn't always as consistent as he would have liked when people brought him problems. That admission matters because employees pay attention to what happens when someone delivers bad news. A leader may genuinely believe the door is always open, but a reaction in a stressful moment can send a message the executive never intended to send. People remember. If someone gets reproached for delivering bad news, others can quickly learn that bringing problems upward carries a price.
Berman believes leaders need regular communication with the people reporting directly to them. That can mean meaningful dialogue in staff meetings, weekly or biweekly one-on-one conversations, or another rhythm that makes sense for the organization. And that communication shouldn't revolve exclusively around problems. Leaders should want their people bringing them good news as well. The objective is not to create an organization where every development gets pushed upward. It is to create one where the people closest to the work understand what leadership needs to know and feel comfortable communicating it before circumstances make the conversation unavoidable.
No executive can prevent every problem, and no leader will receive every piece of information at exactly the right moment. But by the time someone reaches the upper levels of an organization, Berman believes knowing what is happening is itself part of the job. Because eventually, "They didn't tell me" raises a more uncomfortable question: Why didn't you know?
