The feedback leaders stop getting (and what it costs them)

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Hey Spark Family,

I’ve watched this happen in real time more times than I can count.

A leader starts their career surrounded by honest input. People challenge their thinking. Push back on decisions. Offer ideas that sharpen the work. The conversations are direct, sometimes messy, but incredibly useful.

Then something changes.

They get promoted.

And the feedback gets softer. More careful. More filtered.

Not because the problems disappear. Because the conversations do.

It rarely happens all at once. It happens in small, almost invisible moments. Someone thinks, Is it worth saying? Someone else wonders, Will this change anything? Another person decides, Maybe this isn’t the right moment.

Eventually the moment never comes.

And the leader who genuinely wants honest input is now making decisions inside a version of reality their team quietly stopped updating.

The Research Is Clear

This dynamic is well documented.

➡ Harvard Business Review has repeatedly explored what researchers call the “power gap” in feedback. As authority increases, the accuracy and frequency of upward feedback tends to decrease. The higher someone rises, the less unfiltered information they receive about their own behavior and impact.

Not because people stop caring.

Because people start calculating.

➡ Employees naturally weigh the interpersonal risk of speaking up. When the power difference grows, so does that calculation.

➡ Gallup research shows that only 26% of employees strongly agree that the feedback they provide leads to meaningful change. When people don’t believe their input matters, they stop offering it.

➡ And a large meta-analysis by Amy Edmondson at Harvard Business School found that psychological safety is the single strongest predictor of whether people speak up about problems, concerns, and mistakes.

In other words, most leaders are not lacking feedback because their teams don’t see the issues.

They’re lacking it because the environment has quietly made honesty feel expensive.

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What I'm Seeing In The Field

The leaders facing this pattern are rarely intimidating or unapproachable. In fact, many of them are the opposite. They are thoughtful, warm, and deeply committed to doing good work with good people.

Which is exactly why this dynamic is so easy to miss.

Because they care deeply about outcomes, they step in when things start to wobble. Because they have high standards, they react quickly when the work isn’t quite there yet. Because they are decisive, they sometimes signal direction before the room has fully weighed in.

None of those instincts are wrong.

But each one sends a small signal.

If people see that the leader already has the answer, they stop offering theirs. If a concern gets met with quick correction instead of curiosity, they learn to edit themselves. If the leader moves fast to close the loop, others assume the loop is already closed.

Over time, the room gets quieter.

Not because people stopped thinking. Because they stopped speaking.

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What We Teach Leaders Inside Spark Brilliance

When a leader tells me they want more honest feedback, the first question I ask is simple.

When was the last time someone told you something you didn’t want to hear?

If the answer takes a while, that pause is information.

Getting honest feedback back isn’t about asking for it more often. It’s about rebuilding the conditions that make honesty feel worthwhile.

It starts with how you ask.

Broad questions get broad answers. “How’s everything going?” almost always gets “Fine.” Specific questions open real doors. Try something like, “What’s one thing I could do differently that would make your work easier?” or “Where might I be missing something here?”

It continues with how you receive it.

The moment a leader becomes defensive, even subtly, the conversation closes. Curiosity reopens it. A simple “Tell me more about that” can change the entire tone of a discussion.

And then comes the step many leaders miss: closing the loop.

If people offer input and nothing ever changes, they notice. You don’t have to act on every piece of feedback. But acknowledging it, reflecting on it, and sometimes explaining your reasoning rebuilds more trust than most leaders realize.

🌟 Your Challenge This Week

Before your week gets moving, sit with these for a moment.

• When was the last time someone told you something you didn’t want to hear?
• How did you respond when they did?
• Is there someone on your team who may be holding something back right now?

And perhaps the most important question:

• What would make it easier for them to say it?

The leaders who keep growing are not the ones who avoid hard feedback.

They are the ones who make space for it to exist.

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With gratitude,
​Jackie

P.S. – P.S. If you’ve had the quiet sense that you might not be getting the full picture lately, that awareness isn’t a failure. It’s the beginning of better leadership conversations.✨

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