How to Fix It
Five things. The first two cost nothing.
1. Ask for the bad news first, every time.
Change your opening question. Instead of "how is it going", ask "what is not working". The first version invites a positive answer. The second one gives permission. Do it in every meeting for a month. The first two weeks you will get nothing. Keep going.
2. Thank the person out loud, in front of others.
This is the whole thing, and most leaders skip it. When someone tells you something hard, your reaction is a public lesson. Everyone in the room is watching to see what happens to that person. Say thank you. Say it clearly. Say it before you respond to the content. If you disagree with them, that is fine. Disagree after you have thanked them, and make sure people can see the order.
3. Train your managers to take feedback, not just give it.
Almost every management course teaches how to give feedback. Very few teach how to receive it.
But receiving is the harder skill, and it is the one that decides whether your team speaks up at all. This is the single biggest gap in most leadership programmes, and it is why we build it into our leadership training in Singapore work rather than treating it as a soft add on.
4. Act on something small and say where it came from.
Pick one thing someone told you. Fix it. Then tell people that it changed because of what that person said. People do not speak up because they think nothing will happen. One visible example is worth a hundred reassurances.
5. Back the person when it goes wrong.
Someone will make a call, using the authority you gave them, and it will not work out. What you do next decides everything. If you back them publicly, people learn that judgement is safe. If you do not, everyone goes back to asking permission. This is a leadership behaviour problem more than a training problem, which is the same reason so many capability programmes fade after a few weeks. We looked at that pattern in why employee training does not stick.
One More Thing Worth Knowing
New research from early 2026 suggests something uncomfortable. Leaders themselves often do not feel safe enough to admit they do not know something, or to invite a real challenge. Which means this may not start at the bottom of the organisation. It may start at the top and travel down.
If your leadership team never disagrees with each other in front of anyone, the layer below will not either. They are copying what they see. So the first place to test this is not your frontline. It is your own leadership meetings.
The Question to Sit With
Here is the uncomfortable one.
If something were badly wrong in your organisation right now, how would you find out?
If the honest answer is that someone would tell you, ask yourself when someone last did. And if the honest answer is that you would probably find out from a customer, or from the numbers three months later, then you already know where the work is. That work is culture, not communication. We look at how the two connect in our brand strategy and management engagements, because what a company promises outside is only ever as good as what people can say inside.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are employees afraid to speak up to leadership?
Mostly because they have seen what happens to someone who did. A 2026 study found 6 in 10 employees are afraid to speak up, and over 61% regularly watch colleagues go silent rather than disagree. The cause is usually one or two visible moments where honesty was met with a defensive reaction, which teaches everyone else the rule.
How do I know if my team is hiding things from me?
You cannot ask directly, because they will say no. Better tests are these. When did someone last tell you something you did not want to hear? Who was the last junior person to change your mind? Did you learn about a recent problem from the person responsible, or from somewhere else? Ask three people separately what is not working, and see if their answers match something you have never heard.
What does it cost when people stop being honest with leaders?
Four things. Decisions get made without full information. Problems are found late, when they are expensive rather than cheap. The people who care most leave first, because they were the ones trying to tell you. And good news becomes unreliable too, because you can no longer tell the difference between a real result and a filtered one.
Is this a training problem or a culture problem?
Both, and they are connected. Over 70% of managers never practised giving or receiving feedback before they were promoted, so the skill gap is real. But the culture decides whether anyone uses the skill. Training a manager to receive feedback will not help if their own boss punishes them for passing bad news upward.
How long does it take to fix?
Expect nothing for the first two or three weeks. People will wait to see if it is genuine. The first real test is when someone tells you something difficult and everyone watches your reaction. Handle that well and it changes quickly. Handle it badly once and you are back to the start.
Where should we start?
With your own leadership meetings, not with the frontline. If your senior team never disagrees in front of others, the layers below are copying that. Change the opening question in your meetings from "how is it going" to "what is not working", and thank people out loud when they answer honestly.
