Leaders often say their door is always open. Many mean it. Yet important information can still arrive late, softened, or stripped of the context that made it important in the first place.

Hierarchical filtering was identified in the qualitative study as one mechanism that may sustain the Alignment Illusion. As information moves upward through an organization, people interpret what is safe to report, what leaders already know, and what can be resolved without escalation. Each choice may be reasonable. Together, they can produce a version of reality that feels coherent at the top but looks quite different to people closer to the work.

A financial services executive in the OGF study described leaders as “flying blind sometimes because people aren’t going to challenge you as hard.” Another executive recalled reaching the point of asking, “Why didn’t anybody tell me this?” The frustration is understandable, but the answer is rarely that no one cared or that everyone chose to hide the truth.

Hierarchy can create information asymmetry. Employees may fear being labeled negative, uncommitted, or unable to solve their own problems. Managers may reframe concerns so they can present a manageable picture. Senior leaders may then construct an account of alignment from signals that have already passed through several filters.

An open-door policy does little to change this pattern on its own. The cost of entering the door still belongs to the employee. What matters is how leaders respond when information challenges an initiative they support.

Leaders can test the strength of the filter by asking:

  • Which concerns become less specific as they move upward?
  • When someone raises a problem, do we examine the signal or defend the plan?
  • What happened the last time frontline feedback contradicted a leadership assumption?
  • Are managers rewarded for surfacing risk early, or only for keeping work on track?

The goal is not to remove hierarchy or send every problem to the executive team. It is to understand how structure shapes the information leaders receive. Bad news travels farther when people believe it will be used to improve the work rather than evaluate the messenger.