I’ve stepped into teams before where you can feel it almost immediately.
The leader is capable. The team is talented. On the surface, everything looks fine. But as the conversation unfolds, something is off. People are careful. They choose their words. Certain things don’t get said. You can sense there’s more under the surface, but no one is bringing it into the room.
At some point, the leader will pull me aside and say, “I feel like my team isn’t telling me something. I just don’t know what to do.”
They’re usually right. Because you can feel it, even when no one is saying it.
This is one of the most common forms of fragmentation I see on leadership teams. Everything looks aligned, but underneath, something isn’t being said.
If You Can Feel It, It’s Real
Most leaders assume this is a communication issue. They think the team needs to be more open, speak up more, or take advantage of an open-door policy. But that’s rarely the issue.
When a team is holding something back, it’s because something in the environment is telling them not to say it. And as hard as this is to hear, that environment is shaped by the leader.
This is where the work begins.
This Isn’t About the Team
The easiest answer is to blame the team. We tell ourselves they’re not strong communicators or that they just need more courage. But that line of thinking keeps you stuck, because it puts the responsibility somewhere you can’t control.
The shift happens when a leader asks a different question: “If they’re not saying it, what is it about how I’m showing up that makes not sharing the safer choice?”
That question changes everything. It moves the focus from trying to fix the team to examining your own impact on the environment they’re operating in.
Create the Conditions for Truth
Your job as a leader is not to pull the truth out of people. Your job is to create the kind of environment where truth can actually show up.
That requires a different posture. Not as the person with the answers or the one people report up to, but as someone who is there to serve the team and create the conditions for them to do their best work. People don’t hold back randomly. They hold back when it doesn’t feel safe, when it doesn’t feel useful, or when it doesn’t feel like it will be received well.
If you want truth, you have to pay attention to those conditions.
Make It Visible
If something feels off, don’t ignore it. Everyone already knows.
Say it out loud. Something as simple as, “Something doesn’t feel right. I’d like to understand what I might be missing and what I can do better as a leader,” can shift the tone of a conversation. It lowers the pressure in the room and signals that you’re willing to go first.
And going first matters more than anything in this situation.
Focus on Behavior
This is where most leaders go too broad. They try to “be more open” or “improve communication,” but those ideas are too vague to act on.
The real work is behavioral. A behavior is something someone could see or hear if they were in the room with you. It might be interrupting when someone disagrees, getting defensive too quickly, moving on before something is fully worked through, or unintentionally rewarding agreement over honesty.
These are the signals your team is reading, whether you realize it or not.
Choose One or Two Things to Change
Trying to fix everything at once doesn’t work. It’s far more effective to choose one or two behaviors that, if you changed them, would make it easier for people to speak up.
Then tell people what you’re working on. Let them know you’re trying to get better and that you need their help. That step is important, because it turns this from a private intention into a shared effort. You’re not just asking for truth in theory. You’re inviting it in a specific, observable way.
Get Real Feedback
If your team isn’t telling you something, you can’t rely on passive feedback. You have to go get it.
That might mean asking directly, “What’s one thing I could do differently that would help you or the team be more effective?” It might mean having someone else gather feedback anonymously, or using a structured assessment if that fits your environment (in my experience, making these behaviorally based is critical).
Don’t expect an answer right away. In fact, you may not get one at all the first time you ask. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to say. It means people are watching. They’re deciding whether it’s actually safe to be honest, and whether anything will change if they are.
That’s why consistency matters.
And the most important part is how you respond. When you do get feedback, don’t explain or justify. Don’t fix it in the moment. Just write it down and say thank you. That’s how you start to change the environment.
Invite Truth and Stay With It
An open-door policy doesn’t work for this. People don’t walk through open doors with hard truths. You have to initiate and invite it, regularly and intentionally.
Ask questions like, “What are we not saying that we need to?” or “What might I be missing?” and then pay close attention to how you respond when someone takes the risk to answer. That moment will determine whether it happens again.
And when something real does surface, don’t rush past it. Most teams get close to the real issue and then move on too quickly. That’s where alignment is either built or lost. Staying in the conversation, especially when it’s uncomfortable, is what allows the team to actually work through what matters.
Go First
Over time, you can create a team where people give each other this kind of feedback. But it won’t start there.
It starts with you. When you model openness, ownership, and a willingness to change, you make it possible for others to do the same.
The Real Question
If your team isn’t telling you something, the question isn’t what they’re holding back. It’s what they’re experiencing from you that makes holding back the safer choice.
The moment that changes, the conversation changes. And when the conversation changes, teams start to move forward again.
Invitation
I see this pattern a lot when I step into leadership teams.
If you’ve felt it in your team, I’d be curious: where do you think people might be holding something back right now? And what do you think they’re reacting to?
Or where do conversations start, but don’t quite get finished? I’d be interested to hear what you’re seeing.
