Why leadership teams tolerate the problems everyone can see and what it takes to finally address them.
There's an elephant in the boardroom. It's been there for some time. Everyone knows about it. Several executives have privately expressed concern about its presence, although nobody has mentioned it during an actual meeting.
Initially, the elephant was considered a temporary inconvenience. Then it became an accepted feature of the leadership environment. It now has a reserved parking space, appears on the organisational chart and has recently requested a performance-related bonus. The leadership team remains committed to addressing the situation at an appropriate time. Unfortunately, the appropriate time appears to have been postponed indefinitely.
The extraordinary things leadership teams learn to ignore! Most senior leaders understand the importance of tackling difficult issues. They attend conferences about courageous leadership, complete development programmes on constructive challenge and enthusiastically endorse organisational values that include openness, honesty and accountability. Yet some of the most significant problems in organisations remain stubbornly unaddressed.
Perhaps there's a senior executive whose behaviour is undermining colleagues. Perhaps a strategy is failing, but nobody wants to challenge the person who championed it. Perhaps an organisational restructure has created confusion, resentment and declining performance, while the official narrative continues to describe the transformation as an outstanding success.
The problem is rarely a complete absence of awareness.
More often, people recognise what's happening but have concluded that raising the issue carries greater personal risk than remaining silent. So, the conversations happen elsewhere: in corridors, over coffee, during private calls and occasionally in car parks, where some of the organisation's most candid strategic discussions apparently take place.
The boardroom becomes the one place where the most important conversation isn't happening - silence isn't always agreement. One of the more dangerous assumptions in leadership is that the absence of disagreement indicates support…It doesn't!
Research into employee voice and silence helps explain why. In her 2014 review, Elizabeth Morrison examined the factors influencing whether employees raise concerns, offer suggestions or withhold information that could benefit their organisations. The research highlights how decisions about speaking up are influenced by perceived risks, relationships, and organisational conditions.
Although much of this research concerns employees speaking to people above them, the underlying challenge is relevant to executive teams too: people assess the likely consequences of saying something uncomfortable.
A director who challenges the CEO's preferred strategy may worry about being labelled negative. A colleague who questions another executive's behaviour may fear damaging an important relationship. Someone who raises concerns about an expensive initiative may discover that their reward for identifying the problem is being asked to resolve it. Remaining silent can begin to look remarkably attractive.
And once silence becomes habitual, leaders may start confusing the absence of challenge with the presence of alignment. Psychological safety isn't an executive comfort blanket.
Psychological safety has become an increasingly familiar expression in leadership discussions. Unfortunately, like many useful management concepts, it occasionally suffers from being enthusiastically adopted without being particularly well understood or passionately spoken of without any sufficient embedding.
Amy Edmondson's influential 1999 research connected team psychological safety with learning behaviour. The central idea concerns whether people believe they can take interpersonal risks, such as acknowledging mistakes, asking questions, or challenging assumptions.
It doesn't mean everyone should feel comfortable all the time. Nor does it mean avoiding difficult conversations, protecting colleagues from criticism, or ensuring every meeting concludes with universal agreement and a reassuring biscuit. A psychologically safe leadership team isn't one where nobody feels uncomfortable. It's one where people can raise uncomfortable truths without fearing inappropriate personal consequences.
That distinction matters because effective challenge will sometimes create tension. Leaders may disagree strongly; question established assumptions or confront behaviour that others would prefer to overlook. The objective isn't to eliminate discomfort. It's to make constructive disagreement possible while maintaining respect, accountability, and a shared commitment to organisational success.
The cost of leaving the elephant alone
Avoided problems rarely remain static. They develop consequences. An underperforming executive may continue making poor decisions. An ineffective process may become embedded. A damaging leadership behaviour may influence how managers treat their own teams. Employees watching these situations unfold begin drawing conclusions about what the organisation genuinely values. Those conclusions may be rather different from the values displayed on the reception wall.
Research by James Detert and Ethan Burris, published in 2007, examined leadership behaviour and employees' willingness to offer improvement-oriented suggestions. Their findings indicated that managerial openness was particularly important, with psychological safety helping explain the relationship.
The implications are significant. Leaders cannot simply announce that their doors are always open and assume people will feel safe walking through them. Employees notice how concerns are received, whether difficult messages are welcomed and what happens to individuals who challenge established thinking.
If raising a problem consistently results in defensiveness, dismissal or retaliation, people learn quickly. Eventually, the organisation may receive increasingly positive reports while its underlying difficulties remain unresolved. The problem hasn't disappeared. The people who were prepared to discuss it have.
Why the CEO matters
The CEO has a particular responsibility for establishing the conditions in which difficult conversations can happen. That doesn't mean personally resolving every disagreement or becoming the organisation's Chief Elephant Removal Officer. It means demonstrating that constructive challenge is expected, that difficult issues will be addressed and that seniority doesn't provide immunity from accountability.
It also means recognising that the CEO may occasionally be part of the problem!
Executives pay close attention to how their leader responds when challenged. Does the CEO become curious or defensive? Encourage alternative perspectives or quickly signal the preferred answer? Welcome inconvenient evidence or explain why the circumstances are exceptional?
A leadership team takes its behavioural cues from what happens in these moments, not simply from what appears in the organisation's leadership charter. You cannot build a culture of honest challenge while making honesty personally expensive.
Five ways to get the elephant out of the boardroom
The solution doesn't require another elaborate leadership framework, although somebody will undoubtedly be tempted to commission one.
First, name the issue clearly. Replace vague references to communication challenges or interpersonal differences with a precise description of the problem and its consequences.
Second, separate challenge from personal attack. Encourage executives to question decisions, assumptions, and behaviours without questioning colleagues' motives or character unnecessarily.
Third, examine the cost of avoidance. Consider what the unresolved issue is doing to performance, trust, decision-making and the wider organisation.
Fourth, agree ownership and action. A difficult conversation is only useful if it leads to appropriate decisions, responsibilities, and follow-through.
Finally, examine the leadership team's own contribution. Ask what behaviours, incentives or relationships have allowed the problem to continue. Sometimes the most uncomfortable discovery is that the elephant has been receiving considerable encouragement.
None of the actions suggested are particularly revolutionary. Their effectiveness depends on whether leaders are genuinely prepared to follow through.
The elephant isn't the real problem
Every organisation encounters difficult personalities, flawed decisions, competing interests, and uncomfortable truths. These challenges are unavoidable. What distinguishes effective leadership teams isn't the absence of problems. It's their willingness to confront those problems before avoidance becomes an accepted management practice.
An elephant in the boardroom is inconvenient. An entire leadership team pretending it isn't there is considerably more concerning. And if the elephant has been present long enough to qualify for a company pension, perhaps it's time to question who's really responsible for keeping it there.
The Valeo Coaching Challenge
Before your next executive team meeting, consider three questions:
What significant issue does everyone recognise but nobody is prepared to discuss openly?
What has your leadership team's reluctance to address that issue already cost the organisation - in performance, trust, talent, or credibility?
If the person responsible for the problem were sitting opposite you, would you still be prepared to have the conversation? And if not, what does that reveal about your leadership?
Sometimes the greatest leadership challenge isn't identifying the elephant - it's acknowledging who has been feeding it!
Valeo Business Solutions Ltd — Executive coaching, leadership development and organisational performance.
Serious about performance. Not always serious about corporate behaviour.
Further Reading for you…
Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Published in Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
Employee Voice and Silence. Published in Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 173–197.
Leadership Behavior and Employee Voice: Is the Door Really Open? Published in Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 869–884.