You Want The Truth?

“You want the truth?” You can’t handle the truth.”

Maybe one of the most beloved movie lines ever.

And also true. It is hard to handle the truth.

It’s hard to get feedback you don’t want to hear.

It’s hard to hear that others don’t believe in you.

It’s hard to face the reality that things aren’t going the way you wanted, that it’s time to let go of something you’ve put so much of yourself into: your energy, your resources, your identity.

That’s what President Biden just did.

For a while, it seemed President Biden didn’t want to handle the truth. He dismissed the polls, quarreled with his critics, dug in, and insisted he could beat Trump. But the truth was that voters in his own party didn’t want him to run.

Then, suddenly, it happened. Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, bowing to the pressure from within his party.

As hard as it is, we need the truth. And in a leadership role, you definitely need to hear—and handle— the truth.

But the problem with truth is this: it’s not just a matter of the leader being able to handle the truth; it’s also a matter of the leader’s inner circle being able to deliver it.

Biden, like so many other leaders, surrounded himself with an inner circle unwilling or unable to tell him the truth. They fed him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear.

Wherever there is a person in power, there is an inner circle.

In ancient days it was the royal court of the king, teeming with flatterers and admirers, scheming plotters, and stalwart loyalists – all of whom posed the danger of deception and betrayal.

​Machiavelli counseled the prince against the corrupting influence of the court. The only way to manage it, he advised, was to let people know you want the truth and to show them you can handle the truth.

Yet humans have a funny relationship with truth. We don’t always seek it, nor do we like it. We’d rather be flattered than to hear the truth.

And the court of the king preys upon this human tendency: our needs, our impatience, our weaknesses, and most of all, our ego. Aristotle warned that “tyrants are always fond of bad men because they love to be flattered.”

The people surrounding the leader are a critical component of whether or not the leader uses their power well. Whether we surround ourselves with people who can challenge us, who can put honesty over loyalty, may just be the difference between our success and our failure.

So why do inner circles fail to deliver the truth?

They’re too loyal. Sure, we need to surround ourselves with people whom we can trust, with those who believe in us, who like us, and who buy into our mission. But there’s a fine line between wise counsel and loyal misdirection.

Loyalists identify with the leader, having a shared vision, but also, often, shared perspectives, interests and demographic background. They thus have a “similar-to-me” bias, leading them to overlook or explain away problems. It is why, for instance, Boards of Directors fail to hold management accountable, or bosses promote some members of their team over others, regardless of their performance.

Biden’s closest advisor, Mike Donilon, has been Biden’s right-hand man since 1981. He has a lot in common with Biden: a Catholic, working-class man, not as old as Biden, but closer in age than most in Biden’s administration.

Donilon was most insistent that the polls were wrong, convinced that they didn’t fully reflect voters’ concerns about democracy, which for him, was the key issue in this election. Others in the inner circle were afraid to raise doubts about Donilon’s direction for fear of being viewed as disloyal.

They’re afraid. Humans are hardwired to defer to those in power. Speaking truth to power is hard because the most normal, evolutionarily adaptive response to authority is fear. Our evolutionary heritage has prepared us to be vigilant and self-protective around higher-status others. Even though the nature of the threat has changed from our early hominid ancestors, the fear response still governs our behavior.

A higher-ranking person holds our survival and our success in their hands. We soften the message or just keep our opinions to ourselves because it’s easier and safer. Many in the inner circle harbor doubts, disagree with a decision or see the shortcomings of the leader, but they’re afraid to speak up, afraid to risk their position or reputation or incur the wrath of others.

Sometimes they’re afraid of the leader, but just as often, they can be afraid of an adverse reaction from their peers, from others in the inner circle.

They’re self-interested. The people closest to the leader stand to gain through association. Some in the inner circle are simply more motivated by their own desires than they are for the greater good.

They are loyal not to the boss, but to their own agenda, and they use their proximity to power to advance their own interests. They see an opportunity for themselves, and speaking the truth is a political calculation: will this bring me closer to my goals and desires or not?

Self-interest is also about gaining more power. The more remote the leader is, the more the inner circle can exercise its power. Ma Anand Sheela, the right-hand person to Rajneeshee leader, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, directed their commune outside of Antelope, Oregon. She was known as the mastermind behind all of its operations, ultimately leading to her arrest and imprisonment for federal immigration fraud, salmonella poisoning, wiretap conspiracy, state charges of first-degree arson, and attempted murder. We can’t know her true motivations, whether she was acting out of her commitment to Rajneesh, or out of her own ambition and ego, but the power she wielded eventually became her undoing.

​

Who’s in your inner circle? Those who help you be better, or those who protect you from the truth?

Selecting your advisors may be the most important thing you can do as a leader. But when we value loyalty or camaraderie over honesty – when we can’t handle the truth – we select those who are unwilling or unable to tell it. And we ultimately create the conditions for our own defeat.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her biography of Abraham Lincoln, A Team of Rivals, describes how Lincoln appointed a cabinet of his three biggest rivals (who were deeply critical of him) and united them to win the Civil War.

We should heed Lincoln’s advice and make sure we’re selecting a Team of Rivals, who will always tell it like it is, not a Team of Protectors.