Telling truth to power

I love this example. I made sure to include in my deck of new CEO advice. It appeared in a HBS article on David Fubini’s book on what CEOs wish they knew before they started. Fubini is an advisor at HBS and his book is Hidden Truths: What Leaders Need to Hear But Are Rarely Told. We all know how hard it is to tell CEOs what they might now want to hear, even when asked.

1. Avoid half-truths and misperceptions

“When you are an advisor to an organization, as I was for three decades,” he says, “this is one that always seems to be relevant. In the book, I quote a former admiral who said he knew two things with certainty when he came onto a battleship: He was never going to get handed a cold cup of coffee, and he was never going to hear the whole truth.”