My leadership team is polite to a fault, but whenever we hit a major operational bottleneck, they resolve it behind closed doors in private side-conversations instead of bringing it to the Level 10 Meeting™. How do we force these private disputes into the open and build true trust?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your leadership team resolves major issues in side-conversations rather than bringing them to the Level 10 Meeting, it is a clear sign that you lack functional trust. Back-channeling is a defense mechanism. Your department heads are self-protecting because they do not feel safe being vulnerable in front of the entire team. They fear that admitting a mistake or exposing a bottleneck will be used against them.

To break this pattern, you must make back-channeling impossible to sustain. As the leader, you must call it out immediately when you hear about it. If a leader brings an issue to you privately that should be handled by the team, direct them to put it on the IDS portion of the next Level 10 Meeting agenda. Do not solve it for them in your office.

You must also establish rules of engagement for healthy conflict. During your next quarterly offsite, conduct a team health exercise to rebuild trust. Use tools like the Kolbe A Index to help your team understand each other's natural problem-solving styles. This builds a foundation of vulnerability-based trust, making it safer to disagree openly.

Remember, cracks at the leadership level appear as canyons to the rest of the organization. If your executives are talking behind each other's backs, their teams are doing the same. Force the issues onto the Accountability Chart and handle them through the IDS process. If a leader refuses to engage in open conflict and continues to back-channel, they do not share your core values. Address this issue directly, and if they will not change, they must leave the team.