The higher leaders climb, they worse they listen
It sounds counterintuitive, but the data is clear. Research from Zenger Folkman found that individual contributors score at the 59th percentile for listening effectiveness. By the time you reach the top of the organization, that number drops to the 39th percentile.
The people with the most influence over employee experience are the least effective at hearing it.
This isn't because leaders are indifferent. It's because the higher you go, the more layers exist between you and the truth. Feedback gets filtered. Bad news gets softened. Town halls turn into broadcasts. Leaders start receiving information that's been curated for their consumption rather than representative of what employees actually think and feel.
And nobody tells them it's happening.
This is exactly where internal communications should step in - not just as the people who send messages from the top down, but as the function that builds the infrastructure for listening to flow back up.
Some of it is obvious. IC typically owns or influences the tools and formats where listening happens - engagement surveys, town halls, all-hands meetings. The question is whether those are actually designed for two-way exchange or just the appearance of it. A town hall with a Q&A bolt-on at the end isn't a listening strategy. Neither is an annual survey that takes three months to produce results nobody acts on.
But the less obvious interventions might matter more.
How leadership communications are written signals whether a response is welcome or not. A message that closes with "we'll keep you updated" is a different invitation than one that asks a specific question and tells employees how to respond. IC controls that language.
Whether feedback actually reaches decision-makers - or gets absorbed into HR reporting that leadership never sees - is often an IC design problem. Who owns the channel matters less than whether the insight travels anywhere useful.
And whether leaders know how to show up in two-way moments is something IC can influence through preparation, framing, and honest pre-briefing about what employees are actually thinking.
The organizations that get this right don't leave listening to chance or to whoever happens to be a naturally curious executive. They build it in. IC is the function with both the access and the skills to make that happen if it's willing to own the problem.
August 27, 2026 · Sioux Falls, SD
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