Speaking truth to power is often talked about as though it is a heroic endeavour, a point of challenge and catharsis, a showdown when either the message is heard or the messenger is shot. And of course if the norm is that power does not hear truth, none of that is surprising. But perhaps the more interesting approach is to ask why that is assumed to be the norm, and what might change it.
This post doesn’t – and couldn’t – answer that question, but it does shed some interesting light on it. If what is actually at issue is as much or more competing belief systems rather than competing realities, then solutions can’t be about piling up more facts, but might have to do with building relationships in a different way. The difficult bit in that, of course, is not the speaking of truth to power. That just takes bravery. The difficult bit is creating the conditions for power to listen, and that takes a much broader set of skills and approaches.
But as the post hints at, it would be better still to reverse the question. The real challenge is for leaders to show more clearly that they want to listen, not for courtiers to have to balance honesty and self-preservation.