Latest / The Difficult Boss Podcast with Fexingo: Managing Up, Toxic Managers, and Workplace Survival / The Manager Who Lies by Omission and How to Handle It
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a manager who never actually lies to you. He just doesn't tell you everything. And that silence can be more damaging than a straight-up falsehood. Luna: I think I know exactly the type. The one who leaves out a key deadline change in the weekly status email, and you only find out when the client calls angry. Lucas: Exactly. I want to zoom in on a specific case from a mid-size SaaS company I've been following. A director named Mark — I've changed the name — ran a product team of about twelve. He was well-liked, never raised his voice, never contradicted anyone in a meeting. Lucas: But his team had a chronic problem: they'd miss milestones and be blindsided by their own stakeholders. The pattern was always the same. Mark would receive a critical email from the VP of Sales about a feature delay, and he'd simply not forward it to the engineering lead. Luna: So he's deciding what people need to know based on his own filter. That's a form of lying by omission. Lucas: Right. And there's actually a decent body of research on this. A 2019 paper in the Journal of Business Ethics found that managers who engage in omission see it as less unethical than a direct lie, because they're not fabricating anything. They're just not volunteering. Luna: But the outcome for the team is the same — or worse. Because you can't prove they did anything wrong. They'll say 'oh, I assumed you already knew' or 'it slipped my mind.' Lucas: That's the killer. In Mark's case, the engineering lead — let's call her Priya — started noticing that she was always the last to know about anything that reflected badly on the project. She kept a log for three months. Lucas: She documented seven instances where Mark had withheld information that directly affected her team's workload and reputation. In one case, a customer escalation had been brewing for two weeks before she heard about it during a post-mortem. Luna: That's the kind of data you need. But how do you have that conversation without looking like you're accusing your boss of being deceptive? Lucas: That's the central question. And the answer is surprisingly tactical. You don't lead with the accusation. You lead with a systems problem. You say something like 'I've noticed we sometimes miss information handoffs. Can we set up a standard way to share all external stakeholder communications?' Luna: But if the manager is intentionally withholding, wouldn't they resist that? They'd lose their control. Lucas: They might. But here's the thing — Mark's omission wasn't entirely malicious. When I spoke to someone who worked with him, they said Mark genuinely believed he was protecting his team from noise. He thought he was filtering out irrelevant distractions. Lucas: The problem was his definition of 'relevant' was whatever made him look good. He didn't see himself as dishonest. He saw himself as a buffer. Luna: So the first step is to understand the manager's motive. Is it strategic silence — like they're hoarding information for power — or is it misguided protection? Lucas: Exactly. And you can usually tell by looking at what they omit. If they consistently hide bad news but share good news, that's strategic. If they seem to forget things randomly, it might be incompetence or overload. Lucas: In Mark's case, it was a mix. He wanted to be seen as the problem solver, so he'd sit on issues until he had a solution. But by then, the team had lost valuable time. Luna: So what did Priya actually do? Did she confront him? Lucas: She took a two-step approach. First, she started sending a weekly 'assumptions check' email to Mark and copied the relevant stakeholders. It was a one-pager that said 'here's what I believe is true about the project this week.' She asked him to confirm or correct any of it. Lucas: That forced him to either confirm inaccurate information — which would be an active lie — or correct it. It turned omission into a choice between commission and honesty. Luna: That's clever. It's like a pre-mortem email. You're surfacing assumptions before they become crises. Lucas: Exactly. Harvard Business Review actually published a piece on this tactic a few years ago, calling it 'the pre-mortem email.' The idea is to ask your boss 'before this project goes wrong, what do I not know that I should?' Lucas: Priya's second step was more direct. She scheduled a one-on-one with Mark and framed it around her own need for context. She said 'I want to make sure I'm not missing signals. Can we spend five minutes at the start of each week reviewing any updates from outside the team?' Luna: That's non-accusatory. She made it about her development, not his failure. Lucas: And it worked, mostly. Mark agreed to a weekly five-minute sync. But here's the interesting part — he still occasionally omitted things. So Priya had to escalate to the second layer: she started looping in her skip-level manager on certain emails, not to complain, but to ask for 'guidance on prioritization.' Luna: That's a delicate move. You're creating visibility without throwing your boss under the bus. Lucas: Right. And eventually, the skip-level noticed the pattern. After three months, Mark's boss asked him to include Priya on all client-facing communications. Mark couldn't refuse without raising suspicion. Luna: So the ultimate fix came from above. But not everyone has a good skip-level relationship. Lucas: True. And that's why the documentation is critical. If you have a clear log of instances where omission caused harm — missed deadlines, lost revenue, burned-out team members — you have leverage. But you need to frame it as a process gap, not a personal attack. Lucas: There's another angle too. Sometimes omission is unintentional. A manager might have a different mental model of what's important. I read a study from the University of Chicago that showed managers and direct reports often disagree on what constitutes a 'critical update' by as much as forty percent. Luna: Forty percent? That's huge. It means you could both be acting in good faith and still get blindsided. Lucas: Exactly. So one of the most effective things you can do early on is align on what 'heads-up' means. Define it explicitly. 'If it affects the timeline, budget, or client relationship, I need to know within 24 hours.' Write it down. Luna: That's a shared standard. It removes the ambiguity that omission thrives on. Lucas: Yes. And once that standard is in writing, any omission becomes a clear violation. You can point to the agreement rather than making it personal. Luna: What about the emotional toll? Working under a manager who withholds information can make you paranoid. You start second-guessing everything. Lucas: Absolutely. Priya told me she spent the first month constantly checking in with other departments just to verify what she knew. That's exhausting. And it erodes trust in the whole organization. Lucas: If you can't build a reliable communication channel with your boss after trying these tactics, it may be a sign that the culture is fundamentally broken. At that point, you have to decide whether to stay or look for a team that values transparency. Luna: So the takeaway: document, try a systems fix first, align on definitions, and if that fails, use upward visibility strategically. Lucas: Right. And one final thing — don't assume malice. Start with the assumption that your boss might just have a different filter. But if the pattern persists and harms your work, you have every right to protect your own career. Luna: That's a fair note to end on. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. Next time we'll talk about what to do when your boss takes credit for your work — and how to reclaim it without starting a war.