First, having a leadership team (LT) unwittingly thinks you’ve communicated adequately to the troops. You talk about things with the LT and it “feels” like things have been discussed and socialized, but it doesn’t make it out of those boundaries.

Second, employees can feel like raising issues to the LT is like throwing a suggestion over a big wall. They don’t know what happens to the suggestion, what the process is for dealing with it, and a final resolution isn’t adequately communicated back. It’s a black hole that they resent.