The company celebrated. Ninety-five percent engagement. The results were shared in the all-hands meeting. Leadership congratulated themselves. The board was impressed.
Three months later, four of their highest performers resigned in the same week. A fifth was actively interviewing. Exit interviews revealed a culture of silence, distrust, and chronic overwork that had been building for over a year.
The CEO was blindsided.
The survey wasn’t.
Because the survey wasn’t designed to surface the truth. It was designed to confirm what leadership hoped was true. And it did exactly what it was designed to do.
This is one of the most expensive and least talked about problems in organizational leadership: employee engagement surveys that measure how good your employees are at telling you what you want to hear, instead of measuring what’s actually happening in your organization.
Most leaders genuinely believe they’re getting honest data. They’re not. And the gap between what the survey says and what’s actually true is often where dysfunction lives, talent quietly exits, and culture quietly erodes.
Let’s talk about why.
Why Most Employee Surveys Are Designed to Lie
Here’s something nobody in HR wants to say out loud: the way most employee surveys are designed, honest answers are actually the exception.
Not because employees are dishonest people. But because survey design creates an environment where honesty feels risky and agreement feels safe.
Think about who designs these surveys. Usually someone in HR or leadership who genuinely wants good results, for the board presentation, the “Best Places to Work” application, the investor deck, or simply their own sense of doing a good job.
And unconsciously, the questions get shaped by what leadership is willing to hear.
Questions stay vague enough that they can’t reveal anything too specific. Answer scales give employees comfortable middle-ground options. The most sensitive topics, power dynamics, leadership effectiveness, psychological safety, get softened into language so clinical that employees don’t even connect it to their actual experience.
This is what I call the Performer pattern at the organizational level. The survey becomes a performance. Leadership performs “we value your feedback.” Employees perform “everything is great.” And everyone walks away with data that confirms the story they all agreed to tell.
Research on social desirability bias in workplace surveys consistently shows that employees adjust their answers based on what they believe is expected or safe, even in anonymous surveys. When people don’t trust that feedback will be received well, or don’t believe anything will change, they default to neutral or positive responses regardless of their actual experience.
In other words: your employees have already done a quick calculation before they answer a single question. They’re weighing the risk of honesty against the benefit of saying something true. And in most organizational cultures, honesty loses.
The Questions That Make You Look Good (But Tell You Nothing)
Let me show you exactly what this looks like in practice.
Here are the most common types of survey questions companies use and why each one is designed to produce comfortable answers rather than useful information.
“Do you understand your role and responsibilities?”
On the surface, this sounds reasonable. But think about who’s going to say no to this question. Admitting you don’t understand your role feels like admitting incompetence. So 90% of employees click yes, regardless of how many times they’ve been confused about who owns what decision, or whether their job description matches what they’re actually doing.
What this question measures: whether employees are willing to admit confusion. What it doesn’t measure: whether role clarity actually exists.
A better question: “In the last month, how many times were you unclear about whether a decision or task was yours to make or someone else’s?” Now you’re asking for behavior, not self-assessment. Now you’re getting data.
“Does the company encourage professional development?”
This question could be answered yes if HR sent a single email about LinkedIn Learning access in the last year. “Encourage” is so vague it’s meaningless. And again, saying “no” to this feels like criticizing the company, which feels risky, so employees give the benefit of the doubt.
What this question measures: whether the company has made any gesture toward development. What it doesn’t measure: whether anyone is actually growing.
A better question: “In the last six months, how many hours did you spend on professional development during work hours? Was this development aligned with your career goals or the company’s needs?”
Now you’re getting actual numbers. Actual outcomes. Actual data you can act on.
“Do you feel psychologically safe bringing issues to management?”
This one drives me absolutely crazy, and here’s why.
“Feel” is subjective. “Psychologically safe” is clinical jargon that most employees don’t connect to their lived experience. “Bringing issues” is so vague it could mean anything. And if someone doesn’t feel safe, are they really going to say that on a survey their manager might see?
What this question measures: familiarity with HR language. What it doesn’t measure: whether people actually speak up.
A better question: “In the last three months, have you raised a concern about a process, decision, or behavior that you thought wasn’t working? What happened as a result?” And then: “Have you seen someone else raise a concern or challenge a decision? What happened to them?”
Now you’re measuring behavior and outcomes, not feelings. And you’re measuring what happened after someone spoke up, which is the actual indicator of whether psychological safety exists.
“Does your role allow for work-life balance?”
“Allow for” puts the responsibility on the role rather than the culture or leadership. And “work-life balance” is such an overused phrase that it’s almost meaningless. Employees read this and think: “Well, technically my hours are nine to five, so I guess yes?”
What this question measures: whether the official structure of the role is reasonable. What it doesn’t measure: whether the culture makes it possible to actually use that structure.
A better question: “In the last two weeks, how many times did you work outside of your scheduled hours? How many times did you check work messages outside of work time?” Now you have real data about what’s actually happening versus what’s supposed to happen.
“Do you feel valued by leadership?”
“Feel valued” is so emotionally loaded and subjective that it’s nearly impossible to measure or act on. What does valued mean? A thank-you email? A promotion? Being consulted on decisions?
What this question measures: employees’ general positive or negative sentiment in the moment they take the survey. What it doesn’t measure: specific leadership behaviors that create or destroy trust.
A better question: “In the last quarter, how many times did a member of the leadership team ask about your work, challenges, or ideas? Did anything change as a result of those conversations?” Now you’re measuring whether leadership engagement is real or performative.
The Real Reason Companies Ask Bad Questions
Here’s the part that’s harder to hear.
Bad survey design is rarely accidental. It reflects something deeper about the leadership team’s identity and what they’re actually willing to confront.
The Performer pattern, the leadership identity built on managing perception and looking good, produces surveys designed to generate positive scores. Not because leadership is malicious, but because their operating system genuinely can’t hold the discomfort of discovering that employees don’t trust them, don’t feel safe, or are actively suffering.
The Protector pattern, the leadership identity built on keeping things safe through control, produces surveys that avoid the most dangerous territory. They won’t ask about leadership effectiveness directly. They won’t ask what employees would change. They stay in safe waters because some part of them knows what lives in the deep end, and they’re not ready to go there.
And the Achiever pattern, the leadership identity built on proving worth through output, produces surveys that measure inputs instead of outcomes. They’ll ask if the company “offers” development or “provides” wellness resources, because the focus is on what leadership is doing, not on whether it’s actually working.
The quality of your employee survey is a direct reflection of your leadership team’s capacity for truth.
If your leadership can’t hold discomfort, your survey won’t either.
What Effective Surveys Actually Look Like
The difference between a survey that produces useful data and one that produces comfortable data comes down to a few principles.
Ask about behavior, not feelings.
Feelings are subjective and socially influenced. Behavior is observable and countable. “How many times did you…” is always going to produce more reliable data than “Do you feel that…”
Make questions uncomfortably specific.
Vague questions get vague answers. The more specific your question, the harder it is to answer dishonestly without really thinking about it. Discomfort in your survey design is a feature, not a flaw.
Ask about outcomes, not intentions.
Don’t ask whether leadership “values” feedback. Ask what happened the last time someone gave feedback. Don’t ask if the company “supports” wellness. Ask how many days of PTO employees actually took. Intentions are easy to claim. Outcomes are much harder to fake.
Always include what happened next.
The most revealing follow-up question to almost any survey question is: “And what happened as a result?” This is where you find out whether your culture actually functions the way you think it does.
Only ask what you’re willing to act on.
This is the one that most leaders skip, and it might be the most important. Asking questions you won’t act on does more damage than not asking at all. Employees who take the time to be honest and then see nothing change don’t just become disengaged. They become actively cynical. They stop trusting that leadership means what they say. And they stop being honest on future surveys.
Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety at Harvard makes clear that psychological safety is built or destroyed through patterns of behavior over time, not through stated intentions. The same principle applies to your survey. It’s not enough to say “we want your honest feedback.” Your employees are watching what happens after they give it.
The Questions Brave Organizations Actually Ask
Here are the questions that surface real data. They’re uncomfortable. Some of them will produce answers you won’t want to see. But they’ll tell you the truth.
On decision-making and clarity:
- “In the last month, how many times did you wait on a decision from leadership that delayed your work?”
- “How many decisions did you make in the last month that you later found out someone else was supposed to make?”
- “How often do strategic priorities shift without explanation?”
On psychological safety (actual):
- “What topics feel off-limits to discuss with your manager or leadership team?”
- “Have you seen someone raise a concern or challenge a decision in the last three months? What happened to them?”
- “Is there anything about how this organization operates that you think leadership doesn’t know or wouldn’t want to hear?”
On growth and development (real):
- “Do you see a clear path to the next level of your career at this company? What would need to happen for you to get there?”
- “If you left this role tomorrow, where would you go and why?”
- “What skills are you building here? What skills do you wish you were building?”
On workload and sustainability (honest):
- “How many days of PTO have you taken in the last six months? How many of those days did you fully disconnect from work?”
- “In the last month, how many times did you feel too overwhelmed to do your best work?”
- “What would need to change for your workload to feel sustainable long-term?”
On leadership effectiveness (direct):
- “What’s one thing leadership keeps saying but hasn’t done?”
- “What’s the biggest gap between what leadership says is a priority and where time and resources actually go?”
- “If you could change one thing about how leadership operates, what would it be?”
Yes, some of these are hard to read back. That’s the point.
What To Do With Answers You Don't Want to Hear
Getting honest data is only useful if you’re willing to act on it.
Effective leaders share results transparently, even the uncomfortable ones. They name the gaps publicly: “We asked, you answered, and here’s what we learned.” They create action plans with specific timelines and accountability. They report back on what changed, and when something can’t change yet, they say why.
What ineffective leaders do looks very different. They cherry-pick positive data points for the board presentation. They explain away negative feedback (“They don’t understand the full picture”). They create action plans that never get implemented. They get defensive about criticism instead of curious about it. And eventually, they stop doing surveys altogether when results get too uncomfortable.
That last one is more common than you’d think.
Here’s the hard truth: if your leadership team’s identity requires being seen as a great place to work, honest survey results will feel like a threat. The response to that threat won’t be growth. It will be defense, deflection, and eventually, the quiet death of your organization’s ability to surface its own dysfunction before it becomes a crisis.
How to Audit Your Current Survey Right Now
Before you design your next survey, run this quick audit on your current one.
Start by counting how many questions can be answered positively without lying. If the answer is most of them, your survey is too soft to produce useful data.
Then count how many questions use “feel,” “think,” or “believe” versus “did,” “how many times,” or “what happened.” If you’re heavy on feelings and light on behavior, you’re measuring sentiment, not reality.
Check whether any questions ask about outcomes instead of just offerings. Not “does the company provide wellness support” but “how did you use the wellness support in the last quarter and did it help?”
Finally, and most importantly, ask yourself honestly: do you already know what scores you’re going to get before you send this survey? If yes, you’re not measuring reality. You’re measuring compliance with a story that’s already been agreed upon.
This Isn’t an HR Problem. It’s a Leadership Identity Problem.
Here’s the reframe I want to leave you with.
Your employee survey doesn’t need a better template. It needs leadership with the identity capacity to hear the truth.
Because here’s what I’ve seen consistently in my work with growth-stage organizations: the companies whose surveys surface the most uncomfortable truths are the ones that grow the fastest. Not because discomfort is fun. But because they’re making decisions based on what’s actually happening instead of what they hoped was happening.
The companies whose surveys consistently show 90% engagement while experiencing 40% annual turnover? They’re not failing at surveys. They’re failing at leadership. The survey is just where that failure becomes visible, or, in this case, where it successfully stays hidden for another quarter.
Your business can only grow as far as your leadership team’s capacity to see clearly. And right now, your employee survey might be the thing standing in the way of that clarity.
If you’re ready to find out what your organization is actually telling you, that’s exactly the kind of diagnostic work we do. Not surveys. Real conversations, real observation, real data. Let’s talk about what your leadership team actually needs to see.
Ready to find out what your organization is actually telling you?
Our Leadership Operating System diagnostic work surfaces the real patterns affecting your culture, the ones your current surveys are missing. We work with growth-stage companies who are serious about closing the gap between what leadership thinks is happening and what’s actually true.
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You’re reading insights from Shakirah Forde, LCSW, Organizational Leadership Consultant and Executive Coach. I work with growth-stage companies (50-300 employees) to optimize leadership teams, reduce executive turnover, and improve decision velocity through identity-based organizational development.
If this resonated, forward it to a Chief People Officer or CEO who’s been wondering why their engagement scores don’t match reality.
