Matthew Bennett (Willow Ethos founding partner) uses The Emperor’s New Clothes as a metaphor to explore how intelligent and well-meaning people collectively uphold flawed ideas, not through ill intent, but through silence and conformity.
I have a very early memory of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes. I remember seeing it as a children’s book (too) many years ago in Primary School, on the bookshelf in the school library. The front cover had a cartoon of a naked man riding a horse through a crowd of people. Some onlookers looked shocked, others laughed and pointed. The image certainly grabbed your attention, and the message was brilliant – or at least, in the present, once it had clicked, I thought it was. I’m not sure what I thought back then.
Although often treated as a children’s story, its real power lies in how accurately it describes adult behaviour, particularly behavioural tendencies within organisations, and perhaps even currently on a geopolitical scale!
Guido Palazzo draws on this very tale in his book The Dark Pattern (which is excellent by the way) to explain how intelligent, well-intentioned people can collectively uphold ideas, strategies, or even leaders they privately know are flawed. Business, it turns out, is full of invisible clothes.
In the story, no one genuinely believes in the emperor’s magnificent outfit. Officials see nothing. Courtiers see nothing. The emperor himself sees nothing. Yet this entire intersection of society nods along, praises the craftsmanship, and plays their role. Why? Because the cost of honesty feels higher than the cost of silence. Speaking up carries too much risk: risks of being labelled incompetent, disloyal, or unfit for one’s position. Silence, by contrast, feels safe, at least in the short term.
This is the essence of the “yes-men” dynamic in organisations. People rarely set out to deceive. However, what we think we do in our behaviours is not always played out in reality. So what do we do instead?
Instead, we read the room. We notice which opinions are rewarded, which questions are tolerated, and which voices are quietly marginalised. We watch, we learn, and then we gradually adapt our behaviours to the cultural norms for that room. It is a primeval desire – the desire to ‘fit in’ and it’s completely overwhelming. It has served us well and allowed us, as a species, to survive. Although we think we are ‘above that’ and able to be confident in our own opinions, over time we learn that dissent becomes risky, alignment becomes currency, and you find that nodding along becomes a survival strategy. As Palazzo argues, unethical or irrational outcomes often don’t arise from bad actors, but from patterns of interaction where employees aren’t free to challenge, and compliance is rewarded in their place of work.
Crucially, these dynamics don’t require overt pressure. No one in the emperor’s court explicitly orders silence. The rules are implicit; they know the desires of the Emperor and to agree with him means job security and perhaps even promotion. In my experience, the same is true in many businesses and teams. Leaders may claim they want “honest feedback” while reacting defensively to bad news. Meetings may invite debate while subtly signalling that the decision is already made. The result is pluralistic ignorance: everyone privately doubts, but everyone believes they are the only person to be doing so.
Psychological safety sits at the heart of this problem. Without it, people self-censor. They soften language, defer concerns, or raise issues only in corridors, never in the room where decisions are made. How many times have you been in a meeting yourself where everyone agrees in the moment, only to walk out of the room and start disparaging what was decided? There is a sense of “What was that all about?”, “Why are we doing this?”, “It’s never going to work” – all phrases so often heard outside of the meeting room and rarely in it.
Over time, organisations lose their capacity for course correction. Risks compound. Reality drifts further from the narrative being publicly maintained. The emperor keeps walking in his new clothes. I have found that this blueprint is not what a successful organisation is based upon.
You may remember from the story that it takes a child to point out that the Emperor is actually naked and for the townsfolk to look on in agreement. The child in Andersen’s story matters not because of innocence, but more importantly because of freedom. With no status to protect and no reputation to manage, the child can say what others cannot: “He isn’t wearing anything at all.” In organisations, this role is often played by newcomers, outsiders, or those with genuine psychological safety. However, relying on accidental truth-tellers is fragile. So it needs to be built in to your organisation and into your ways of working. Mature organisations focus on designing for challenge rather than hoping for bravery.
Breaking the pattern requires leaders to do more than invite dissent; they must visibly reward it. Speaking up must be seen to change outcomes, not careers. Until then, many organisations will continue admiring imaginary clothes, wondering, quietly and individually, why no one else seems to understand what is missing.
| Matthew Bennett | Willow Ethos
Founding Partner of Willow Ethos Matthew Bennett is a seasoned operator in the consultancy industry. He is a co founder of a culture driven consultancy promotes growth using a combination of leadership development and data led insights, to align the culture of a company with its employees. As a founder of Willow Ethos, Matthew has had great success at improving organisational performance through executive coaching and improving systems to deliver sustainable growth in the future, improving business outcomes for his clients. |
