The Mandelson vetting row shows how power filters out the truth before it hits No 10

The hunt is on to find out who knew what, and when.

Yet as entertaining as that hunt for a villain may be, the search for someone to blame is likely to distract everyone from the deeper, more troubling causes. As a result, nothing will improve, and sooner or later, something similar will happen again.

Fifty years of research on communication in organisations points to an uncomfortable conclusion. The information reaching every leader is almost always incomplete. In fact, researchers have identified five ways in which information can become distorted.

Positivity and optimism can be added beyond what is warranted. Bad news can be delayed or rerouted. Ambiguous and uncertain information can be presented with false certainty. Disagreements can be hidden by apparent consensus. And whole topics can quietly disappear, as minority views and ideas that don't fit current strategy are quietly suppressed.

These distortions are well-known, but leaders invariably underestimate how much filtering goes on, and so overestimate how accurate and complete the information reaching them really is.

Strikingly, this filtering rarely happens because of a deliberate attempt to deceive or conceal. Instead, two forces do most of the damage.

The first is social risk. The more power a leader is seen to have, or the more dominant their style, the more likely it is that people will filter or adjust what they say to avoid negative reactions. Indeed, the moment someone becomes a leader, people are less likely to challenge or openly disagree with them. And almost no one likes to deliver bad news to their boss. (This fear is well placed, too, as research shows that even the most benign boss tends to unconsciously act more negatively towards those who bring them bad news).

The second is perceived usefulness. Advises tend to instinctively strip out what is ambiguous or hard to act on, or any information they think a leader won't value.

Or, in a similar vein, they may add or change information in an effort to provide what they think a leader needs or wants to hear. Not to deceive, but just because they are trying to be useful. So, even the most experienced and honourable of advisers can filter information.

Many are unaware they are even doing it, and most believe they are simply doing their job.

A leader doesn't need to be toxic for these dynamics to occur. But how they lead and behave is one of the most important factors – if not the most important one - in determining just how strong the forces are, how much filtering goes on as a result, and how serious the effects are.

Dynamics like these are what enable incidents like the Mandelson case. They are there, in the background, influencing people's behaviour before anyone decides what to say.

That isn't to excuse anyone who has done wrong. It is just to note that when incidents like this happen, individual behaviour is rarely the whole story. More often, the incident is a symptom – a sign that the social and power dynamics around a leader are unhealthy or broken.

Two implications follow.

First, Starmer's exposure here is not just about whether he was or wasn't told certain information. Even if he wasn't, he presided over the organisational culture that allowed or encouraged the withholding of it. He either caused, enabled or didn't act to stop the social and power dynamics that allowed the incident to happen.

And though it may have been the result of dynamics within the civil service or foreign office, he is the leader of the government and ultimately accountable for what happens within it. Maybe not directly for this specific incident.

But certainly, for the culture and dynamics that enabled it to happen. If people are withholding things from him, that's not just on them. As their leader, it's on him, too.

Second, in incidents like this, the public conversation tends to devolve into a predictable pattern of finger-pointing. Why the truth could not travel upward rarely gets asked at all (unless to help point the finger at someone).

As a result, what doesn't get discussed is arguably the most important issue of all: how to change the system, and certainly at least the social and power dynamics between No. 10 and the Foreign Office, so that it doesn't happen again.

Asking whether someone lied or who is to blame is a short conversation. Asking why the truth could not be told is a more complicated one, but also the only one liable to actually change anything.

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Psychologist Nik Kinley is a leadership coach, assessor, and adviser with over 35 years of experience, who has worked with the CEOs of national banks, heads of national security, and hedge fund bosses, as well as royalty, criminals, politicians, and children. He is the author of multiple leadership books, most recently The Power Trap.

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