Instead of celebrating her fresh take, the marketing director was told she was being difficult, even demanding.

Recently hired at a major financial firm to identify growth strategies, she spent her first 60 days on the job studying the situation. She went to meetings, asked lots of questions, and researched the marketplace responses to different campaigns. Then, using all of this data, she did a classic gap analysis between what the firm said they wanted when they hired her (a customer set that reflects the broader demographics) and how well they reached that audience. She confirmed with her colleagues that her analysis was on-point and put together a 3-part plan, as her boss had requested, for strategies that could bridge that gap.

Yet, she got pushback. Lots of it. Her boss told her that she was bringing up uncomfortable and difficult topics. They hired her to make the firm better, but the firm’s leadership wanted to believe they were already great.

Divergent, dissident voices are the key to growth and innovation. Yet some leaders demonize the people, accusing them of being the problem instead of solving the problem that is being raised. The reason is simple: It’s not comfortable to see your shortcomings. It is this discomfort that causes leaders to deflect and defend. And, of course, when leaders do this, they limit whether the organization advances.

I’ve seen this in countless situations. It happens when a leader is anxious and afraid that once they name a problem, they won’t know how to fix it. The gap between knowing something is wrong and not knowing how to fix it is uncomfortable, and it’s the discomfort that leaders seek to push away.

The tougher the situation is, the more likely a leader is to penalize the person bringing the issue forward. That’s why with values-based or ethical situations like sexual harassment or equal pay, it’s — ahem — easier to demonize and in some cases, fire the leaders agitating for change than take on the issues themselves.

Take for example, the way Google handled a top employee concerned with the company’s direction in China. For nearly a decade, Google tasked Ross LaJeunesse with protecting human rights in China. In this role, he developed the company’s plan to stop censoring search results. Google was celebrated for this support of free expression and data privacy. LaJeunesse, who held a variety of executive roles at Google, was trusted throughout the company and received rave performance reviews, not just for his work with China, but for his work across the board.

That changed in 2019, when LaJeunesse felt the company moving away from the values that he — and they — had championed. So he tried to sway minds. More recently, he joined 1,400 employees who signed an internal letter criticizing Google’s failure to be transparent about its plans in China.

Visibly at odds with the company’s leaders, he got a lot of push back. One day, he was accidentally copied on an email. An HR director said he seemed to “raise concerns a lot,” and instructed staff to “do some digging” on the person instead of the issues.

As with the marketing director, the leader demonized him instead of dealing with the issue. This can happen in any organization — including yours — and affects every part of the business, from marketing to sales, by product and industry moves, and at every level. You probably have in mind right now the tough situation your organization is facing and can fill in the blanks.

So, how to change? Let’s create a rubric for leaders who need to face the tension head-on.