The Advice We Never Take – Why Leaders Seek Counsel They Systematically Ignore
The Advice We Never Take
Why Leaders Seek Counsel They Systematically Ignore
Issue 246, January 8, 2026
A CEO I worked with several years ago hired three different consulting firms over 18 months to advise on the same strategic question. Each firm conducted extensive research, interviewed stakeholders, and delivered comprehensive recommendations. Each recommendation pointed in essentially the same direction. And each time, he thanked them, paid their invoices, and proceeded exactly as he had intended before asking.
When I asked him about this pattern, he seemed genuinely puzzled by the question. “I needed to be thorough,” he said. “The board expected due diligence.” He wasn’t being dishonest. He genuinely believed he was open to influence. But looking at the evidence, his advice-seeking served functions that had nothing to do with actually receiving guidance.
This pattern is far more common than most of us want to admit. Research from the University of Waterloo, surveying over 3,500 people across a dozen countries, found that people instinctively prefer to “go it alone” rather than seek advice for complex decisions, even in traditionally interdependent societies. We ask for input, solicit feedback from trusted advisors, hire experts, form committees, and conduct surveys. Then we proceed exactly as we intended before asking. This isn’t hypocrisy in the traditional sense. It’s a fascinating psychological phenomenon where seeking advice serves purposes beyond the obvious one of learning something new.
The Hidden Functions of Asking
Sometimes we seek advice because we want validation. We’ve already decided, but we want someone credible to confirm that our instincts are sound. When the advice aligns with our intentions, we feel reassured. When it doesn’t, we find reasons to discount it: the advisor doesn’t understand our context, they’re applying generic frameworks to our unique situation, they don’t see what we see.
Research published in Frontiers in Psychology confirms this pattern, finding that advice discounting results from judges’ confidence in their initial decisions combined with insufficient trust in the advice itself. The more certain we already feel, the less weight we give to perspectives that challenge that certainty.
Sometimes we seek advice to distribute blame. If the decision goes wrong, we can point to the process we followed, the experts we consulted, and the due diligence we conducted. The advice becomes a form of insurance against future criticism. “We did everything right” becomes the narrative, even when “everything right” meant ignoring what we heard.
Sometimes we seek advice to demonstrate thoroughness to stakeholders who expect it. Boards want to see that management considered alternatives. Teams want to feel heard before decisions are finalized. Asking becomes performance, a ritual that satisfies expectations without necessarily influencing outcomes.
And sometimes we seek advice because we genuinely don’t know what to do and hope someone else has the answer. But even in these cases, research suggests we’re more likely to accept advice that confirms our intuitions than advice that challenges them.
The Confirmation Trap
Behavioral research has consistently demonstrated that we process advice through the filter of our existing beliefs. Harvard Business School research by Blunden and colleagues, published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, documented what they call the interpersonal costs of ignoring advice. Advisors, particularly expert advisors, penalize seekers who disregard their counsel. This creates a double bind: we seek advice we won’t follow, and the advisors we ignore become less willing to help us in the future.
When advice aligns with what we already think, we remember it as particularly insightful. When advice contradicts our instincts, we find it less credible, less applicable, less well-reasoned. The same recommendation, delivered by the same expert, lands completely differently depending on whether it confirms or challenges our prior position.
Research by Francesca Gino at Harvard adds another dimension: power reduces willingness to take advice. Making people feel powerful significantly decreased how much weight they gave to others’ perspectives. The leaders most likely to seek high-profile advice are often the ones whose sense of power makes them least likely to follow it.
This creates an interesting paradox. The advice we most need is often the advice we’re least likely to follow. If our instincts were reliable, we wouldn’t need outside perspective. But the advice that challenges our instincts triggers exactly the psychological defenses that prevent us from taking it seriously.
I’ve watched executives dismiss feedback from their most trusted advisors, including my team at 2040, because it didn’t match their predetermined conclusions. “She doesn’t understand the political dynamics,” they’ll say, or “He’s too conservative for our industry.” The advisor whose judgment was respected last month becomes suddenly suspect when their judgment points somewhere uncomfortable.
Recognizing the Pattern in Yourself
The uncomfortable truth is that recognizing this pattern in others is easy. Recognizing it in yourself requires a different kind of honesty. Ask yourself: when was the last time advice genuinely changed your direction? Not refined your approach or adjusted timing, but fundamentally altered what you intended to do? If you can’t recall a recent example, that’s worth examining.
When you seek input, are you genuinely uncertain, or have you already decided? There’s nothing wrong with seeking validation for a decision you’ve made. But calling it “seeking advice” when you mean “seeking confirmation” creates a subtle form of self-deception that accumulates over time.
Pay attention to how you react when advice surprises you. Do you lean in with curiosity, genuinely exploring why someone you respect sees things differently? Or do you immediately begin constructing explanations for why their perspective doesn’t apply to your situation?
Creating Genuine Openness
If you want to actually benefit from advice rather than just going through the motions of seeking it, a few practices help. First, articulate your current position before you ask. Make your assumptions explicit so that you and your advisor can examine them together. Hidden assumptions can’t be challenged.
Second, specifically request disagreement. Ask advisors where they think you might be wrong, what risks you might be underweighting, and what you might be failing to see. Make it safe for them to challenge you by demonstrating that you value pushback.
Third, build in a delay between receiving advice and deciding. The immediate impulse to dismiss uncomfortable input fades with time. Advice that seemed irrelevant in the moment sometimes reveals its value after reflection. We have seen this across a decade of working with clients. What initially seems to run counter after some time to process, is embraced for all the right and most productive reasons.
Finally, track your record. Over the next year, keep a simple log of significant decisions, what advice you received, whether you followed it, and what happened. The pattern that emerges will tell you something important about whether your advice-seeking is genuine or performative.
The Deeper Question
At its core, the gap between seeking advice and taking advice reveals something about how we relate to uncertainty. Asking for input acknowledges that we don’t have all the answers. But ignoring that input suggests we’re not fully comfortable with that acknowledgment. We want the appearance of humility without its substance.
The leaders I most respect have learned to distinguish between confidence in their judgment and certainty that they’re right. Confidence allows decisive action. Certainty closes off the possibility of learning. The difference shows up in how they engage with perspectives that challenge their own.
The advice we seek but never take costs more than the consulting fees paid. It costs those who dismiss the advice the opportunity to be genuinely influenced by people who might see what we can’t. That cost compounds silently over a career, shaping decisions in ways we never fully examine.
So the next time you find yourself asking for advice, pause and ask yourself a harder question: am I actually open to hearing something that changes my mind? If the honest answer is no, at least acknowledge what you’re really doing. Seeking confirmation isn’t shameful. Pretending it’s something else is where the problem begins.
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