Yet the organization had just paid another installment of the silence tax. The president must confront the distance between the leader he intends to be and the leader others experience. A leader who can receive difficult truth without retaliation gives the institution something invaluable: permission to remain honest. The final test is remarkably simple: What happens to the organization when the president is not in the room? The silence tax disappears when truth no longer has to travel around power to reach the person who needs it.