I believe you're talking about communication from management to employees. It's a common frustration that 'management' is not "open and honest". Funnily enough

I believe you're talking about communication from management to employees. It's a common frustration that 'management' is not "open and honest". Funnily enough most managers will agree that "open and honest" communications are critical. The challenge is commonly in the implementation which is difficult - and that it's not actually as much of a "universal truth" as you might expect. Mostly, when people complain about communication it's because there are challenges and they feel that those are not being addressed properly. In my experience the 'implementation' issue is that people experience situations very differently - that's why people feel that no-one is listening - it's literally because the two sides don't manage to explore/find a common ground so then can't really work to solutions. For an obvious extreme, consider how the Founder of something like Google experiences their company, versus a newly-minted developer. As a manager you'll probably spend a life-time trying to learn the nuances of understanding how other people are experiencing situations. Management has many aspects, some if it is to "make the group productive", but some of it is to "make the organisation successful". Those two are not always the same, and there can be conflict. What's good for the company and what's good for the individual employee are not always the same. Imagine if your start-up is about to run out of money, and is pitching for a big deal: as a 'manager' would you be comfortable telling everyone that if we don't win this job then we won't be making payroll in two months? On the one hand, people will say that they want to know, on the other you may watch everyone immediately send out their CV's ... the risk/benefit is not always straightforward.