I asked a CEO one question and she went silent for 40 seconds

Not "thinking" silent
Not "searching for the right words" silent

The kind of silent where someone realizes they don't have an answer they should have.
The kind of silent where the world she thought she knew just shifted under her feet.

"Two of your top managers were near burnout.
One cried in front of a teammate.
Both went to talk to someone else, not you.
You had no idea until I brought it up.
Why do you think they didn't trust you with this?"

I watched her sit with it.
The realization landing that things aren't what she thought. I could almost hear glass shattering.

The best leaders build trust with their team so that when things aren't going well, people talk openly about it. Not to a teammate. Not to someone outside the company. To them.

If your top people were struggling, would they come to you?