It’s surprising that this is surprising.

Every conversation loses information. Something is always lost in translation, even among excellent communicators. If you only rely on your direct reports to get information about your organization you will be flying blind. This will happen in situations where everyone has the purest intentions. Add on top politics and personal interests and the problem compounds.

Here are a few tools I’ve used to get a richer understanding of what’s going:

  - skip level one on ones
  - metrics
  - using the product as a user
  - occasionally looking at a few “low level” artifacts like customer support threads, slack conversations, PR reviews, or user stories. 

You’re essentially doing a virtual walk-around. Imagine in a physical plant, once a week, the CEO walks around the fence perimeter, through the stock rooms, observes the gate for a few minutes, walks the factory floor inconspicuously, makes herself coffee in the back cafeteria, and uses the warehouse bathroom. While she does this she occasionally asks a question here or there, praises a good effort, and very visibly picks up a piece of trash. It’s possible to do a similar thing virtually.

The observations from the above activities are invaluable sources of information. You cross reference it with what your direct reports tell you. You challenge them based on your first hand observations. Ask a lot of questions, and when they can’t answer them, encourage them to also become more intimately involved in their part of the organization.

No single perspective is enough to understand what’s going on

This is not micromanagement. This is being aware.