Hi,
Most incidents are reported clearly.
They rarely reach leadership that way.
You’ve probably heard there recently has been a steady increase in near-miss events inside U.S. air traffic control.
These incidents are being reported more frequently, often linked to staffing strain and system pressure.
The explanation is straightforward.
Too few controllers. Too much traffic. A system under load.
That may be accurate.
But I’ll bet you that the signal appears far earlier.
Not in the event itself. In how the event is recorded.
This is where signal filtering begins.
At the operational level, events are experienced in real terms.
Distance. Timing. Deviation. How close something actually came to failure.
As those events move upward, they are translated.
Categorized. Aggregated. Standardized.
Severity becomes classification.
Frequency becomes trend.
Urgency becomes data.
The system is seeing more than leadership is feeling.
By the time the signal reaches leadership, it no longer carries the same weight.
Inside leadership environments, this shift rarely registers as change.
What appears stable can already be distortion.
More events, appearing less severe.
More signals, carrying less urgency.
Over time, the system loses its early detection advantage.
Not because the signals were missing.
Because they were reshaped before reaching the decision point.
Where in your system might the signal already look different than it did when it started?
I’ve been paying closer attention to where this shows up across different environments.
In a few cases, it’s been helpful to map where decision stability is already shifting before it becomes visible.
If that’s something you’re seeing internally, I’ve been having a handful of conversations around it.
Rebekah Smith
If this resonated, share it with someone responsible for decisions under pressure.