Do you have metrics available somewhere? Doesn't matter real-time or N days report - people can connect the dots: signs up are flat, but we keep hiring.
You can't meet requirements without marketing pushes? Well, shit, I wonder if a company spends 2 dollars to earn 1 dollar.
You can lie and bullshit all you want, but your reports and their reports will know.
I worked in a company where the analytics team suddenly decided to leave, all within days of each other. Month later - layoff. They weren't told that things are bad, they were the one who told you that things are bad.
This is also an implicit permission to the employees to lie to the CTO. This is pretty standard narcissistic behavior, where your lies to employees are just doing business, while employees lying to the management is a grave offence that calls for job termination.
I agree.
> You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what
> This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point.
I've only been performing roles of director / vp to small/mid size companies so far, so maybe there's some secret CTO sauce I'm still missing.
To me this advice seems toxic and destructive. Vent upwards, yes. Manage expectations, yes. But you're hiring brilliant people who will eventually know when youre lying or concealing info from lack of trust. good luck with loyalty at that point.