Upward communication fails because organizations ignore the power differential that makes it fragile. Four anti-patterns recur: obsessing over format (the template becomes the goal, substance gets lost), asymmetric commitment (leadership asks for upward comms but doesn’t reciprocate downward), unresponsiveness (information flows up and vanishes, teaching contributors the process is performative), and no engineer buy-in (the process was designed for management without consulting the people doing the communicating).
Every failure stems from pretending the power differential doesn’t exist. Successful upward communication, like good concern response, actively mitigates it.