What the 'yes men' are showing is that CEOs and managers operate from a distance and seem to get disconnected from the real world. That doesn't mean that they are sociopaths perse but they do believe that they serve the greater good by their mallicious acts (can I make a comparison with nazis for a clear example?).
But that is no different than "average Joe". On average, we will find a good percentage of "average Joe's" who would prefer not to hear bad news. And, on average, you will good a good percentage of "average Joe's" with no idea of is going on around him/her.
I'll cite 3 examples:
- Ask any parent with kids in school. What percentage of them know the subjects their kids MUST learn for the core courses this school year. I bet less than 20% would know with 80% accuracy.
- You walk into an average facility of any major corporation, and the average employee there what is their corporation's mission statement. See what kind of response you got. Let's even forgo "average facility" and do that at corporate HQ - ask an average employee there right at corporate HQ their mission statement and see what you got. I would be very surprise if a majority of them knows their corporate's mission statement.
- Walk into any department and ask what is their corporation's revenue target for the project/product they spend the most time on. Ask them for that same project what is the corporation's P&L expectation for that project or product this quarter (or at introduction if new product). I would be surprise if a majority knows.
Yet even the average Joe is part of this corporation that paid his rent, his car... and he doesn't even know the department's revenue goal, how it compares with last quarter, what is the growth compare to last year this month... yet this is what makes his financial well being...
We all see the world through our own frame of reference and our own little view port. The CEO needs to know only what he needs to know to fulfill his responsibility - which is to serve the stock holders whom entrusted this CEO to manage their money. Unless a project/product is important to the immediate health of the corporation, or the long term financial health of the corporation, or in some manner affects the corporation significantly, his knowing and worry about the details would be a waste of his time and attention span.
Aggressive and ambitious employees would want to make sure he/she works on the projects that the CEO thinks he/she needs to know as CEO. Otherwise, the CEO likely shouldn't know what you are doing. He paid someone else to worry about those things.