The book The Culture Map explores these sorts of problems, comparing many cultures’ norms and advising on how to bridge the differences.
In Senegal people seem less comfortable by default expressing disagreement with someone above them in the hierarchy. (As a funny example, I’ve had a few colleagues who I would ask yes-or-no questions and they would answer “Yes” followed by an explanation of why the answer is no.)
Some advice it gives for this particular example (at least in several ‘strong hierarchy’ cultures), is instead of a higher-ranking asking direct questions of lower-ranking people, the boss can ask a team of lower-ranked people to work together to submit a proposal, where “who exactly criticized which thing” is a bit obfuscated.
The book The Culture Map explores these sorts of problems, comparing many cultures’ norms and advising on how to bridge the differences.
Some advice it gives for this particular example (at least in several ‘strong hierarchy’ cultures), is instead of a higher-ranking asking direct questions of lower-ranking people, the boss can ask a team of lower-ranked people to work together to submit a proposal, where “who exactly criticized which thing” is a bit obfuscated.