The Cost of Silence in Leadership: Power, Truth, and Missing Data

If the people around you aren’t telling you the truth, you’re not getting the full picture and you’re paying for it in ways you can’t always see. In this episode, we unpack why honest communication so often breaks down at work, even among smart, well-meaning adults who care about results and relationships.

We start with the real reasons people stay silent: fear of consequences, low psychological safety, the desire to be liked, and the very human struggle of not knowing how to deliver feedback with respect. I also talk about the leadership factor that changes everything, power dynamics. When you have influence, a title, or even informal authority, people may edit themselves more than you realize, which means you’re leading with missing data.

Then we go to the “dark side” costs of unclear communication: emotional strain, reduced credibility, weaker performance, rising cognitive load, lost productivity from side conversations, and decision paralysis when priorities aren’t clear. The good news is this is fixable. I share what it looks like to build trust through intentional leadership communication, where truth is safe, expected, and practiced through simple phrases that invite clarity without turning every conversation into a confrontation.

If you care about psychological safety, team trust, workplace communication, and getting better outcomes with less stress, this one is for you. Subscribe, share this with a leader who wants more honesty on their team, and leave a review with the biggest communication shift you’re working on right now.

Ambitious leaders know that real leadership goes far beyond titles—it’s about developing the clarity and mindset to guide others with confidence. In this podcast, you’ll explore what today’s leaders truly need, from navigating everyday problem solving to handling tough moments of workplace conflict with steadiness and respect. Episodes dive into setting healthy workplace boundaries, strengthening workplace collaboration, and building the emotional intelligence and emotional agility that make leadership sustainable. Whether you’re managing a growing team or refining your voice as a decision-maker, you’ll find insights that help you cultivate a resilient growth mindset and elevate your impact.

Transcript

Welcome And The Truth Gap

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Intentional Leaders Podcast, where we help ambitious leaders gain clarity, communicate with confidence, and lead with intention. I'm your host, Cindy Wetland, and today we're going to talk about kind of an interesting topic, why we don't tell each other the truth and the effect of that on our relationships and our effect in the workplace. And this episode reveals a little bit about the communication breakdowns that come from a lack of psychological safety. Why don't we feel safe telling each other the truth? And there's some valid reasons for that. But then also, what are those hidden costs of the unclear communication, not only on our team's performance, but on our stress, on our decision-making process, on our productivity, and the quality of the relationship. So let's talk today about how communication gaps quietly impact results. Let's jump in. Today we're going to talk about an important topic for anyone who is in a leadership role. And again, that doesn't mean that you are in a job or have a title that suggests you're a leader, but you are in a leadership role trying to influence people and head to a good strong vision. But today we're going to talk a little bit about why people around you may not be telling you the truth. What? This sounds distressing and this sounds depressing. But there are also many reasons why we aren't really honest with each other. And I don't mean people are walking around lying to each other intentionally and that we are telling each other blatant lies. However, there may be a lot of withholding information, or a lot of times we're talking in our head and we're not saying things out loud. And today we're going to talk about the effect of that. And then also what can you do about it? Because as a leader, this has a huge impact on your ability to establish good in a good working environment, but also get the results that you're looking for and helping people feel really good about working as a part of your group or team. But think about all the reasons why we don't tell people the truth, honestly. Go just think about your day. Think about like, okay, someone asks you for your opinion and you think, ooh, I don't really want to tell you the truth. Or like giving someone feedback and you think, no, I don't really want to do that. There's so, so many things that we keep in our heads that we don't share out loud. Now, why? Um, I hear a lot of people, because in feedback classes I hear a lot of this too, right? I fear the consequences. They'll get mad at me, or they won't understand it, or it won't matter, or they'll be upset. So I can't be honest because someone else will be upset. So we would rather be upset not saying the truth. I don't know. Um, but this also gets to psychological safety. Do you feel safe with the people around you to say what is honest, to say what is authentic, to say how you think and what you feel? Is it safe? Are there or are there consequences to saying things out loud and honestly? Have you been chastised for that? Or in some way, has there been a consequence negatively to you of speaking the truth? But also the desire to be liked. A lot of people are people pleasers. I don't happen to be one of them. They know me well. That's kind of down on my list. Um, I of course I wouldn't want to be like, but I don't, um, I'm not a people pleaser per se, but a lot of people are. And I I understand that desire to be and to have that connection with each other. We are social creatures, and that is important to us. We don't want to be alienated from the people that were around. Um, the next one is lack of skill. Maybe you just don't know how to say the things, right? How do how do I say something honestly in a way that is assertive or that's direct or that is uh done in a respectful way? If the voices in your head are not very pleasant, how do you put the right combination of words together? And then the last one is just that self-protection or maybe biases that we think one, I don't want to take the risks, and maybe two, it doesn't really matter. It's not going to matter in the long run. No one will change. So think about all the reasons why. So I just listed five, right? Fear of the consequences, psychological safety, we want to be liked, we lack the skill, or we have that self-protection bias. So there's so many reasons to withhold information from one another. And then we'll add to it when you're in a leadership role, whether that's formal or informal, you have a power dynamic. And that power dynamic matters because now you're a role model for something or someone or a group or team. And that power dynamic may also just add to the complexity of being able to share my honest perspectives with you. What do we do with all this? What do we do with all those voices in our head? Well, what I want to talk about first is the effect of not dealing with all those things. What effect does this have on people around you and for you as a leader? So before we go into what to do about it, I really want to go dark side here a little bit into the consequences of not doing this well. Because unless we really embrace the consequences of not doing it well, it's hard to be energized to say we're going to do it differently, because the pain associated with doing it differently means that we have to take all those risks, look them in the face, and do it anyway. And of course, that's what courage is, right? Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. But who wants to do that? Not a lot of us, and not, well, I shouldn't say that. That's a generalization. Many times we may not want to do that. But here are some of the things that affect us as leaders when we don't lean into being honest and creating relationships that are open and transparent and safe. Number one is there's an emotional cost to this. And I think about that based on so many people that I've worked with over the years who were in those power positions and the emotional reactions connected to people around how they communicated or feeling a little bit anxious or afraid to say things because of the emotional reaction of them, right? So I am not going to risk negative emotions coming at me. So instead, I'll protect myself. And that has a huge effect on our relationships, right? Me being afraid to be honest and all the emotional, um, all the emotional effects of our relationship not being as authentic or as transparent as it could be. But second, there is a credibility cost in communication. Think about what you're trying to accomplish from a leadership perspective. It means that you know the results that are important, you know the goals, you know where we're trying to go. And so by not communicating very clearly with others or them asking questions back, it takes a toll on the direction that we're going and the clarity of knowing who's doing what, what is my responsibility, what do you expect of me, what are what are my goals? And that two-way communication has everything to do with a strong partnership around the results we're gonna get and how much I'll be willing to hold myself accountable for the results if I don't achieve them. Because if I on the front end wasn't really clear about what I was supposed to do, I much less likely on the back end want to take ownership over some poor results, for example. So, one, there's an emotional effect of communication in our relationships. Two, there's a performance impact as well. Um, number three, stress and mental load. I think about my cognitive load a lot. Now, what does that mean? It means all the things that are competing for intention in my brain every day, whether that's tasks or to-dos or um deliverables or relationships or just things that have not been checked off the list, that's a big cognitive load, right? The more complexity that we have, the more that we're facing, and the more uncertainty we have. Um, uncertainty is a huge stressor to our brain. Our brain does not like uncertainty. It likes to know, and of course, how can we ever know what the future holds? That's the ironic part, is we don't really know what the future holds, but we want to know. We want to have some certainty, certainty, we want to have some planfulness, we want to have some structure. So when from a leadership perspective, there isn't that clarity, it means everybody else is going to be more freaked out. And I remember that back from my leadership days. I think I did that to people a lot. I don't know that I I I guess no, I kind of look at it like, hey, I was probably clear and we were going, but did I share all that in the way that I could help people calm down and reduce their stress and cognitive load? I don't know that I did in hindsight. And there's probably a lot of things that I could have done differently about that. So we got emotions, we got credibility and results, and we have cognitive load. I'm gonna add to that productivity loss. So, how many of you have ever had a situation where you are upset with a leader and you talk to someone else about it? Isn't that ridiculous? Think how many times we share information about a lack of clarity or disliking something that's happening or the direction that's been given, or no direction has been given, or no communication has been had, and how much time we spend talking about that, right? How many hours and days and weeks of our lifetime are spent on a lack of clarity and the productivity lost because of that, because we feel we need to go share it with someone else. Like, hey, do you know what my boss did today? Hey, do you know what that person did today or they didn't say or they didn't react? That has a huge toll on the performance of everyone and the results because we're distracted by an absence of what we believe we should be getting in terms of direction, clarity, communication. And then the last uh or the next one is decision paralysis. When we don't have enough information, like yeah, I'm going through my day and I'm thinking here uh here's 10 things, what's the biggest priority? I don't know. So then we become overwhelmed. It goes back to that cognitive load. We could become overwhelmed with the complexity of our work or deciding what should we do first, what is most important. And in the absence of that being communicated to me, I'm probably gonna make my own decisions and then maybe second guess myself or decide on focusing on the wrong things because I don't know about you, but if I if I lack some decision criteria, I'll probably go to what I like best or maybe what's easiest. I'm not gonna be like, oh, that thing is gonna be really hard. Let me tackle that first. That's not me. Um, but when we think about the vagueness of communication, decision making can stall, or people can make decisions that aren't aligned with priorities. And then just the last one is relationships. How are we going to have authentic, transparent, trusting relationships when we don't have honest communication, when I'm not really saying all the things that are in my head to you directly? And you're not saying all the things in your head to me directly in terms of how you think, what you're feeling in the moment, and even what you're observing. There are so many times when we talk to ourselves and we don't say things out loud for all kinds of reasons that I mentioned up front, right? The fear, the biases, not feeling safe. But then we create our own individual experience that may be very different from someone else on the team, from someone else on the team, from someone else on the team, right? Think of 10 different people on a team, all living in their own brains with their own experience, with their own voices in their head of things that they haven't said. And then over here is the leader doing the same thing. And it's really, really uh important to be thinking of how do we create an environment in which we're safe to be honest, and not only that it's safe to be honest, it's expected to be honest and to be truthful and to be authentic in being able to share what we think and how we feel. Because that at the heart of it is assertive communication. And we do that with respect. And we do it because we care enough about what we're trying to do collectively to get to a good outcome. And not only that, we're gonna get to a better outcome, we're gonna feel so much better in terms of how we're all functioning together because we don't run around with stories in our head about assumptions or interpretations of other people's behavior. We're actually talking about it out loud. Wouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't it be cool to live in a world like that? So, in this episode, I what I really wanted to share is why we don't tell each other the truth, and there's a lot of reasons for that. But then what are the ramifications of that when you're in a leadership role and how important it is to change that and to shift that? Now, here comes the hard part is that is hard work, right? That means risk taking and vulnerability and awkwardness and building those relationships one message, one day at a time. But I think it's worth it to do that and create that kind of experience for each other. That's really intentional leadership. So if you're interested in some tips on how to do that, there's some resources on our website that will be helpful. One is an article about why your employees aren't telling you the truth or why people don't share the truth with each other. But there's also a down uh downloadable guide in the show notes for this podcast. And it's called 10 Leadership Communication Phases That Build Trust. These are just small, small things that you can say consistently that will open the door to other people being more honest with you, to creating that kind of transparent transparency, that kind of authenticity with each other that makes a huge difference in terms of our results and in terms of our relationship. So check out the download for ideas on how to do this. And these phrases, y'all, they're not hard. It just means we're intentionally practicing them. And that is my hope for you this week is you really think about taking those voices in your head and starting to say them out loud and understand that this is a practice, and practice is a part of getting stronger and being courageous. I love the quote about fear or courage isn't the absence of fear, it's being afraid and doing it anyway. And I think this is a really good example of intentional communication and having the courage to do it right. So let's work on that this week. I will too. Thanks for listening to this episode. And I hope your key takeaway is knowing that there are a lot of reasons why we don't necessarily feel safe to be honest with each other. We have a lot of fears, and those are natural. We have to get beyond those fears in order to be more transparent and authentic and more effective in our relationships. So I hope what this episode has done for you is heightened your sense of self-awareness and that you go forward this week really thinking about those times where you feel safe to show up as your honest self with sharing what you're thinking and how you're feeling in the moment. And when do you not feel safe doing that? Because as leaders, we have to be good role models for this. Is it awkward and uncomfortable? And is there a risk associated with being honest and transparent and vulnerable? Of course there is, but that's what makes intentional leadership have a significant impact, not only on our professional lives, but on our personal lives as well.