When Silence Protects Harmful Leadership

A team can know that something is wrong long before an organisation is prepared to name it.

People are often aware of the leader who leaves a trail of confusion, diminished confidence or unusually high turnover. They may see colleagues becoming quieter in meetings, documenting every interaction or taking increasing amounts of sickness absence.  Individually, many people will be recognising the pattern, however collectively, very little about it gets said.

There is a problem with this because silence is not a neutral backdrop to harmful leadership. Many of us have stayed silent for too long and it has not only allowed the conditions of harmful leadership to continue, but it has accelerated them. 

Why damaging leadership can be rewarded

In my most recent Burnout to Brilliance podcast conversation (Series 4, episode 8 – Sly and Mighty), psychotherapist, executive coach and former C-suite headhunter Kathleen Saxton joined me to explore why traits associated with toxic power can be mistaken for leadership capability.   She shared how organisations frequently recruit for confidence, decisiveness, charisma and an ability to make difficult decisions.  Kathleen explained how these qualities can be valuable, but without equal attention to empathy, accountability, reflection and relational impact, they may provide an attractive surface beneath which harm is caused and largely goes unseen.

Uncertainty can intensify this pull. When an organisation is under commercial, political or operational pressure, an emphatic leader with a compelling plan may feel reassuring. Their certainty can temporarily carry what the wider system is struggling to hold. The risk is that confidence becomes confused with competence and dominance with strength.

The organisational cost of unspoken experience

Kathleen describes the silence surrounding destructive behaviour as “the silence of the sly”. She suggests that the bystander effect offers one explanation, because when many people witness a problem, responsibility becomes diffused. Each person may assume somebody else has reported it, or take colleagues’ silence as evidence that their own concern is misplaced.

For the person most directly affected, this can deepen self-doubt. They are not only managing the leader’s behaviour; they are continually interpreting the lack of response around it. That additional emotional labour can involve vigilance, impression management, record-keeping and constant anticipation of what may happen next.

These demands have direct relevance to burnout. A role can look manageable on paper while requiring an unsustainable amount of nervous-system effort in practice. Concentration, creativity and performance may then decline, creating a damaging cycle in which the impact of the environment is misread as an individual capability issue.

What organisations can learn

A psychologically safe culture cannot depend on one brave whistleblower. Kathleen explains that lone challengers are particularly vulnerable to being discredited or scapegoated, especially when the leader in question holds significant influence.

Organisations can reduce this risk by creating multiple credible routes through which patterns can become visible. These include meaningful exit-data analysis, independent speaking-up channels, recurring culture reviews, board-level attention to relational as well as financial performance, and ways for concerns across teams to be identified without exposing one individual as the sole source.

Recruitment and promotion processes also need to examine more than polished performance. References, retention patterns, previous culture data and the accounts of people who worked beneath a candidate may reveal information that conventional interviews do not.

Where concerns arise, the question should extend beyond whether a leader intended harm. Organisational responsibility includes understanding the impact of behaviour, the conditions that have enabled it and what must change to prevent its repetition.

Love and rockets

Kathleen’s phrase “love and rockets”, shared during the conversation, offers a useful principle for organisational response. Love represents care, curiosity and the possibility of growth. Rockets represent evidence, preparation, clear boundaries and action.

Care without action may leave people exposed. Action without thought can become another display of power. Together, they invite a response that is compassionate but not passive, one that supports the people affected, gives a leader a meaningful opportunity to recognise and change behaviour where appropriate, and remains clear about the standards required for a healthy workplace.

The most revealing question may not be whether an organisation has a policy for toxic behaviour, but whether people believe anything safe and useful will happen if they speak.

Listen and Learn More

This article was inspired by the latest Burnout to Brilliance podcast conversation between Jayne Morris MCC and psychotherapist and author Kathleen Saxton. They explore toxic power, the Dark Triad, bystanderism and the individual and collective agency needed to interrupt damaging patterns.

🎧 Available now on the Burnout to Brilliance Podcast: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube: https://www.balanceology.uk/podcast

If this reflection resonates…

Balanceology supports organisations through keynote speaking, leadership development, burnout prevention programmes and coaching. We also offer coaching with Jayne Morris and Associate Coaches trained through the trauma-informed, ICF-accredited Balanceology Certified Burnout Coach Programme.

Where a therapeutic approach is more appropriate, we signpost to BACP-registered counsellors and psychotherapists.

For further information, please contact hello@balanceology.uk