Employee voice: the last conversation before silence

Employee voice: the last conversation before silence

The last conversation  Employee voice can be restored, and it usually turns on a single conversation. Somewhere in your organisation right now, there is a person who has already had their last honest conversation with you. You don’t know it yet. They may not realise...
Compressed trust: why teams stop telling the truth

Compressed trust: why teams stop telling the truth

Compressed trust is the quiet risk every experienced leader should learn to read. Trust rarely breaks outright. More often it narrows, interaction by interaction, until a leader hears only the safest version of reality.  The most dangerous communication problem in an...
Open-door policy: why your team stays silent

Open-door policy: why your team stays silent

The open door that quietly closed I used to tell my team that my door was always open. I believed it. I meant it. It was my version of an open-door policy. Then one afternoon, I noticed someone walking toward my office with that hesitation that tells you a person is...
Why Good People Stay Silent

Why Good People Stay Silent

A leadership myth is that silence is a communication problem. It isn’t. More often than not, silence is a power problem. Throughout my studies on leadership, trust, engagement, and follower experiences in South African SMEs, one pattern emerged with remarkable...