The Silent Saboteur: Why Your Team’s Biggest Threat Isn’t What You Think
When I started working for a young CEO named Alex and running a company with 500 employees, everything looked great on paper. Projects were on time, KPIs looked good, and quarterly reports were awesome. However, something was not quite right.
Alex confided in me one afternoon, “I feel like there’s this invisible wall between some of my teams. They’re physically present but not really engaged. There’s this weird energy I can’t put my finger on.”
This invisible wall? It’s what I call unspoken tension, the silent saboteur lurking beneath the surface in many workplaces.
What Is Unspoken Tension, and Why Should You Care?
Unspoken tension happens when people hold back their true feelings frustrations, concerns, even fears without voicing them. It’s the silent pause before a storm.
Why does it matter? Because this tension:
Slows down communication until it almost stops
Turns colleagues into strangers in the same room.
Lowers morale without anyone openly admitting it.
Breeds passive-aggressive behaviour, from subtle digs to outright avoidance.
Pushes your best talent to quietly check out or worse, leave.
How Can You Spot It Before It Explodes?
This is how Alex began to recognize the signs, and with similar effort you can as well:
People skip conversations (or meetings) with a couple of particular co-workers, so those conversations are never complete.
Collaboration and idea-sharing diminish; the buzz of the collective turns into silence.
Emails and messages become brief, cold, or even curt.
Passive-aggressive comments sneak into casual conversations sarcasm that stings just enough to hurt but not enough to call out.
Absenteeism rises people take more sick days or disappear for extended breaks
Physically, you might see employees with crossed arms, avoiding eye contact, or appearing tired and stressed.
And behind the scenes, deadlines slip, quality suffers, and trust slowly erodes.
Communication isn’t always the most obvious challenge or market change. It’s the subtle, unspoken ambiguity that is swimming under the surface. The silent saboteur doesn’t say: "I am coming for you", but its effects can be disastrous.
As a young CEO looking after hundreds (s) of employees, your ability to see, to recognize, and to address this invisible threat will impact your leadership and the future of your company. Lead with understanding, create safe spaces, and never underestimate the power of an open and honest discussion, because oftentimes what is not being said is more impactful than what is.
