The Silence Paradox: When Certainty Becomes Cage
What caves, life, leadership, careers — and courage — have in common in uncertainty.
Uncertainty isn’t a passing storm. It’s the permanent terrain of leadership and life. And every time we try to freeze it into something certain, we trade freedom for a cage.
The Cave
Years ago, when I used to go caving with my club, I learned something about silence that has stayed with me ever since.
We’d crawl deep underground — through slick clay tunnels and narrow passages that forced you to exhale to squeeze through — until the surface world disappeared. The air would grow colder, denser, alive with dripping echoes.
Then, for fun, we would turn off our lights.
Instantly, everything vanished.
No horizon. No direction. Just the heartbeat and the sound of breath.
Darkness so complete it pressed against your skin.
At first, there was laugher. The awkward one, the kind that fills the space when fear shows up uninvited. Then came a thick, electric silence where even your breathing felt too loud.
And then, someone would whisper, half laughing, half trembling,
“Huh… this is scary.”
And everything shifted.
The darkness didn’t disappear. It shifted because someone dared to name what most of us already felt.
The fear loosened. The tension start to melt away.
We remembered we were together. We remembered to breathe.
That small, honest act of naming, bringing the truth into the dark, made the difference. Silence turned back into connection. Fear turned back into aliveness.
For me, that memory became a mirror for leadership, life and careers: you cannot eliminate the dark, but you can learn to move and breathe within it.
The Terrain of Uncertainty
The truth is, we’re always in the cave.
Uncertainty isn’t an interruption — it’s the air we breathe, the space around us, the slippery ground beneath us, and the walls that hold us.
Sometimes those walls feel close and solid; other times, they shift beneath our hands.
And sometimes, we cannot see them at all.
That cave taught me what leadership, work, love, and life keep teaching me ever since: uncertainty is not temporary.
Even when we think we’ve reached the end, it often opens into another chamber, another passage, another depth we didn’t know was there.
It’s the permanent terrain we move through — dark in places, luminous in others, always alive.
In work and in life, there’s no “after” when things finally calm down. There is only the next tunnel, the next turn, the next unknown chamber ahead.
When uncertainty intensifies — in a reorganisation, a relationship, or a career change — silence tempts us with control.
We hold our breath. We polish our words. We postpone the truth.
We call it planning. We call it professionalism. We call it patience.
But often, it’s fear in disguise.
Fear of losing face, respect, or belonging.
Fear of hurting someone — or being hurt.
Fear of being judged, dismissed, or replaced.
Fear of not being ready.
We don’t stay silent because we don’t care. We stay silent because we care deeply - about belonging, about dignity, about being seen as competent or kind.
But when we hold our breath too long, the cave and people around us stop breathing with us. Stillness no longer steadies — it separates. And what once felt like safety quietly becomes a cage.
Certainty feels like safety — but it quietly becomes a cage.
Each of us builds small cages around what we fear losing — belonging, reputation, control, security.
The cage is a polished boardroom where no one challenges the plan.
The cage is “I’m fine” you tell your team or your partner when you’re exhausted and really need some space.
The cage a job you’ve outgrown but are too afraid to leave.
And so what keeps us safe in the short term often keeps us small in the long run.
The Anatomy of the Trap
Every human system — a person, a team, an organisation, a family — perceives the world through an observer lens: a living interplay of body, mood & emotions, and language.
When uncertainty rises, this observer contracts.
The body tightens. The mood flattens. The language becomes coded and safe. We suddenly cannot see a lot of opportunities.
And silence spreads through the system - on a personal, relational, organisational and business level:
Self-censorship turns into self-doubt, energy leaks, aliveness dims.
Others mirror restraint, conversations become polite but shallow, trust becomes performance.
Early signals go unseen, decisions stall, opportunities slip by.
Values are repeated but no longer felt. Meaning disapers.
It’s like when a group freezes in darkness — no one moves, waiting for someone else to lead.
The system holds its breath. And in that stillness, coherence fractures.
The Invoice Silence Sends
Silence always sends a bill.
At work, it costs innovation, agility, speed and trust.
In teams, it creates hidden tension and surface harmony.
In relationships, it replaces intimacy with distance.
In careers, it delays everything that wants to begin.
You stay in the role that no longer fits because you don’t want to disappoint.
You stay silent in meetings because you’ve seen what happens to those who speak too boldly.
You stop reaching out for opportunities or introductions because you don’t want to seem needy.
You quietly hope someone will notice your potential — without you having to risk rejection and initiating the conversation that could change everything.
We think silence keeps us safe. But, what it really keeps us - is stuck.
Strategic Candour: The Courage to Name the Dark
The cave taught me this: the moment someone dared to laugh or say, “This is scary,” the fear shifted, because someone had the courage to tell the truth of the moment.
That’s what I call strategic candour. It is not a confession, nor an unproductive venting, nor using others as your therapists.
Strategic candor is the disciplined act of naming reality cleanly, so that motion, coherence, and trust can return.
It’s the conversation that names the elephant in the room without blame or collapse.
It’s saying,
“This strategy isn’t working.”
“This team is afraid to speak up.”
“This decision is painful and I don’t have all the information, but it is necessary. And we will handle it together.
“I feel nervous about this and I need your help.”
This is not about control, but coherence. This is about being real and responsible. Clarity is possible in absence of certainty.
The willingness to say out loud what everyone already senses, so we can finally stop pretending and start moving.
The Rope of Coherence
Candour · Courage · Compassion = The Rope of Coherence
Candour names what’s real with clarity and respect.
Courage goes first, risking discomfort for truth.
Compassion keeps connection as we move through the conversation.
Together, they re-oxygenate the system — whether that system is a company, a marriage, a friendship, or your own nervous system.
A simple practice:
Name reality. What’s true right now that no one is saying?
Vent briefly. Release pressure without transferring it.
Focus on influence. What can I shape, move, or choose today?
Candour without courage is silence in disguise.
Candour without compassion cuts the rope.
Candour without focus becomes noise.
Breathing Again
When strategic candor circulates, the system breathes again.
People reconnect to what matters.
Teams, relationships, and careers start to move again.
In leadership, that’s the moment a stagnant team starts to speak truth again.
In a career, it’s when you stop waiting to be chosen and start creating your next chapter through conversation and courage.
In life, when you allow to have the scary conversation with your partner and start rebuilding the relationship or decide to move on.
The cave taught me that darkness was never the enemy — fear wasn’t either.
So let me ask you:
What conversations are you avoiding right now?
What fear sits beneath that silence?
What might become possible if you had those conversations despite the fear?
Where has your search for certainty quietly become a cage?
What truth, spoken with candour, courage, and compassion, would restore oxygen today?
Join the conversation
If this resonates, join me for the next Uncertainty Advantage Open Space — a free, human, reflective weekly hour for anyone navigating transformation or reinvention I host till 22 October every Wednesday.
🗓️ Wednesday, 8 October | 17:00 CET
💻 Live on Zoom
👉 Register here or on event page on LinkedIn.
Or you can reach out to me for The Lens — a 2-hour coaching session focused on your biggest challenge or impossible dream in uncertainty - walking away with clarity, confidence, courage and steps needed towards the future you want to create.
📩 Reach out at anja.coach@pm.me to explore what that could look like for you.