By Enock YEBOAH-MENSAH
Theorhema stood at the edge of the mahogany conference table situated on the 9th floor of Apogee Bank. The room was unusually quiet, no clatter of keyboards and no shuffling of papers. Just silence; pregnant, uncomfortable, telling.
He looked around at his C-Suite officers – seasoned professionals, brilliant minds and trusted strategists who had helped him grow the Bank from a boutique lender into a continental force. And yet, in the last six months, something was off.
Employee engagement was plummeting. Productivity had dipped. For the first time in four years, Apogee’s mid-year performance had missed projections.
Finally, it dawned on Theorhema that one decision sparked this downward spiral. A cost-cutting directive he had issued earlier that year to remove discretionary staff benefits that were not explicitly stated in offer letters.
No more fuel top-ups, no weekend data stipends, no lunch subsidies and no soft perks. “We are trimming fat, not muscle,” he had told his team confidently. “This will increase efficiency.” Nobody objected. Not then.
What They Didn’t Say
Six months after the cost-cutting directive, the surface numbers at Apogee Bank began to crack, revealing a deeper, more insidious problem.
Absenteeism rose subtly at first – then steadily, voluntary resignations, once a trickle, became a stream. Customer satisfaction scores, previously a point of pride, declined month after month.
But perhaps the most alarming shift was one you could not track on a spreadsheet: Apathy. It crept through the workforce like fog – quiet, cold and paralyzing. Teams that once burned with energy began to go through the motions.
Ideas dried up, initiative faded, small tasks delayed, mistakes increased, and collaboration thinned. No one said it aloud, but the unspoken sentiment was clear: “If they do not care about us, why should we care about them?”
This was not the result of massive layoffs or sweeping policy changes. It stemmed from something deceptively small: the removal of modest staff benefits – data stipends, lunch tokens and transport top-ups. They were not contractual albeit cultural. The existence of these overtly suggest, “We see you and value your effort(s).”
The sudden disappearance of staff benefits, without acknowledgment or empathy, sent the opposite message: “You are just a line item to optimize.” And the worst part? The people (C-Suite) who could have helped, saw it coming and did nothing. They noticed the murmurs in townhalls, the downcast expressions on the corridors, the sudden resignation letters. But none of them said, “Theorhema, we need to talk.” Not even out of curiosity but out of fear.
And in that silence, trust eroded – not loudly but deeply. Because in organizations, it is not always the big storms that do the most damage.
Sometimes, it is the quiet betrayal of values. The failure to say what must be said. The costliest crises are not born in boardrooms but in moments when those who knew better said nothing at all.
The Hard Conversation
Theorhema turned from the tall glass window, the city skyline behind him and faced his executive team.
The room, once bustling with strategic debates, now sat heavy with discomfort. His voice, steady but edged with disappointment, broke the silence. “I want to ask you something,” he said. “When I gave the directive to cut staff benefits, did any of you disagree with the approach?”
A few glanced sideways, others looked down at their notebooks. No one spoke. “Be honest,” he continued, his tone unwavering. “You are not in this room to nod. You are here to challenge me, especially when I am wrong.”
The CHRO shifted uneasily in her seat and finally spoke, voice low. “We… we were concerned. About how it would affect morale. But we did not want it to look like we were resisting your cost-saving agenda.” Theorhema paused, letting the weight of her words settle. Then he said, quietly but sharply: “So we all watched a fire start in the hallway and no one sounded the alarm… because you did not want to offend the architect who designed the building?.
A pained silence followed. No rebuttal. No excuses. And in that silence was the truth: fear had trumped responsibility. The people closest to power had seen the cracks but chose quiet compliance over candid leadership. For Theorhema, it was a moment of reckoning. He had not just misjudged a policy; he had cultivated a room where candor had been replaced by caution.
The hard conversation did not end in blame. It sparked a new understanding: Leadership is not about having all the answers. It is about creating a space where the right questions can be asked loudly, bravely and without fear.
The Lesson on Psychological Safety
Theorhema let the silence wear on before he spoke again. He moved from his place by the window to sit directly across from his executive team, no podium, no formality, just a leader confronting a painful truth. “I am not mad,” he said, his voice calm but resolute.
“But I am concerned.” He paused, eyes scanning the room. “If even you, the most experienced and most trusted voices in this bank do not feel safe enough to speak up, what does that say about the rest of Apogee?” No one needed to answer. The weight of the realization hung thick in the air.
“This is not a hierarchy problem,” he continued. “This is a psychological safety problem.”
They listened more intently now, their defenses down. “You were not silent because of your rank. You were silent because you feared the consequences of being right when I was wrong.”
He leaned forward, hands clasped on the table. “That kind of silence is more dangerous than any mistake I can ever make.” Theorhema was not pointing fingers. He was pointing to culture. A culture where disagreement felt like defiance and where fear held more influence than facts. He explained that psychological safety is not about comfort; it is about courage without fear of punishment. It is what allows truth to surface early, before bad decisions become institutional problems. “If we want innovation, accountability and resilience,” he concluded, “we must make room for dissent. Not just at the bottom, but at the very top.”
That day marked a shift at Apogee. Not in policy but in posture. The team did not just leave with a leadership directive. They left with permission to challenge, to question and to speak up. Because the true strength of any leadership team lies not in how well it agrees but in how boldly it disagrees.
Redefining the C-Suite Mandate
Theorhema rose again, this time with a quiet resolve. He paced the room with the deliberate cadence of someone reshaping the air around him – not with anger but with clarity. “From now on,” he began, “your job description(s) have an unspoken line at the top: ‘Speak truth to power.’” He paused to let it sink in. The words were not just symbolic – they were a redefinition of leadership at Apogee. “You do not earn your seat at this table just by agreeing with the CEO,” he continued. “You earn it by making the tough call when I cannot see clearly.”
There was no defensiveness in the room now; only reflection. These were not accusations. They were invitation to rise to a higher standard of stewardship. “You are not here to protect my ego. You are here to protect Apogee.” For a team used to operating in the delicate dance of power, it was a profound shift. This was not about defiance for its own sake. It was about shared responsibility. About understanding that real loyalty is not blind; it is brave.
Then Theorhema softened his voice laced with quiet vulnerability. “I do not need perfect people around me,” he said. “I need honest ones.” In that moment, the mandate of the C-Suite changed. It was no longer just about strategy decks, risk assessments, or balance sheets.
It was about moral courage and being the mirror the CEO needs when vision blurs under pressure. Redefining the C-Suite was not about power, it was about partnership. A team that could tell the emperor he had no clothes; not to shame him but to clothe him in truth. Because in today’s complex world, the most dangerous thing a CEO can have is a room full of quiet disagreement.
The Shift Begins
From that day forward, Apogee Bank began to feel different. Theorhema’s words were not just a passing directive, they ignited a shift that would redefine leadership and organizational culture at every level.
It started with a simple yet powerful act: Theorhema publicly acknowledged the oversight regarding the staff benefits. He did not frame it as a minor error. He framed it as a lapse in judgment, one that compromised the trust he had worked so hard to build.
He reinstated the most meaningful benefits, not because they were contractual but because they had always been part of the bank’s culture. “These benefits are not perks” Theorhema said in a town hall shortly afterwards. “They are symbols of the respect and value we place in every one of you.”
This public acknowledgment sent a ripple through the organization. It was not just about the benefits, it was about accountability. And when the CEO took responsibility, it gave others the courage to do same. As the weeks passed, the C-Suite began to show up differently. Meetings were more candid.
Questions, once unasked, now came fast and fierce. There was no fear in disagreeing with Theorhema; instead, there was a shared commitment to protect the bank’s long-term health, even when it meant challenging decisions from the top.
They learned that candor was not disloyalty; it was leadership. It was about making the hard calls, telling uncomfortable truths and aligning decisions with the bank’s core values, not just short-term goals.
Apogee’s culture, once veering into complacency, slowly shifted back towards trust. And as trust was restored, so too was performance. People stopped showing up just to clock in, they showed up because they believed again in the mission. They believed in the leadership and because trust is the bedrock of high performance.
Final Reflection
Sometimes, the costliest decisions are not born out of ignorance or ill intent, but out of silence.
The missed signals, the unasked questions, the truths swallowed in boardrooms where heads nod but hearts hesitate. At Apogee Bank, Theorhema came to understand this not through scandal or crisis, but through a slow erosion of morale and trust caused not by what was done, but by what was left unsaid.
The experience became a turning point, not just in his leadership, but in the bank’s collective conscience. It was a reminder that even the sharpest minds and best strategies are vulnerable when candor is missing from the conversation.
True leadership is not about always being right. It is about building an environment where others feel safe to say when you are wrong. Theorhema realized that bravery at the top was not just about making bold decisions; it was about inviting bold honesty.
About surrounding himself with people who had the courage to challenge, not just to execute. In redefining the C-Suite mandate, he was not just changing how meetings were run. He was changing what leadership meant: a shared burden of truth, not a solitary pedestal of power. That shift from silence to psychological safety became the foundation of Apogee’s resurgence.
And perhaps that is the final reflection: that silence can look like loyalty, but it often acts like sabotage. And that the best way to protect a vision is to let others see where it is faltering early, openly and without fear. Because in the end, the strongest teams are not built on agreement. They are built on trust, candour and the courage to speak even when it is hard.
The author is a Strategy, Leadership & Finance Enthusiast, an MPhil Finance graduate of the University of Ghana Business School, a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana and over 10years Experience in Banking.
Email: [email protected]
