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The Silence Bill: What Your Organisation Is Really Paying For When People Don’t Speak Up

The Cost of Workplace Silence: How hierarchy and face-saving in Asian workplaces discourage speaking up, and how leaders can build psychological safety and trust.

What does silence actually cost a business? More than most leaders realise. When employees don’t feel safe enough to challenge decisions, report problems or share ideas, organisations pay through missed innovation, disengagement, quiet quitting, avoidable mistakes and leaders making decisions without the information they really need.

Drawing on nearly three decades of corporate leadership experience across Asia, Adeline Tiah explores why silence can be particularly costly in Asian workplaces, where hierarchy, respect and face-saving can make speaking up more complicated. Ahead of her forthcoming book on psychological safety and trust, Adeline shares practical ways leaders can identify their “silence bill” and create an environment where people genuinely want to speak up, not simply where they are told to.

About Adeline Tiah

Adeline Tiah, podcast guest

Leadership, Psychological Safety & Change Management Coach

28+ years Corporate leadership across global MNCs1,000+ Leaders coachedICF PCC Professional Certified CoachTelco & banking Leadership experience across industries

Adeline Tiah is a Singapore-based leadership and team coach, known for helping senior leaders understand how to lead through transformation, disruption, and AI-driven change without losing trust, performance, or engagement. Her work sits at the intersection of leadership, psychological safety, team performance, and change management, with a clear point of view: business as usual is no longer enough, but speed and performance cannot come at the expense of trust.

Drawing on 25+ years of leadership experience across the telco and banking industries, including senior roles at HSBC, UOB, Standard Chartered, and M1, Adeline has seen what happens when organizations ask teams to move faster, adopt new technology, and compete in changing markets without giving people the safety, clarity, and confidence to do their best work. She helps leaders find the sweet spot between high performance and psychological safety, where teams can deliver results while still feeling empowered to speak up, innovate, and take risks.

Her approach is practical and evidence-based. Rather than treating leadership development as a one-off event, she designs stackable, scalable, and sustainable learning journeys that build over time. Through her REINVENT™ methodology, set out in her book Reinvent 4.

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