The Silent Tax: Why 40% of leadership time is being wasted
By Simon Coops
We’ve all seen it. Another meeting without a clear purpose. A third status update in a week. A long report that feels more like a compliance exercise than something that drives action. But these aren’t just workplace irritations. Research shows they consume up to 40% of leadership bandwidth in large organisations.
The root issue isn’t just bureaucracy. It’s something subtler and harder to tackle: a widespread reluctance to speak up and challenge the status quo.
I call this the “assumed necessity trap.” When a senior leader initiates a meeting, report, or process, it’s rarely questioned. The unspoken assumption is: if it’s been requested, it must be important. And so, the cycle continues – unchecked, unchallenged, and increasingly costly.
Bain & Company research confirms this, showing senior executives spend around 40% of their time in meetings they themselves deem ineffective. Meanwhile, Harvard’s Amy Edmondson has demonstrated that teams with high psychological safety, where people feel free to speak up, consistently outperform those who remain silent.
The global cost? An estimated £7 trillion annually, according to Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire GDP of Japan. But the deeper cost is what’s lost in silence: strategic pivots delayed, innovation deferred, leadership energy diluted.
And yet, the solution isn’t complex, it’s cultural. It starts with leaders creating an environment where challenge is not only accepted but expected. Where asking, “Why are we doing this?” is viewed not as disruptive, but as essential.
Imagine if, before any new meeting, process, or report was introduced, teams routinely asked:
- What specific value will this add?
- Could we achieve the same outcome more efficiently?
- How will we measure whether this is worth the time?
It’s ironic that many organisations pride themselves on flat structures and open-door policies, yet still struggle with a culture of quiet compliance. Candour doesn’t happen because it’s permitted – it happens when it’s modelled and rewarded.
Organisational silence is rarely deliberate, but it is pervasive. And until it’s addressed, organisations will continue leaking leadership capacity and strategic clarity at scale.
This is not about rejecting structure. It’s about rethinking default assumptions. It’s about asking better questions, earlier. And it’s about senior leaders—especially HR and People leaders—taking a visible role in embedding candour into how the business operates.
The opportunity is clear: reclaim wasted leadership capacity and redirect it toward value.
The only question is – who will go first?