The Silence That Surrounds
Power creates a silence. Not the silence of an empty room — powerful people are often surrounded by voices, opinions, and advice. The silence is in the space between the powerful person and everyone else.
It is the silence of calculated speech. The silence of softened feedback. The silence of colleagues who have thoughts they do not share because the risk of sharing feels greater than the value of being heard.
This silence is not malicious. It is adaptive. People respond to power asymmetry by protecting themselves. But the effect on the person in power is profound: they lose access to honest reflection.
The Feedback Vacuum
Over time, the silence becomes a vacuum. The powerful person stops receiving honest feedback — not because no one has feedback to give, but because giving it feels unsafe. The people who could offer the most useful perspective are often the ones closest to the work, closest to the consequences, and therefore most vulnerable.
The vacuum fills with sycophancy, or with silence, or with carefully curated information. None of these serve the person in power. But they are the natural consequence of the power asymmetry.
Breaking the Silence
Breaking this silence requires more than an open-door policy. It requires a structural solution — an environment where the power asymmetry is suspended, where the person in authority can speak without consequence to people who do not depend on them, and where honesty is the baseline, not the exception.
This is what Soma Salus Circles provide. Not advice. Not feedback. A space where the silence breaks.