#586 When Leaders Should Stay Silent, and When They Must Speak | Niels Brabandt
When Leaders Should Stay Silent, and When They Must Speak
By Niels Brabandt
Niels Brabandt is an expert in Sustainable Leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and research.
"Silence is golden." You have heard it, and in Germany you have probably heard the longer version: "Reden ist Silber, Schweigen ist Gold." Speech is silver, silence is gold. The idea is simple: as long as you keep your mouth shut, nothing can go wrong. But is that actually true for leaders? Is it true that when you say nothing, things will be fine?
I want to answer that question with a current example that even my international clients keep asking me about, and then translate it into something every executive can use on Monday morning.
Berlin: a lesson in strategic silence
On 20 September 2026, Berlin voted. For the first time, Die Linke, the party to the left of the Social Democrats, came first with 25.7 per cent. The conservative CDU, led by its top candidate Stefan Evers, fell to 18.8 per cent. Die Linke then began talks with the Social Democrats and the Greens about a coalition.
What followed was predictable. The three parties produced a joint paper, and almost immediately their own grassroots erupted over one issue that has nothing to do with running Berlin: the Middle East. Members argued in public, the paper was attacked from within, and the would-be partners looked divided before negotiations had even started.
And Stefan Evers? He said nothing. He sat back and let the others argue. My expectation is that, at the right moment, his team will step forward with a calm message along the lines of: "They clearly cannot agree. Shall we form a stable government like adults?" Whether that happens or not, his position has improved without him lifting a finger, because the other side keeps creating the impression that it cannot get anything done.
German politics has seen this before. In the 2021 federal election, Armin Laschet talked and talked, and kept digging the hole deeper. Olaf Scholz said very little, smiled, and won largely by not being Armin Laschet.
When you must speak
Before anyone mistakes this for a licence to hide, let me be clear. As soon as someone gives you a direct call to action, you answer. A board member asks what you think about the new market entry. A sales manager asks how to handle a difficult client. A team member asks where the project stands. Silence in these moments is not strategy. It is a vacuum, and people fill vacuums themselves. They engage in sense-making, they close the gap with their own interpretation, and in my experience it almost always goes south from there.
The same applies once you have made a statement and people ask follow-up questions. If you stop answering, others will write the rest of the story for you.
When silence is the smarter choice
There are three situations in which I advise leaders to stay silent.
First, when your opponents are arguing with each other. Do not join in. The moment you say, "Here is my position," you give them a common enemy, and you can lose an argument you were never part of.
Second, when someone throws a baseless accusation at you and you are not a person in the public eye. After I was interviewed on national television at the memorial following the attack on Berlin Pride, I said that equal and human rights are not up for negotiation. Within days, an anonymous page called me a communist. I am a liberal conservative. Did I respond? No. Responding to people whose only aim is outrage gives them exactly what they want.
Third, when someone is simply trying to provoke you. Provocation invites counter-provocation, and it spirals. Germany has just chosen "Ragebait" as its Youth Word of the Year 2026: content designed only to make people angry. You do not need to take the bait.
As the communication scientist Paul Watzlawick put it, one cannot not communicate. Silence is also a message. The question is whether it is the message you want to send.
Every statement has consequences
Once a statement is out, it is out. You cannot recall it, and "I did not mean it that way" rarely helps.
Consider Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the debate about raising the rainbow flag on the Bundestag during Pride Month. He could have pointed to the rules on which flags may be flown and said that changing them would require a decision. Instead, he said on television that the Bundestag was "not a circus tent". Many people heard that as comparing diversity and equal rights to a circus. Bundestag President Julia Klöckner then tried to help by saying the institution was neutral, which raised the obvious question: neutral on equal rights?
The lesson for every executive: when the consequences of a statement are positive, let them work. When they are negative, silence is no longer an option. That is exactly why you must choose carefully before you speak.
How to implement this in your organisation
The first step is always analysis, never an emotional reaction. Ask yourself: What is the situation? Who are the stakeholders? What could I say, how could it be perceived, and which interpretations could follow?
The second step is professional support. Once you reach a certain level, a communications team is not a luxury. If you have a head of communications, consult them. If you do not, get expert help, especially in critical moments.
The third step is the benefit test. Can you make a statement that benefits everyone involved? The other side may want information, an action or clarity. You want to be understood and to stand on solid ground. If a statement achieves both, speak. If it does not, consider whether silence serves everyone better.
What Leaders Should Do Now
1. Answer every direct question from your team, board or clients promptly, because silence there invites sense-making.
2. Stay out of disputes between others unless the outcome directly affects your responsibilities.
3. Ignore baseless accusations and provocations when you are not in the public eye.
4. Analyse stakeholders and possible interpretations before every important statement.
5. Run each planned statement through the benefit test, and involve communications professionals when the stakes are high.
Apply, apply, apply.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
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Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
"Silence is golden." You probably heard that, or probably you heard that Germans say, "Reden ist Silber, Schweigen ist Gold." That's the more common one in Germany. Or you probably heard of a shut mouth, or a mouth that - a mouth shut catches no flies. So as long as you keep your mouth shut, nothing can go wrong. You don't say anything wrong when the mouth is shut.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
The question is: is that actually true for leaders? Is it true that when you don't say anything, things can go okay? We need to talk about this, because there's a situation where even internationals ask me, "What on earth is going on there?" And this is exactly our topic today: when should leaders, or anyone in business, actually talk, and when is it better to just stay silent? We have a situation at the moment in Berlin. Some people saw we had an election in Berlin, and from there it went wild.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
For the first time, the socialist left - they are far left from Labour Party - for the first time, the far left Die Linke, called the left, won the election. Second one. And then they now plan to have a coalition with Labour and the Greens. And of course, one big thing came up: they disagreed on anti-Semitism and the rule of Israel and Palestine. Now they had a paper together against the odds, because I was pretty sure this is going to fall apart even before they get into talks of any coalition contract.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Well, what happened here was, they got a paper together, and immediately a massive outcry from the party base about what should Israel do and not do. And by the way, we're not talking about Palestine-Israel today here, but of course you had massive people, massive arguments amongst people, especially in the left-wing area, where already the anti-Semitism claims are pretty omnipresent now. And even in the Greens and Labour Party, people said, "Oh, we can't do the paper this way, that way."
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And the winner of all of that so far is Stefan Evers, who is the conservative mayoral candidate who doesn't say anything at the moment. He's just sitting there watching it burn, not saying anything. In my opinion, quite reasonably soon, probably in due course of next week, he will put a statement out there saying, "Well, we all see they just argue. They are clearly not able to do any kind of government work. So could we please, like adults, form a government?" And then potentially we could have a mayor from the Conservative Party who lost a significant amount of his share but is still stronger than Labour and the Greens. And then we have a Labour-Green-Conservative government in Berlin. That could happen. We will see.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
The main point here is: when should you actually stay silent? And that's the question that we need to answer. Especially as a leader, you need to know when to stay silent. And I can tell you, I learned it the hard way as well. This was not a natural gift of mine. So you know the situation. Very important is: as soon as someone directly asks you something, of course you need to answer. Let's say you are a politician and someone says, "What do you think about building this highway?" Let's say you are in business and someone - you work in sales. Someone says, "What do you think, how to develop this customer?" Or, "How can we solve the issue with this client?" You can't sit there and say nothing.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So as soon as someone gives you a direct call to action, that's always the time where you should answer. Because if you don't, people do sense-making. They close the gap by themselves, and it will always go south from there. So as soon as someone gives you a direct call to action, please be there. Please talk to them. However, be aware: every action always has a reaction. So very important is when someone - for example, when you see your enemies arguing, don't join them in the discussion. Because as soon as you say, "Hey, you all argue about this, my point of view basically is this," they suddenly have a common enemy. And then the majority will turn against you, and suddenly you lose an argument you weren't even part of.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
This is, by the way, the reason why we don't argue with strangers on the internet, because it is utterly pointless. So when you - when someone, however, just puts accusations out there. So I'll give you an example after I - you probably saw the video when I was at Berlin Pride and we had the terrorist attack in Berlin. And the Berlin terrorist attack, then next day there was a memorial where I went to, and at this memorial I was interviewed and ended up on pretty much national TV, where I simply said, "Hey, we shouldn't instrument - we cannot allow people to instrumentalize that for xenophobia. Equal and human rights are not up for negotiation."
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
With that, I was shared on an anti-communist website, or Facebook page, I think it was, or somewhere on X, where people called me a commie - a commie - I am liberal conservative. I am liberal conservative, but by saying humans should have equal and human rights, that's obviously a communist statement, probably when you are someone in the area of an IQ of 75 or less. Or probably 50 or less is more the accurate term here.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So as soon as someone just throws an accusation out there, but you are not a person in the public eye, you are not of the public interest, and you do not know who this person is, they only want to create rage bait, which, by the way, now in Germany became Youth Word of the Year: rage bait. When you just put something out there so people see friction and argue, don't join that. When someone puts something out there which is completely baseless, don't join the discussion, because there will always be more people against you, and you will lose out no matter how hard you try. Simply let it rest.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And by the way, if someone just tries to provoke you, don't give them a reaction as well. Don't give an action, because their reaction will only be "So it's a provocation, provocation." It all piles up, and then it's just rage bait. Anyone will say, "God, these are not - these are good grief. These are not adult human beings, are they?"
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So any action will cause a reaction. As Watzlawick says already, it is impossible not to communicate. So choose wisely when you enter the discussion and when you do not enter the discussion. Focus on one thing. Focus on results. In my opinion, the - in my opinion, very professional communications team by the conservative mayoral candidate in Berlin at the moment says, "No one says anything. We just let them argue." And the result for them is they get better and better in public perception without doing anything.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Because the other side gives you the impression of not being able to get anything together, you automatically look better. And by the way, this is exactly what happened on the other side with the last - with the second last chancellor election. We had Armin Laschet, who talked and talked and talked, and then you had Olaf Scholz from Labour. Laschet was conservative, Olaf Scholz was Labour. And Olaf Scholz didn't say anything. He was just there smiling, letting Laschet dig the hole deeper, deeper, and deeper by his own actions. He basically won the chancellor's election, or the election for his party. The chancellor is not elected directly in Germany. So he won the election by not being Armin Laschet.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So we see you need to focus on results, not on your ego or what you think you want to say, or you say, "Oh, I have to say something." No, you don't. In many ways, look, there are countless arguments in the speaking scene, especially this very, very awkward, association-led speaking scene where anyone is a top 100 speaker in something, and anyone is super thought leader, top 10 international. It's all ego. All ego, no content. I left this association because this constant arguing about, "Oh, should we actually follow science? Or is a loud opinion with someone with a follow page of 10,000 people also worth following?" If someone puts science up for negotiation, for personal opinion, I'm out. And ever since I do my business and I left this association, business became better than ever before. So we have to see what is the reality.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Very important is: as soon as you make any kind of statement, and that always needs to stick in your mind, once the statement's out there, and even if it's not well thought through, even if you do a mistake, even if you afterwards say, "Oh, I didn't mean it that way," once the statement's out there, there will be consequences. And hopefully the consequences will be positive. But when you say something which is not great, then the consequences will be negative.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
I'll give you an example: Conservative chancellor Friedrich Merz. We had an argument if during Pride Month a rainbow flag should be on the German parliament. And what he could have said is, "Hey, we have a law regarding which flags are allowed on there, and the rainbow flag is not covered within that law. We need to negotiate if we want to change the law, or we stick to the law and don't put a rainbow flag up there." So we have some sort of order what kind of flags can be on the German parliament.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
However, he sat down in the talk show and said, "Well, you know, about this rainbow flag on the German parliament, the German Bundestag, you know, the German Bundestag, the German parliament isn't a circus tent." So you compare diversity, equity, and inclusion to a circus. Great. So not only offensive toward circus people, where, by the way, diversity plays a huge role, it's offensive to anyone from the DEI background. And by the way, this includes human rights, equal rights, women's rights, anyone who is not of a privileged, of a birthright privileged background.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So - and then, of course, when you think it can't get worse, Julia Klöckner, who is the German president's - German parliament's president, she then tried to help, and she didn't, because her statement was, "Oh, the rainbow flag thing, we are neutral on that." So first, you're not. You said you don't want to have it, so you're not neutral. And also, when someone says, "Oh, it's all about equal and human rights," and you say, "Yeah, we're neutral on that," we are - we are neutral on human rights now? So we are like, "Yeah, human rights, you know, not for everyone. We are neutral. Whatever happens, some get it, some don't. You know, two for one for some and nothing for others." No, we are not, obviously.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So the consequences - the consequences, once they're there, make it impossible for you to stay silent afterwards. When you have positive consequences, just let them work. As soon as you have negative consequences, the silence isn't an option anymore. This is why you have to thoroughly choose: when do you speak, and when do you just zip it?
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So how do we implement that in reality? As soon as you have a situation, do not emotionally give them a quick reaction. Even when you think they have the most brilliant idea, think about what you say. And by the way, when you're not in the public eye, not of public interest, you don't have to say anything. So implementation first is the analysis. You always analyse: what is the situation, who are the stakeholders, what could I say, what could be the perception, which interpretations could be derived from that, and how do I make it perfect?
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
From there, very important is: as soon as you are at a certain level - as soon as you are at a certain level, be aware that a professional comms team can really help you. So be aware that a comms team can make - so that's why you either have the head of communication, team member of communications, team lead, whatever. Communications can be done professionally, and you need to make them professionally. Once you go away from being professional, everything goes worse from there. So it's extremely important that when you have a comms team, consult them. When you don't, get help, especially in very crucial moments.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Because what you should always ask yourself is, "Can we make any kind of statement that has a benefit for everyone involved?" So I get good consequences from it. The people get what they want. Maybe they want a piece of information, maybe they want an action, maybe they want clarification. So anyone just walks away and says, "Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted." So you're well off, they're well off, everyone lives happy ever after. That is, of course, the perfect outcome.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
That means you always have to focus on: what is the benefit that's in for me, but also what is in for them? So what's in it for you is always the first aspect. So always think: what's in it for you for the other side? And then, of course, you try to derive something for you as well. As soon as you have the benefit focus in mind with communication, you know exactly when to stay silent, and you know when to open your mouth and say something that actually works in your favor.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And I wish you all the best implementing this in your organisation. And when you now say, "I think I have about 17 questions regarding this, very happy to answer them." So first, of course, when you now watch me on YouTube, feel free to leave a like there. And of course, you can also just subscribe to my channel here. Leave a comment there. Always happy to discuss. On top of that, when you listen to me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please leave a review. Thank you very much for five stars. We only grow by organic outreach, no paid outreach. It's all research content, science, evidence proven here. We put a lot of effort into this, so thank you very much for every single recommendation that you actually have. And by the way, when you now say, "Hey - " so thank you very much for recommending this channel.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And on top of that, of course, we can also connect on social media. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Don't do the follow thing. Connect properly. I'm looking forward to being connected with my listeners. Thank you very much for doing so. You can also follow me on Instagram. Of course, you can leave a like on Facebook, and you can follow me and subscribe to my channel on YouTube.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
The most important thing, however, is always the last thing that I say on this podcast and videocast: apply, apply, apply what you see in this podcast, or hear - hear in this podcast and see in this videocast. Because only when you apply what you've learned today, you will see the positive change that you actually want to see happening. I wish you all the best doing so. When you still say, "Hey, got a couple of things to discuss," just drop me a line and we take it from there. Answer guaranteed within 24 hours or less. So at the end of this podcast, as well as at the end of this videocast, there's only one thing left for me to say: thank you very much for your time.