The Boss Who Knew Everything—and Said Nothing
When information becomes leverage, your body feels the imbalance before your mind can name it.
An Art of Drinking Water reflection · 5 minute read
They were calm.
Measured.
Always listening.
They asked thoughtful questions and shared very little in return.
They praised discretion.
They spoke about trust.
So I trusted them.
I believed that silence meant neutrality.
That restraint meant integrity.
That not reacting meant not knowing.
I was wrong.
They knew everything.
They knew the conversations happening without me.
They knew the tensions, the alliances, the quiet shifts in loyalty.
They knew which decisions were being shaped before they ever reached the table.
And still—they acted surprised.
They asked questions they already had answers to.
They nodded as if hearing something for the first time.
They let others speak freely while holding information like leverage.
At first, I thought this was leadership.
Later, I realized it was control.
There is a particular imbalance created when someone knows everything
and shares nothing—
especially when you believe you are operating in good faith.
You begin to reveal more than you should.
You speak honestly, thinking you are being transparent.
You assume shared understanding where none exists.
All the while, the power is one-sided.
Information is currency.
Silence can be strategy.
And when that silence is paired with proximity to authority, it becomes something else entirely.
I started noticing the gaps.
How decisions seemed to anticipate conversations we hadn’t had yet.
How outcomes were already set by the time feedback was invited.
How accountability moved downward while knowledge stayed up top.
When I asked for clarity, I received reassurance.
When I asked for alignment, I received platitudes.
When I asked direct questions, I was told not to worry.
That’s when I understood:
This wasn’t about being uninformed.
It was about being unexposed.
They wanted to know everything
without ever being known.
Water taught me something here.
Water that is contained but never released becomes stagnant.
Movement requires exchange.
Flow requires honesty.
Leadership that hoards information doesn’t protect the organization.
It destabilizes it.
Because trust is not built on what you know—
it’s built on what you are willing to share responsibly.
Over time, the cost became clear.
I carried risk I didn’t fully understand.
I made decisions without context.
I absorbed consequences that were never mine alone.
And when things shifted—as they always do—
the silence remained.
No admission.
No ownership.
Just a calm distance that said, I was never really with you in this.
I learned that trust without transparency is not trust.
It is exposure.
If you are working for someone who knows everything and shares nothing, hear this:
Your confusion is not incompetence.
Your unease is not intuition failing you.
Your fatigue is not a lack of resilience.
It is your body responding to an imbalance.
Healthy leadership does not require you to operate in partial darkness.
It does not test your loyalty by withholding truth.
It does not reward honesty while punishing vulnerability.
Some leaders believe silence keeps them safe.
But silence without integrity creates weight—
and weight always shows itself somewhere.
Like water under gravity,
what is held too tightly eventually finds another way to move.
And learning when to step out of that imbalance—
without accusation, without spectacle—
is not betrayal.
It is self-respect.
Sometimes the most honest thing you can do
is stop trusting silence
and start trusting what your body has known all along.