Why trust disappears faster than servers crash when you hide bad news
You don’t need to leak passwords to break trust. Just keep hiding project risks, and watch your influence vanish.
The first time a VP dragged me into an emergency call, I didn’t even know there was a problem.
I was working on a critical system. Something broke. The fix wasn’t obvious. It was going to take time.
So I did what I thought was responsible. I disappeared for a few days to figure it out. Canceled some meetings. Ignored some pings. I just wanted to fix the thing and avoid causing noise.
I didn’t think anyone needed to hear “we’re still not sure what’s wrong.”
And then I got dragged into this meeting with a VPs and my manager (yet another VP). They were visibly pissed. Not because the issue was huge, but because they had no idea it was even happening.
To them, it looked like I wasn’t taking it seriously. Like I was ignoring their priorities. Like I was hiding.
I wasn’t. I was working my ass off. But I hadn’t said a word.
And that’s when I learned something that still stings:
It doesn’t matter how hard you work if nobody sees the impact.
If you don’t speak up when things go sideways, people don’t assume you’re focused. They assume you’re irresponsible.
I thought silence was safe. I thought I was being professional. What I was actually doing was losing trust.
And here’s the part nobody tells you: trust doesn’t vanish when you screw something up. It disappears when people don’t hear from you.
If you’re a data engineer who’s serious about leadership, that’s the trap you’re probably already in.
You think you’re protecting people. You think you’re being thoughtful. You think it’s not worth saying anything until you’ve got it all figured out.
But silence isn’t thoughtful. It’s a signal. And people read it wrong every time.
Silence isn’t safety, it’s sabotage
Let me tell you what most senior data engineers believe, and maybe you believe this too:
If I just fix the problem quickly, no one needs to know.
If I bring it up, they’ll panic.
I’ll explain once it’s done.
It sounds responsible. But it’s not.
It’s the lie that gets people stuck. You think you’re buying yourself time. You think you’re protecting others from chaos. What you’re actually doing is eroding trust. Quietly. Slowly. One invisible mistake at a time.
And you don’t even notice.
Because while you’re buried in the work, everyone else is filling in the blanks. Your manager starts wondering why there’s no update. Your stakeholders assume you’ve dropped the ball. Your teammates stop asking, because they’re confused too.
Nobody hears from you, so they assume the worst.
And I get it. I’ve done the same thing. I’ve had those moments where I though, I’ll just fix it over the weekend. No need to say anything yet.
Then Monday morning hits, and there’s a calendar invite from someone I barely talk to with a subject line like: “Quick sync about progress?”
It’s never quick. And it’s never about progress.
That’s what silence does. It makes people nervous. Nervous people escalate. And what could’ve been a 3-line update turns into a 45-minute meeting to defend your credibility.
It’s not fair. But it’s what happens.
So if you’re sitting on something right no, a delay, a missed step, a teammate who’s underdelivering. And you’re telling yourself you’ll share it later, just know this:
You’re not being thoughtful. You’re not being strategic. You’re protecting your own comfort.
And that’s not leadership. That’s how trust starts to crack.
Nobody trusts the engineer who disappears
You can be the most technically competent person in the room. You can ship the cleanest pipelines, automate everything, and scale infra like a wizard. But if people don’t hear from you when something goes wrong, none of that matters.
They won’t say you’re focused. They won’t say you’re fixing it. They’ll say you’re unreliable.
And once that label gets attached to your name, it’s hard to shake.
That’s what silence does. It creates confusion. And people hate confusion. So they start making up their own version of the story:
Your manager doesn’t get an update, so they assume you’re behind.
Your stakeholders see nothing in Slack, so they think you’re ignoring them.
Your peers see you nod in meetings but never speak up, so they stop trusting your judgment.
The project might still get delivered. The dashboard might still load. But the perception of you is already damaged.
And in data teams, perception spreads fast.
Because once someone says, “Hey, heads up, they tend to go quiet when things get rough,” that sticks.
They’ll say it again next time someone asks about working with you. It’ll come up when new projects are assigned. It’ll come up in performance reviews, even if no one says it directly.
This is how careers stall.
Not because you don’t have the skills, but because people stop believing you’re dependable. All because you didn’t give them a simple heads-up when it mattered.
Trust isn’t built in moments of success. It’s built when things get messy and you still show up.
Your silence starts rumors you can’t control
I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count. Someone misses an update. Doesn’t speak up in a meeting. Skips a sync because “nothing’s changed.”
Suddenly, people start asking questions: are they even working on this, should we loop someone else in, do they even know it’s urgent?
None of these questions come to you directly. They happen in DMs, on side calls, in conversations you’re not invited to.
You’re still working hard, but behind the scenes, people are starting to doubt you. All because you didn’t say anything.
That’s how silence turns into politics. Not because anyone’s trying to screw you over, but because in the absence of clarity, everyone builds their own version of the truth. And they usually assume the worst.
They think you’re prioritizing something else. They think you’re ignoring them on purpose. They think you’re not up for the challenge.
I’ve even seen entire shadow teams spin up because one engineer didn’t explain a delay.
Stakeholders panic. They bring in a consultant. They start building a parallel solution, just in case. And you’re left trying to fix your thing while someone else replaces you in the background.
And it’s not just with stakeholders. Same thing happens when you’re a manager and you don’t address underperformance in your team. You wait months. You don’t say anything.
And then, when you finally bring it up, no one trusts you anymore. Not your manager, not HR, not even the person you’re trying to coach. Because it looks like you made it up on the spot.
The longer you stay quiet, the less believable you are.
Silence doesn’t just create confusion. It creates narratives. And by the time you’re ready to talk, the story’s already been written without you.
Leadership isn’t about perfection, it’s about presence
Most engineers don’t speak up until they’re 100% sure they’ve figured it out. That’s how we’ve been trained, solve the problem first, then talk.
That’s fine when you’re debugging code. But when you’re leading projects, teams, or anything with impact, that mindset will bury you.
Leadership isn’t about being right. It’s about being visible when things go sideways. It’s about showing you’re aware, engaged, and taking responsibility, even when you don’t have all the answers yet.
I had to learn this the hard way. There was a production issue once. I didn’t know what was wrong, and I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. But after staying silent for half a day, I finally posted in Slack:
We’re seeing unexpected behavior, still investigating, no clear root cause yet, but we’ll keep you updated.
That single message changed everything. People thanked me. Literally. Just for saying “we don’t know yet.” Because it gave them clarity.
It showed someone was on it. It gave them permission to stop guessing and wait for updates.
You don’t need to have the fix. You just need to show up.
The people around you, your execs, your team, your cross-functional partners, don’t expect miracles. But they do expect awareness. They expect presence.
And when they don’t get that, they stop trusting you. They stop asking for your input. They stop giving you responsibility.
That’s how careers stall. Not because you made a bad call, but because you were nowhere to be found when the call had to be made.
Final thoughts
The longer you stay quiet, the faster you get replaced.
That’s the part nobody tells you. You think you’re being professional by keeping your head down and waiting until everything’s fixed.
Meanwhile, people are already making backup plans. Hiring consultants. Moving your project to someone else. Giving visibility to the person who does speak up.
You think you’re being low maintenance. They think you’re being unreliable.
You’re not even being paid just to write code. If that’s all they needed, they’d hire cheaper talent or let AI take over half your job.
They hired you to be the expert. To take ownership. To say hard things out loud before anyone else notices them. To carry risk and speak clearly about what’s going wrong.
That’s what earns trust. That’s what keeps you in the room.
So if you’re telling yourself you’re doing the responsible thing by staying silent, you’re not. You’re slowly removing yourself from every important conversation in the company.
And by the time you realize it, you’ve already been sidelined.
That’s for this week. Next week, paying subscribers will get the exact playbook I use to deliver bad news without losing credibility or feeling awkward.
Thanks for reading,
Yordan
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