IN an era where messages leap across continents in less than a second, the most deafening form of communication has become the one that never arrives. That silence of a no-reply, echoes louder than any form of communication.
The withheld reply, once an accidental by-product of busy schedules or erratic connectivity, has mutated into a cultural tool of its own — sharp, deliberate and often cruel.
The blue tick on WhatsApp, the unopened email, the “delivered” message left to age without acknowledgment, all these are no longer technological quirks.
They are calculated social actions. They are schemes to malign, demean and dismiss the sender. They are performances meant to signal hierarchy. And in Zimbabwe’s business circles, this silent dialect has grown into a behavioural epidemic.
Make no mistake, a no-reply is rarely neutral. It is frequently a crafted gesture meant to remind someone of their place in a pecking order that has little to do with merit and everything to do with ego, access and the cult of self-importance that has been bred by an economy of scarcity.
Silence, in this environment, becomes both a shield and a weapon. It protects the powerful from obligation and it wounds the rest, by forcing them to negotiate with ghosts.
Psychology behind the quiet rebuke
To understand the meaning of an unanswered message, you must first understand the emotional economy that governs communication. Direct speech, whether written or spoken, requires courage.
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It requires a willingness to be accountable for one’s stance, even when that stance is simply
“I cannot help”. Silence, however, allows one to benefit from the pretence of busyness, self-importance or strategic distance while avoiding the moral weight that comes with clarity.
A withheld reply, therefore, is not merely the absence of words. It is an assertion of a hierarchy that says, my schedule is fuller than yours, my time more valuable than yours, my priorities weightier than your needs. It functions like an invisible stamp that says, without saying: You wait for me. I do not wait for you.
This is not benign procrastination. It is the subtle choreography of power and many people, especially in professional spaces in Zimbabwe, have mastered it. In cultures where respect is expected to flow upwards and favours must be earned through prolonged deference, silence becomes a teaching tool.
It conditions the recipient to temper their expectations, to tone down their urgency, to literally grovel and to repackage their needs in a gentler, more flattering way.
Over time, recipients begin to pre-emptively shrink their requests, not because their needs are smaller, but because they fear the humiliation of being ignored altogether.
In the end, this whole scenario breeds an organisational culture that is hierarchical and impenetrable, of mistrust, fear and where employees and outsiders alike, might unconsciously seek attention through sabotage.
Gatekeeping, status signalling
Although this behaviour thrives globally, its Zimbabwean iteration is unusually theatrical.
Here, the silent treatment has become ritualistic, as if it is part of the unwritten script of corporate and political etiquette.
People guard access to themselves as if responding to a message might diminish their value!
Leaders, middle managers, consultants and even entrepreneurs often treat responsiveness as a scarce commodity, one to be rationed in accordance with perceived social rank.
Consider how many deals fall through not because of incompetence or lack of resources, but because someone, somewhere, simply decided that replying was beneath them.
Consider how many promising partnerships wither because emails linger in purgatory.
Consider how many community projects stall because one indispensable official has decided that silence is a more satisfying expression of authority than cooperation.
Non-responsiveness becomes a kind of currency, to be hoarded, weaponised and circulated.
And like many currencies in Zimbabwe, its value is anchored not in productivity but in scarcity and spectacle. In this context, silence is not just rudeness, it is a quiet performance of dominance.
When silence becomes tyrannical
There is a moral dimension to this epidemic that deserves explicit scrutiny. A reply, however brief, however negative, is an affirmation that the other person exists in your field of recognition. To withhold that recognition is to place yourself above the norms that make collaboration possible.
In professional environments, accountability begins with acknowledgment. Without that, you create a culture where information is hoarded, decisions are vague, tensions fester and distrust becomes the default setting.
The simplest “no,” a full sentence for that matter, delivered with dignity, protects the integrity of an institution far more than a thousand unread emails.
Silence, by contrast, becomes a slow erosion of ethics. It chips away at civility. It trains people to operate in the shadows.
It incentivises sycophancy, after all, when responses are erratic or rare, individuals begin to rely on informal networks of influence to secure clarity.
Patronage grows. Merit weakens. Professionalism collapses into a theatre of selective visibility.
Yes, those who remain silent often, justify their behaviour by citing workload, competing priorities or fear of misinterpretation. But the question remains: at what point does caution evolve into callousness? If silence becomes a habit, rather than an exception, it ceases to be defensive. It becomes tyrannical.
The boomerang effect
Life has a way of rotating the spotlight. The same executive who once ignored proposals may one day find themselves pitching to the ones they once ignored, in desperation. The supplier who withheld responses may eventually need urgent cooperation.
The politician who made silence their signature style may eventually need endorsements, empathy or rescue.
When that day arrives, their fate will be shaped not by the eloquence of their need, but by the echoes of the silences they once deployed so casually. Doors close quietly, the same way messages go unread.
Karma is rarely theatrical. It works through memory, human memory, which records not only what was said but what was withheld. We are all, ultimately, custodians of our reputational footprint.
And nothing stains that footprint more thoroughly than the pattern of treating others as unworthy of acknowledgment. People might not necessarily remember what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Eradicating non-responsiveness
The question, then, is not merely diagnostic, it is prescriptive. How does a society escape a culture where silence is misread as strength?
Code of communication ethics
Decency cannot be legislated, but it can be cultivated. Acknowledge messages, even if briefly. Set realistic timeframes. Be clear when you cannot assist. A simple “I will revert by Friday” is not a luxury, it is a professional baseline.
When we respond, we dignify not only the message, but ourselves. And when we refuse to respond, we may feel powerful in the moment, but we chip away at our credibility.
Equip recipients with resilience
It is important for those who receive silence not internalise it as personal failure. They should diversify contact channels, document conversations, use follow-up mechanisms and where possible, pursue face-to-face dialogue.
It is critical to build networks that do not rely on any one individual’s whims. More importantly, institutions must stop rewarding the myth of the untouchable. Responsiveness should be integrated into performance assessments, customer satisfaction indices, procurement evaluations and leadership training. Silence is a style of management, yes, but a dysfunctional one.
Rehumanise communication
Behind every message is a person navigating their own complexities, hopes, anxieties and pressures. A society that normalises silence as a form of superiority loses its empathy. A simple reply, interrupts that drift toward indifference.
It re-establishes that progress is a cooperative endeavour, not a solo performance of arrogance. Professionalism, at its core, is not an aesthetic of power. It is a discipline of respect.
Responding as a civic virtue
The most subversive answer to a culture of silence is not vengeance. It is integrity. The disciplined practice of responding, even when others refuse to, becomes a quiet rebellion against pettiness. It resets the moral coordinates of a community one message at a time.
The loudest message you send in a world obsessed with power is to treat others with the dignity they have been denied elsewhere. Indeed, a well-timed, thoughtful reply is not merely communication.
It is citizenship. It is leadership. It is evidence of a character that refuses to measure its worth by how long it can hold another person hostage in uncertainty. And in an age where silence is often used to intimidate, the reply becomes a radical act.
- Ndoro-Mkombachoto is a former academic and banker. She is the chairperson of NetOne Financial Services, a subsidiary of NetOne Telecomms. She has consulted widely in strategy, entrepreneurship, private sector development, financial literacy/inclusion for firms that include Seed Co Africa, Hwange Colliery, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Standard Bank of South Africa Home Loans, International Finance Corporation/World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, United States Agency for International Development, Danish International Development Agency, Canadian International Development Agency, Kellogg Foundation. Ndoro-Mkombachoto is a writer, property investor, manufacturer and keen gardener. Her podcast on YouTube is @HeartfeltWithGloria. — Cell: +263 7713362177/ gloria@ sustainwisestrategies.co.za.
