Note that isn’t the only cause of Suppression. In fact, suppression is the default as it requires mere inaction.
So another way that suppression can happen is, “oh that seems like it could be a problem. But is it? Who would I ask? Would asking about that be a distraction? {switches back to original task}”
Yet another way is, “this error email seems like this is a problem. But I’m new and nobody else is responding to it and there are like 30 of them. I should probably filter them out so as to avoid getting distracted. I wish I knew why we weren’t allocating time to dealing with these alarms. {switches to remain focused on original task}.”
I think what you call “passive suppression” is more important to pay attention to because I assume that sabotage is pretty rare but not-knowing-what-to-do and being-overwhelmed happens occasionally.
This here is key.
There are plenty of seemingly-intelligent individuals out there who refuse to acknowledge gaps in their knowledge.
They instead favor suppression and/or deflection over escalation because their own fragile egos could not handle the fact.
Full ownership mentality tends to weed these people out.