It happened again. You walked out of that meeting without speaking up. That idea popped into your mind. You had so many questions on that presentation. But instead of putting your voice in the room, you stayed quiet.
A little voice inside of you said, “That’s a dumb question”. And then the person next to you asked the same one. Or, you kept looking for the right time to insert your idea, but it meant you had to interrupt someone. And you hate it when someone interrupts you, so you don’t want to do it to someone else.
This can feel so frustrating. You’ve got the flow of ideas and insights, but they’re contained and locked away. It’s not that you don’t want to share what’s on your mind, you just don’t know how. You don’t feel heard. Do your colleagues in the room even realize you’re there?
Why are many women struggling with this when our male colleagues seem to have no problem asking questions and sharing their ideas?
For starters, women have been conditioned from a young age to be nice and polite. This can include not speaking up, especially if what you have to say will create waves, be controversial or is disruptive. It’s easier to say “I agree” and go with the group think than to say “I disagree and I think we’re moving in the wrong direction”.
There is a good chance that when you’ve spoken up in the past, your idea was dismissed or glossed over. I’ve been in meetings where a woman has offered an idea that was subtly dismissed and then five minutes later a man offered the same idea and received praise. If this has ever happened to you, you may feel like you’re going crazy. You’ve spoken up and someone else got credit for your wisdom.
Sadly, you may have grown up in an environment where speaking up was dangerous. Family dynamics are tricky and if authority figures told you to stay quiet or punished you for speaking your mind, then you may have carried this pattern into the workplace.
Not speaking up isn’t a character flaw or a result of a personal defect. Not speaking up is a conditioned response to ensure your own safety. Basically, it’s not because of you, it’s because of the environments you’ve been trying to survive and even thrive in.
This is a powerful starting point. Safety always comes first and if you don’t feel safe speaking up, then it’s not going to happen in an organic way that feels true to you. When folks don’t have safety, they may “yell” or speak with anger or they may “whisper” and speak with fear. Either way, your voice won’t feel true to you.
When you do feel safe speaking up, you’ll connect with ease within yourself. Instead of your ideas being blocked, they’ll flow. You will be cultivating your creativity instead of tampering it with doubt. Instead of feeling invisible in the workplace, you’ll have a presence in the room.