I help leaders unleash the talent on their teams and reclaim their power by unlearning silence. I’m the author of the USA Today Bestselling book on Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully (Penguin 2024). My vision is a future in which each individual knows, uses, and chooses where they lend their voice.
Using Your Voice When the System Doesn’t Care
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Hi Reader, Ever feel like you’re the only one who cares? About people, values, integrity — while the system rewards speed and spin? You’re not alone. “What if people don’t care about this stuff?” was the question an astute participant asked at the end of a recent workshop I led on creating cultures of voice at work. It’s a great question, and one you might also be asking as you’re thinking: Yeah, Elaine, it would be great if I could speak my mind. It would be amazing if the leader I report to actually listened instead of dismissed the feedback I’m trying to offer. It would be a dream if they’d take what I type in a Slack message as seriously as what my smooth-talking colleague says in the all-hands meeting. But I don’t live that dream. Maybe you don’t either. You might also look around at who seems to be winning and wonder what you’re missing. The people who care more about tactical efficiency than psychological safety rise. The ones who care about people are the ones getting laid off. You might wonder: Is there even room here for my values and voice? So what do you do when it feels like no one cares about your voice? 1) Use your voice – for you.Your voice isn’t just for others to hear—it’s for you to remember who you are. Using your voice reminds you that you have autonomy, agency, and perspective. You get to decide when, where, and how you share it. In systems that reward silence or compliance, remembering that you still have both voice and choice is power. As I’ve written before: everyone’s voice will look and sound different. What does yours look and sound like? 2) Choose your relationship with the system.A colleague shared the parallels he sees between today's workplace and the slavery his ancestors endured. The word oversee comes from that history, “overseers” were responsible for ensuring profitability by supervising enslaved people and enforcing discipline. No wonder being “supervised” can feel loaded. Yet we also have more ability and opportunity to choose our relationship with the systems than those before us did. Ask yourself: does this place (or relationship) deserve my gifts? As Albert Hirschman noted in the 1970s, our options are exit, voice, and loyalty. If voice isn’t welcome, and loyalty turns into conformity, then sometimes the most self-honoring act is to exit—and plant yourself somewhere you can truly thrive. 3) You create culture.Culture can feel like one of those really nebulous things that no one is really responsible for. And yet culture is the air we breathe and the water we drink. It can inspire. It can uplift. It can encourage. It will always infect. But culture is, at its core, a set of norms for how people treat one another and show up. It’s not static; it’s something we shape. How do you want to show up? What norms do you want to be true in your relationship, on your team, in your community? Live those. Because shaping culture isn’t just for influencers. Each of our actions co-creates the culture we live in. So if you take nothing else away, take this:
Elaine -- When you’re ready, here are three ways I can help…
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How to Use Your Voice
I help leaders unleash the talent on their teams and reclaim their power by unlearning silence. I’m the author of the USA Today Bestselling book on Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully (Penguin 2024). My vision is a future in which each individual knows, uses, and chooses where they lend their voice.
Hi Reader, As humans, we're incredibly attune to how costly speaking up can be. If the cost of sharing our perspectives, insights, expertise, or ourselves is too high, then it makes sense that we wouldn't want to incur those costs. But what if we’re making these choices to speak up or stay silent based on incomplete analysis? I don’t know about you, but I don’t typically sit around and do a slow pro/con evaluation. The calculation of whether to speak up is typically split-second and often...
Hi Reader, Why don’t smart, capable people speak up? One unexpected reason is what psychologists call expert blindness. When you’re really good at something, you can forget – or be blind to – the fact that others can’t always see what you see or do what you do. Research often focuses on how expert blindness makes it difficult for experts to teach their expertise to others. But I want to focus on another gnarly side effect of being an expert – you can easily underestimate the power of your...
Hi Reader, Whose responsibility is it to make a conversation productive? You might argue that it’s their responsibility to speak up. They might argue that it’s your responsibility to make it safe for them to share. After all, if the real or perceived costs of speaking up are too great, silence makes sense. Power dynamics, life experiences, emotion, and perception all shape whether we dance around issues or really talk about what’s at stake. Too often, we get stuck in a cycle of pointing...