“Tell us what you think!” “Use your voice!” “Be the change!”

These days – whether in service of self-advocacy, politics, allyship, human rights, to get visibility, or to offer diversity of thought – the calls to speak up are many.

But these urgent “calls to action” often skip something important: Why? Why speak up?

Without compelling reasons, “speaking up” becomes just another thing on our to-do list. Another reason to feel like we’re not doing enough. Yet another reason why we’re failing.

So, why does it matter whether we use our voices?

Because without our voice, someone else’s narrative controls.

People who use their voices are the ones who shape stories — how history (and life) are represented.

At work, leadership and the people who “handle comms” traditionally control the message. It’s usually overly optimistic: “Everything is great. Sure, we missed our Q3 targets, but that’s okay because of these very convincing reasons.”

But we know the real deal — in Slack, on Zoom, in the ineffective meetings. We know that morale is down because leadership set unrealistic goals and keeps asking people to do more with less. We know that engineering doesn’t trust sales. We know that turf wars are undermining the ability to collaborate. We know no one trusts the CEO.

Our experience is data. Without sharing our experience, there’s information missing from the dataset. Adding our voice ensures that the narrative reflects a more accurate diversity, breadth, and truth of experiences.

Because without our voice, people don’t learn.

Speaking up is an opportunity to share our knowledge: shed light on things, reveal new information, and make ideas better.

When we use our voices, the people around us have the opportunity to learn something. Our managers can learn to see things differently. Leadership can adjust their expectations of what really matters to employees and what is sustainable – if they so choose. And we might learn something, too: that our voices do matter and can affect change.

Because without our voices, we drain our bandwidth.

Self-censorship is exhausting. Code-switching burns us out — fast.

Saying what we really think reduces the energy we spend editing and holding back what we really think. It means we’re no longer absorbing the cost of staying silent. And it means we’re no longer internalizing that stress, only to have it leak out at our kids and loved ones. (It’s not just me that does this, yes?)

I don’t mean it always makes sense to blurt out whatever we’re thinking. But the other extreme of perpetually biting our tongues causes damage, too — damage to us.

So. You can see how using your voice is worth it, right? Here are a few simple but impactful ways to practice speaking up:

• Next time you’re in a meeting and disagree, say, “I see it differently.” Then, express your own view.
• If you notice someone taking credit for another person’s idea, attribute the idea to the source. Say, “John, I’m so glad you’re onboard with Samira’s idea.”
• If you see a gap in how things are done, make a suggestion. Try saying, “Here’s one way we could do this differently” or “X is something that might make this [process/project] work better.”

Using your voice isn’t always easy, especially as people continue to silence us. AND – our thoughts, feelings, ideas, and needs matter, too.

I invite you to use your voice here. What does this bring up for you? Reply and let me know your experience or what I’m missing — from the analysis or the examples.

Wishing you influence, learning, and bandwidth,

Elaine