Confidence Doesn’t Mean Certainty
One of the key barriers to being heard in the workplace is hesitating to speak when the moment calls for it.
You may relate.
You're in a meeting and someone asks for input or ideas.
You have a thought, but it doesn't feel well formed enough to verbalise within the timeframe you're given.
By the time you've organised your thoughts and decided to say something, it's too late.
The meeting has moved on.
It can be frustrating, particularly for technical experts who may have extremely valuable perspectives to share, but prefer to be certain before speaking.
This need to have solid evidence or solutions before speaking has been identified in research as one factor contributing to workplace silence.
In 2011, Detert and Edmondson published their findings into the factors that contribute to hesitation around speaking up at work.
They identified five unspoken rules, with one particularly relevant here:
I need solid data or solutions before speaking up.
This was supported by beliefs such as:
presenting an underdeveloped or under-researched idea is a bad idea
I must be able to answer every question I'm asked
saying "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" puts me in a weak position
I shouldn't raise a problem unless I already have a clear solution
These implicit rules predicted workplace silence beyond more general factors such as psychological safety.
In other words, beliefs about when it is appropriate to speak up can contribute to silence, over and above how psychologically safe someone feels at work.
This type of thinking, however, is a bit like waiting to be certain all the traffic lights are green before leaving home.
We take the risk that we'll be held up by a red light, but it doesn't stop us from taking the action of leaving home.
Yet we often do this when it comes to speaking up and contributing.
We wait for all our ducks to be lined up before taking action.
This can be particularly relevant for technical experts because accuracy matters.
We don't want to mislead people or make a claim we can't substantiate.
But that professional strength can become a communication barrier when "I need to be accurate" becomes "I must be completely certain before I contribute."
While we don't want to give incorrect advice, there are ways to contribute despite feeling uncertain.
And this matters because research into the "babble hypothesis" suggests people who speak more in group settings are more likely to emerge as leaders.
There are ways you can acknowledge uncertainty without undermining yourself.
For example, prefacing thoughts and ideas that aren't fully formed with phrases such as these may help:
"I'm still thinking this through, but one idea is..."
"My view isn't fully formed yet, but I'm noticing..."
"I don't have a final answer, but what I'm seeing so far is..."
"Building on what you've said, I'm wondering if..."
"There may be more to unpack here, and one angle could be..."
These communicate confidence without needing certainty.
They allow you to share your thinking while giving it room to develop.
This matters because an imperfect contribution can be explored, while a silent one cannot.
And influence requires your voice to be heard.Put the copy here