Finding Your Voice: Speaking Up When It Matters Most
- linnearader
- Oct 15
- 7 min read
"Here's what nobody tells you about leadership: having a voice and making noise are two completely different things."
I spent the first part of my career convinced that speaking up was my superpower. I had no problem opening my mouth. In fact, I talked all the time. And loudly. I would talk over people, jump into conversations, and share my opinions with absolute confidence.
I thought I'd already found my voice. Turns out, I'd just found volume.
This is part of my "Finding Your..." series, where we've explored finding your why, your community, and your boundaries. Today we're tackling something that took me years to truly develop: finding your voice as a leader.
The Difference Between Noise and Meaning
Here's what nobody tells you about leadership: having a voice and making noise are two completely different things.
Young, confident me walked into rooms and spoke up constantly. I had opinions about everything. I was sure of myself. I didn't hesitate to share what I thought, often before fully thinking it through.
But here's what I didn't understand: just because I was talking didn't mean anyone should be listening. Just because I had something to say didn't mean it was worth saying. Just because I was confident didn't mean I was right.
I had volume. I had confidence. I had no problem being heard. What I didn't have was the wisdom to know when my input actually added value and when I was just adding noise to an already crowded conversation.
Learning to Listen First
"Staying quiet when I had something to say felt physically uncomfortable."
The turning point came when I realized something uncomfortable: I was so busy talking that I wasn't actually listening.
I'd interrupt people mid-sentence because I was excited about my idea. I'd formulate my response while they were still speaking instead of actually hearing what they said. I'd jump in with solutions before I fully understood the problem.
I thought I was being engaged and contributing. Really, I was being exhausting.
Finding my professional voice started with learning to shut up. To listen completely before speaking. To ask questions instead of immediately offering opinions. To sit with information long enough to actually understand it before responding.
This was hard. Really hard. Staying quiet when I had something to say felt physically uncomfortable. But it was necessary.
When Confidence Becomes Arrogance
Looking back, I was pretty arrogant and annoying. I was convinced I had valuable insights to share, and sometimes I did. But I hadn't yet learned to distinguish between the times when my input would genuinely help and the times when I was just talking to hear myself talk.
That arrogance cost me. People started tuning me out because they knew I'd always have something to say, regardless of whether I actually knew what I was talking about. My constant input became background noise instead of meaningful contribution.
The leaders I respected most weren't the loudest people in the room. They were the ones who spoke strategically. Who asked thoughtful questions. Who listened more than they talked. Who, when they did speak, said something worth listening to.
I wanted to be that kind of leader. But I had to get over myself first.
The Professional Voice
Finding your professional voice isn't about learning to speak up if you're naturally quiet. For people like me, it's about learning to speak up strategically, meaningfully, and at the right times.
It's about developing the judgment to know:
When your input adds value and when it's just adding noise
When to ask questions and when to offer solutions
When to push back and when to support someone else's direction
When to lead the conversation and when to let others take the floor
My professional voice emerged not when I learned to talk more, but when I learned to talk better. To make my words count. To contribute in ways that actually moved conversations and decisions forward.
The Power of Strategic Silence
One of the most powerful things I learned: sometimes the best contribution you can make is staying quiet and letting someone else speak.
When you're constantly jumping in, you prevent others from contributing. You dominate discussions that need diverse input. You create an environment where people stop sharing because they know you're going to talk over them anyway.
Strategic silence creates space. It gives others permission to contribute. It allows better ideas than yours to surface. It shows respect for other people's expertise and perspective.
Now, I consciously practice staying quiet in meetings. I wait. I listen. I let others contribute first. And you know what? Often someone else says exactly what I was thinking, or says something even better, or raises a perspective I hadn't considered.
The room doesn't need me to fill every silence. It needs me to create space for the best ideas to emerge, regardless of whose mouth they come from.
When Your Voice Actually Matters
"Your team needs you to speak up in rooms they're not in."
Here's what I've learned about when speaking up actually matters:
When you have information others don't have. If you're the only one who knows something relevant to the decision, speak up. Your silence in that moment isn't humble, it's negligent.
When you see a potential problem others are missing. Sometimes your role is to be the voice of caution or to ask the uncomfortable questions. Do it respectfully, but do it.
When you're advocating for your team. Your team needs you to speak up in rooms they're not in. This is where your voice is critical, and staying silent would be failing them.
When silence would be interpreted as agreement. If you fundamentally disagree with a direction and your silence might be seen as support, you need to speak up, even if it's uncomfortable.
But speaking up just to be heard? Just to prove you're engaged? Just because you always have something to say? That's noise, not leadership.
The Translation Challenge
"Your voice needs to adapt to your audience without losing its core authenticity."
Part of finding your professional voice is learning to communicate effectively across different levels of your organization.
You need to be fluent in multiple languages. Technical language for your professional staff. Budget language for financial discussions. Political language for elected/appointed officials. Plain language for public communications. Legal language for compliance and risk management.
The same issue requires different communication approaches depending on your audience. When explaining a budget shortfall to your crew, you focus on how it impacts their day-to-day work. When briefing your board, you emphasize fiscal responsibility and long-term sustainability. When talking to residents, you translate it into terms that connect to their experience.
This isn't about being fake or manipulative, it's about being effective. Your voice needs to adapt to your audience without losing its core authenticity.
Learning from Being Wrong
Here's something that helped me develop my professional voice: being wrong. Publicly. Repeatedly.
When you talk as much as I did early in my career, you're going to be wrong sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. And that's humbling.
Getting things wrong taught me to:
Think before speaking instead of speaking while thinking
Ask questions to test my assumptions before presenting them as facts
Be willing to say "I was wrong" or "I hadn't considered that"
Value accuracy over ego
Every time I spoke too quickly and had to backtrack, every time I offered a confident opinion that turned out to be uninformed, every time someone pointed out a flaw in my thinking, those moments shaped my professional voice more than any success did.
The Advocate Role
Here's what eventually shifted my perspective completely: as a leader, it's not about finding your voice for yourself. You have to find it for your team.
Your team needs you to speak up in rooms they're not in. They need you to advocate for resources, defend their work, and push back against unrealistic expectations. They need you to translate their challenges into language that decision-makers understand and act on.
When you stay silent about staffing shortages, inadequate equipment, or impossible timelines, you're not just failing yourself, you're failing your team. Your voice is their megaphone. Your platform is their access point to influence.
This realization changed everything. I could be cavalier about my own contributions, but staying quiet when my team needed me to speak up? That felt like abandoning them. Finding my voice became less about confidence and more about responsibility.
The Daily Practice
Finding your meaningful voice is a daily practice. Every day, you face choices about when to speak and when to listen.
Before speaking in a meeting, I now ask myself:
Do I fully understand what's being discussed?
Will my input actually add value or am I just talking?
Have I listened enough to know if someone else already addressed this?
Is this the right time and the right way to make this point?
These questions help me separate meaningful contribution from noise. They help me be strategic instead of reactive. They help me make my voice matter when I use it.
What Changed When I Found My Real Voice
I'm not going to tell you that finding my professional voice solved everything. But here's what changed:
People started actually listening when I spoke. Because I wasn't constantly talking, they knew that when I did speak up, it was worth paying attention to. My contributions carried more weight because they were more thoughtful and less frequent.
I became more effective. Speaking strategically meant my input actually influenced decisions instead of just adding to the noise. My carefully chosen moments of advocacy for my team got better results than my constant commentary ever did.
And honestly? I became easier to work with. People stopped bracing themselves when I opened my mouth. Colleagues started seeking my input because they knew I'd actually listened first and would offer something useful.
Your Turn
Finding your voice isn't about learning to speak up if you're quiet. And it's not about speaking constantly if you're naturally verbal.
It's about finding the balance between listening and contributing. It's about knowing when your input adds value and when staying quiet serves everyone better. It's about making your words count instead of just making noise.
Whether you need to speak up more or speak up better, the goal is the same: use your voice strategically, meaningfully, and in service of what actually matters.
Your voice has value. Make sure you're using it in ways that honor that value.
Where do you fall on the spectrum, speaking too much or too little? How do you know when your input actually adds value? Share your experience in the comments.
As always, carry social kindness with you everywhere you go. The world needs you and your positive mindset!
Connect With Me
If you want to consult on training or coaching for your team, please reach out.
269-621-5282
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