To Speak Or Not To Speak

image source: Envato

I’m attending this Leadership event organised by a professional association.

The house rule is for attendees to first spend 2 minutes in groups of 4, to consider what questions they want to ask the speaker before the Q&A.

I’m sat near one of the previous speakers – a senior expert with decades in the industry. We’ll call him Howard.

Behind us, and joining for the question brainstorming session, are two young professionals.

One of them, we’ll call him Sam, is curious to hear from the speaker we just heard “how she keeps her curiosity, her fire alive, after so many years in the industry?”

Howard, having spoken an hour earlier, and probably still riding on that high, launches right into answering Sam’s question.

Not exploring where the question came from, what else we might ask the current speaker (which was the purpose of the activity), what anybody else thought in our little group… None of those things are of any interest to him.

He had dazzled the room with his brilliance an hour earlier, and he wasn’t quite finished dazzling.

“Well, it’s all about setting priorities and managing your time” goes Howard, oozing satisfaction with his wisdom. “You have to keep a balance between your work and your private life” – more wisdom! 🙄

If I allow myself the eye-roll I am craving right now, it’s going to be so massive, that my whole body is going to do an Olympic back flip 🙄🤸🏻‍♀️🙄

It takes all my self-control to hold my face still, turn towards Sam, and try to dispel the awkwardness: “Sam what I’m hearing is that you’d like to hear how the speaker is keeping herself from becoming blasé, from running on autopilot, and still staying in learning mode, even after all this time she’s spent in the industry – is that what you meant?”

Sam’s face lights up: “Yes, exactly!”

This should bring us all back into the same conversation, I expect.

“Yes, I knew a leader who had 4 kids!” Howard responds. “She performed extremely well, and she did it by keeping a clear separation between work and home life. If she could do it, anyone can.”

We’re saved by the bell because the 2 minutes are suddenly up and we don’t have to face the awkwardness of either asking Howard how his answer was related to Sam’s question… Or why he thought it important to make this moment about himself and his “insights”, instead of helping the young folks this event was for put their voice in the room.

Sam manages to just get his question in before the Q&A slot is finished:

“How do you keep a good separation between work and home life… ”

I feel a karate kick… Right in the heart! 🦶💔

How did Sam get to think that was his question?

…” and stay curious?” he adds, as an afterthought.

What just happened? 🤯

Suffice it to say – Sam did not get *his* question answered.

Leaders shape thoughts

No one was shouted down. No one was humiliated. No one was silenced.

And yet — a young professional walked into that Q&A with a sharp, alive question about intellectual vitality… and walked out asking about time management.

That’s influence.

Not the TED-stage kind. Not the charismatic-leader kind. The everyday, ambient, invisible kind.

Leaders don’t just influence what people do. They are architects of what becomes thinkable in their vicinity.

Howard’s status and self assuredness changed what Sam thought was worth asking. Adam Grant might call Howard’s behaviour taking, dressed up as giving. He was performing wisdom. But the orientation was wrong: centred on the self when the moment called for curiosity about another person’s inner world.

How influence works

There are a few well-established psychological mechanisms at play in moments like this:

1. Authority bias

When someone with status speaks confidently, our brains automatically assign more weight to their perspective.

Sam didn’t consciously decide to defer. It was just the result of hundreds of thousands of years of biology, playing out in 2026. If the most senior person in the group responds as though the “real” issue is work-life balance, the conversation subtly reorients around that frame. We are wired to align.

 2. Conversational priming

The first strong framing of a topic narrows the mental field. Once “priorities and separation” were introduced with such confidence, they became cognitively sticky. Put simply, Sam just took Howard’s word for it.

Alternative framings require effort to retrieve.

3. Emotional safety calibration

Sam and I made one attempt to clarify. Then Sam’s idea was overridden again.

The social cost of correcting a senior expert twice in 2 minutes? High. The cost of slightly adjusting the question? Much lower.

The brain optimises for safety. And just like that, the question changes.

Leaders have a moral obligation to listen better

The way leaders listen – or don’t – determines what other people end up thinking. What questions they feel they can ask. What ideas they believe are worth having. What version of themselves they perform when the leader is in the room.

If your presence alters what others feel safe thinking, asking, or exploring, then you have a responsibility that goes beyond your job description.

Your self-awareness is not just a personal growth hobby. It is your moral obligation.

Because what’s at stake is the confidence of the next generation of leaders (which erodes when questions are not heard) and diversity of thought (which shrinks when the highest-status voice sets the frame too quickly).

As I watched curiosity get reshaped into productivity advice that day, I couldn’t help but wonder: what made Howard rush to fill the space he was supposed to create?

He probably didn’t mean to derail Sam. But he wasn’t permeable to Sam’s input either, because his focus was on his own role as the expert.

If you are senior, experienced, admired – good. Own that.

But then do the harder thing: dial down your brilliance. Make space for others.

Ask one more question before giving your answer. Let the younger voice finish their thought without “improving” it.

That’s what shapes the thinking of tomorrow’s leaders.