Are loud people privileged?

We know “the early bird gets the worm”, but what about the loudest bird?

Adam Grant in his book Hidden Potential writes, “When we select leaders, we don’t usually pick the person with the strongest leadership skills. We frequently choose the person who talks the most. It’s called the babble effect.”

While I think every situation is circumstantial, this makes a lot of sense to me.

The loudest in the room gets noticed.

Maybe it’s who gets the promotion at work, who becomes captain of a sport team, if you’re loud, you’re seen. Therefore you may be getting valued more than someone who isn’t.

Look at the corporate hierarchy specifically, the loudest equals the most confident right? Putting two and two together means that they would in theory, make the best leaders.

I can’t blame people for thinking that way but there are things we can all do to change that.

Introverts, let’s challenge ourselves to be more vocal.

Regardless of if it gets you a promotion, it’s great for personal growth and it feels good doing so. This doesn’t mean standing up at every meeting and presenting by the way. Being loud could be emails, messages, phone calls - there’s different ways of using your voice.

Leaders, let’s look beyond the loudest voice in the room.

It’s easy to get drawn there, I get it, and honestly that may be exactly what you are after and the best person for the job, but let’s give everyone a shot. Quiet doesn’t mean a lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, lack of skills.

One last thing to conclude this, if you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind.