Nervous people fill silence; confident people own it

Nervous people fill silence. Confident people own it.

That is my thesis. And for years, I violated it myself: a question comes, the answer follows. Just do not let a gap appear.

Negotiation research suggests otherwise. Jared Curhan and colleagues (MIT Sloan, 2022) analysed negotiations second by second: pauses of at least three seconds preceded breakthroughs disproportionately often. In further experiments, deliberately used silence reduced ‘one wins, one loses’ thinking.

And when status differences were highlighted, silence by the higher-status party created more value. This advantage did not appear for the lower-status party.

For leadership, this contains an interesting point: people who lead apparently have more freedom to allow themselves silence. The research, however, examined negotiations, not leadership in general.

Incidentally, this means one deliberate pause, not constant hesitation.

For your next meeting: let the question come. Two breaths. Then answer.

#Leadership #Negotiation #Communication