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#233 The Speak-Up Ladder: How to Find Your Voice in Meetings and Conflict

Episode 232 • 25th June 2026 • The Happiness Challenge • Klaudia Mitura

Hello happiness seekers. Welcome back. I'm a work psychologist and certified chief happiness officer and I explore science backed habits for a happier life.

In the episode 231, my guest Judith Quinn, winning vocal confidence specialist and a voice coach, help us understand why presence isn't about being clouded. It's about sounding grounded, clear and like you believe you belong in the room.

And in the latest episode 232, I explored how your voice can act as a nervous system regulator.

I shared some of my favorite practices like humming longer exhale and releasing jaw tension to help your body feel safe enough so that your voice feels grounded.

And to wrap up this month's challenge, I'm taking those tools and actually thinking how can we apply them into the sometimes tricky situations speaking up when it counts. In meetings, in difficult conversation, and in the moments when power dynamics make your voice go small. So let's dive in into this topic.

So from my perspective, there are two very interesting reasons why speaking up is so, so difficult. First of all, I'm sure you we all been in there when we had the perfect sentence in our head. This is what I'm going to say.

And then the moment comes and our words poof, evaporated and our mind goes blank.

And it is very much a simple physiology because when our brain detects social threat like being judged, interrupted or feeling I don't belong here, it can very much shift into a protective state. And for some of us that looks like fight we go, we get sharper. For others it's a flight. We avoid the conversation.

And for many people especially I think in workplaces, it's more like freeze or foam. So we go quiet, quiet, we over explain, we start waffling, we soften our point with lots of sorry and apologies.

And our voice of course follow this state. And research is very clear that when we feel we are under stress, our body and mind will always prioritize our safety over self expression.

So that's why our mind goes blank and all the words that we have we wanted to say are gone. Because now we're concentrating on the fact that this is socially threatening situation.

So the three techniques that I shared in the previous episode are really useful here because they help us to create enough internal safety so that we can speak up with clarity. If we regulate our nervous system, we are able then to find that clarity to speak up.

The second reason why speaking up often is so difficult in social situations is status.

Because what happens is that in groups as humans, we constantly read tiny cues to the side who is confident, who is Credible, who is safe to listen, who should I follow, who should I support here? And a lot of those cues come through the voice.

So again really interesting research here that shows it's not about that volume, it's not about that dominance. It's more about pace. Slightly slower pace often reads as more confident because I'm taking my time to express my point of view.

Pauses, a pause signals that we are not scrambling, we are in control of what we saying. Endings. A full stop ending always sounds more certain than a question mark or do you know what I mean? Or that makes sense.

And fewer filler words and qualifiers, again they create that sense of confidence. So if we're using a lot, just sorry, maybe I'm not sure. But unfortunately we are undermining our message.

So this is not about necessarily changing who we are or the way we speak because we all have lots of different phrases that we use on habitual habitually but it's really thinking about how can we remove those some of those stress patterns that are distorting our message. And if we not careful when we trying to speak up those patterns may show up more often. So just self awareness about how clear we are in that message.

Now there is a framework. I would love you to try and think about it like a speak up ladder.

Because often when we think it's time for us to speak up, we think about that we're jumping from silence to a confrontation. But doesn't have to be the case really. We can take one step at a time at our ladder depending what situation we are in and how we feel in the moment.

So I'm going to give you a few examples here. So step one of the ladder is asking one clean question. If speaking up feels too risky, ask a question that moves the conversation. Try.

Can we clarify the goal here? What problem are we solving? What success could look like on the second step of the ladder? Offer a headline. So that might be a one sentence.

When you express your point of view and you pause to gather a feedback from the room such as my view is that we are over complicating this or I think we are missing on some important insights here or I don't think the timeline here is realistic. Then take a pause on the step three of the ladder. Think about adding one piece of evidence that is called anchoring.

And I really love this technique because it moves discussion away from my point of view versus your point of view into we are now discussing the evidence available such as the last two times this happens was because or I know from the Feedback that X, Y and Z or this is not in line with our behaviors or values because step four is about making a request. So we're going up the ladder and now our voice becomes leadership. So try.

I would like us to decide on one priority today or can we take five minutes to make sure that we list all the risks before we commit or next time I really would appreciate if we could. And step five on the ladder is about setting boundary. So this is a moment when we are having this tiny rebellion of voice.

Very simple such as that does not work for me because I'm not available for the timeline. I can do X but I cannot do Y. Notice very simple boundaries, very simple statements, but very powerful.

So now that we have the Speak up ladder, let's have a look at some additional scripts that you can use in situations when speaking up is particularly difficult. So coming back again to this idea that yes, our brain and our mind will go blank in those situations.

So let's be prepared with some phrases that can help us to stay on track when we are speaking up. So situation one, you are interrupted.

Okay, not a nice situation at all, especially if you're being interrupted frequently or you're being interrupted by really clearly on purpose by someone. So try saying I would love to hear your view but I'm going to finish this thought first. Or if you want something softer saying I'm sorry one second.

I really want to land this point and express your point of view. A second situation which I think socially might be quite threatening is when we disagree.

And very simple sentence to try is simply saying I see differently. Here is what I'm noticing and then give one piece of evidence.

And then situation three is when emotional, when it's emotional and the stakes are quite high. So few phrases that can be useful in those situations are this matters to me. So I'm going to take my time and simply take your time to express.

Can I say what I actually need here? Okay.

And if you started waffling, if you started not being on track with your message, which happens, take control back by saying I want to say that again more clearly. This is what I think. Thank you so much everyone for listening.

I really do hope that you find you have found those tips useful and that you really think about embracing your voice in lots of different situations, whether by speaking up or whether by thinking about your voice as that nervous system regulator.

Remember, if you are curious to learn more about the science of happiness, check out my book the Alphabet of Happiness where I explore 26 science backed principles to create more happiness at work in relationships and in our own skin. And also remember, you can sign up for my substack newsletter, the Happiness Challenge to get weekly updates directly to your inbox.

Finally, if you try this pick up ladder, I would love to hear what step you started on and what changed when you gave your voice a little bit more space. So as always, I dare you to be happy and see you next time. Bye.

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232. #233 The Speak-Up Ladder: How to Find Your Voice in Meetings and Conflict