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5 Benefits of Being a Quiet Person
Including getting out of awkward situations easily
I consider myself a quiet person. I usually do not speak when I have nothing meaningful to add. Sometimes people have asked why I don’t speak up more often. The answer is because over the years I’ve learned that being quiet has many advantages. Here are five:
1. It Can Get You Out of Awkward Situations
When you are known for being a quiet person there is no pressure for you to share your view or opinion. If your comment is likely to cause dissent between people you can quietly get yourself out of a potentially awkward situation by saying nothing.
I once worked for a company where employees were unhappy with certain working conditions. Senior managers learned of it and a meeting was arranged with a director. Before the meeting, we outlined our grievances and decided that if the director refused to listen to us, we would back each other up.
The team arrived at the meeting confident we would accomplish our goals. What we, or rather I, didn’t realize (I cannot speak for the others) was that an individual had forewarned the director.
As opposed to the lead member of our group presenting our grievance, the director came right out and said, “I understand you have a problem with XYZ. Is that correct?”
She looked at each of us in turn, expecting each individual to speak for themselves. Every single team member denied having any problems whatsoever. I remember sitting there thinking and wanting to say, “So what are we all doing here? Just having a coffee with the director?”
Being the quiet and observant person I was, I quickly realised something was very wrong. I said nothing as I recognized that there was something bigger at stake than a simple grievance. It saved my skin.
2. It Stops You Saying the Wrong Thing
Our ego is the one that often gets us into trouble. We want to prove that we know more than the next person. We want to defend ourselves and show up in good light.
There is nothing wrong with standing up for yourself but there is a right and wrong way to do it.
