How to use interrupting as a power tool in leadership

Recently, I was sitting in a meeting, watching the minutes tick by. I was trying to figure out how to interrupt the continuous flow of voices competing for airtime that made it harder and harder to get a word in.

I’m an extrovert/introvert mix by nature, but when the stakes are high and opinionated personalities crowd into a room, my default pattern is to shrink away from competing to voice my perspective. I’ll often leave a meeting kicking myself for having contributed little or nothing at all to the conversation. 

Many leaders today find themselves struggling to perform in high-pressure (and these days, usually virtual) meetings, either because their performance anxiety causes a heightened level of fear and paralysis, or because they end up having to compete with bosses and coworkers who overtalk and take up more than their fair share of space in the room. And others work valiantly to insert themselves but are passed over or rendered invisible or silent because of implicit bias or exclusive group norms. 

How to use interruptions appropriately 

Whatever the cause—for leaders who struggle to be heard and bystanders who want to hear more from quiet colleagues—the skill of interrupting can be helpful to practice for disrupting group norms and bringing out reserved voices. 

For example, my client, Max (not his real name), is an HR leader at a Fortune 500 company. He spends most of his days answering hard questions with polish and candor. But recent feedback from his colleagues revealed that others perceive him as someone who avoids complex, messy conversations around diversity and inclusion. He admits that he can freeze or clam up in meetings when he doesn’t know the right words. 

For two months now, Max has been trying out a new practice when this happens: interrupting. Max inserts himself whenever the conversation moves toward a tense or complicated topic by saying, “I get that this is messy, and I want to try to share my perspective.” This allows him to participate powerfully and paves the way for him to share imperfectly. This simple practice has helped him stay present and vocal in these challenging subject areas. It also gives others around him permission to stay in the conversation without needing to get it right, too. 

Interrupting is controversial. When someone interrupts us while we speak, we can feel disrespected, and men tend to view women who interrupt as rude. Conversational style can also play a part in how a person views an interruption, as can cultural context. In coaching, we call this skill intruding—and we do it to help our clients forward their learning and move out of storytelling.

However, as we work toward more inclusive workplaces, leaders can learn how to interrupt to make space for silent or marginalized voices. The following tips can help you skillfully interrupt and bring yourself and others forward. 

Start by noticing

Observe the conversational dynamics and patterns in the room. Who’s talking a lot, and who isn’t? Tune into self-awareness to notice your own contributions. Are you holding back? Are you oversharing? Evaluate how much psychological safety exists in the meeting and consider the topics no one is voicing aloud. You can also review a video recording of the session to watch the patterns that may be invisible in the moment. 

Practice speaking up early

If you tend to hold back, try speaking up in the first 30% of the meeting. When we take a risk and use our voice early—even in a simple act of noticing and naming—we can interrupt our brain’s proven fear-based amygdala response, which makes it easier to speak up later in the meeting. Answer a question early on or make small talk with a colleague before the meeting starts to habituate yourself to speaking up and make it easier to contribute when the stakes are higher. 

Pause the action skillfully

In the book Subtle Acts of Exclusion, authors Tiffany Jana and Michael Baran stress the importance of interrupting microaggressions in real time with a simple phrase to pause the action while putting the other person at ease. Witnesses can interrupt by stating a helpful intention: “Can we pause to discuss something that was just said? I’m sure you didn’t mean anything by it, but . . . ” This is a moment to reinforce the relationship by communicating that you want to help, calling the other person in instead of calling them out. 

Be willing to get it wrong

In coaching, the skill of blurting helps give permission to be clumsy, messy, and human in our attempt to speak our truth. Blurting asks that we be willing not to know the right words or have the perfect way to name what we need to say. Blurt by using “I” statements to ground your observations in your own experience. For example, “I notice that Karim was going to say something back there, can we go back?” or, “I notice that I was holding back just there about something hard,” or, “I notice that there’s something I want to say that’s messy, can I take a moment to try to put words to it?” 

Design practices for interruption as a team

Interrupting successfully as a team requires building a group norm of doing it with skill and respect and not taking it personally. Do your work’s cultural norms welcome interruption or punish it? Which topics and people can currently tolerate interruption, and when is it not safe or accessible? Start a discussion to make your team aware of these dynamics. 

In the practice of interrupting, clumsiness and awkwardness are a sign that it’s working. Over time, you’ll find it easier to insert yourself in spaces and make it safe for others to do the same. You’ll become more adept at finding the right moment to interrupt with fluidity and humility, and the systems and spaces you’re a part of may even come to welcome the interruption. 

Gia Storms is a leadership coach and member of The Boda Group. She facilitates team and executive coaching from Los Angeles.