Sean Glaze argues that effective leaders should speak least and last in meetings. By staying quiet, leaders avoid groupthink, let others contribute freely, and collect better ideas from diverse perspectives.
Oftentimes when people look at the exact same thing at the exact same time, they see things that are very, very different. Now, the first thing for you to understand as a leader is that different assumptions and different perspectives can absolutely be valuable. If everybody on your team is thinking the same way, some of them probably aren't necessary. Where people bring value is in bringing you different ideas that you hadn't thought about. And so when you ask people on your team to look at this same type of box situation or any situation, you're going to be surprised by the value that different points of view and different backgrounds and different ideas can contribute. The best thing a leader can do in meetings and in conversations is to speak least and to speak last. If you're speaking least, your words have more weight and value. And if you're speaking last, you give yourself an opportunity to collect ideas instead of sharing your idea and making others bite their tongue.
