Not every company or team has a loud voice on board – the kind that speaks loudly and shouts down any opposing view. If you do happen to have such a voice in your midst, it’s important that you manage it as soon as possible to avoid losing good people and good ideas..

Next time you’re chairing or attending a key meeting, consciously identify the loudest voice or voices in the room. Once you’ve done that, try to identify their motives for speaking loudly or shouting. Ask yourself what they are really trying to achieve by shouting down any and all other opinions and you may get a little closer to the truth.

Beware the loud voices. They very seldom speak in the interests of anyone but themselves. They usually speak in order to further their own interests at the expense of all others’ interests. Loud voices are, by their nature, intimidating and intended to intimidate. Loud voices make their points with such energy, conviction and forcefulness that they often get their way, regardless of whether their point was valid or constructive.

So, again, beware the loud voices. Nobody who has a well-thought-out point that will genuinely benefit the business feels a need to shout. Their logic and reasoning should be sufficient to make a telling point. You may have heard the old joke about the very senior person who was due to deliver a speech and had his speech written by his speech writer. When he got to a certain point in the speech during its delivery, he saw written in the margin the words “Argument weak. Shout louder.”

There is much truth in that joke. People who have insufficient good reasons for what they want to push through intuitively feel the need to shout in order to bully others into accepting their point. And, so, many such “shouted points” get accepted, not because they are good points, but because no-one opposed the shouter.

There’s a third reason to beware the loud voices. When the loud voices start up, all other voices usually go quiet. Very few people have the courage and the will to take on the loud voices. And when that happens you lose inclusivity, and you lose the diversity of opinion that helps in making good decisions. And that’s when innovation – or any hope of innovation – quietly dies.

There doesn’t need to be many loud voices. Just one will do to stifle creativity, collaboration and reflection. So, if you don’t want to end up leading a team that makes very little, if any, contribution in strategic and other meetings, again, I say, beware the loud voices.

What, then, if you realise you have one or more of those loud voices in your meetings? You have a few options open to you. For one, you could choose to confront the “loud voice” head on in the meeting. You know … take a kind of “put them in their place” approach. If you’re one of those Macho Manager types, this sounds like a good way to go. But you risk alienating the loud voice and sending the wrong message to others, who will make a mental note of what happened and keep their opinions to themselves. After all, that’s not what you want to see happen. So this is not necessarily the best option.

The best option is to meet with the “loud voice” on their own territory, in their own space – where they’ll feel most comfortable. That may require some courage on your part. Make sure the meeting is a private one-on-one so the “loud voice” doesn’t have any additional reasons (they’ll already have plenty) to become defensive. Once you’ve exchanged pleasantries, resist the urge to simply lay down the law. This will just be met with resistance and a need for further shouting. You don’t want to go there as it’s not going to serve your purpose. You want to be a lot smarter in how you handle this.

It’s therefore better to approach the situation like a hostage negotiator. Such negotiators attempt to get the hostage taker (in your case the “loud voice” who holds the room hostage to their opinions) to what former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss calls, “That’s right!”

In other words, you want the hostage taker/”loud voice” to get to the point where they believe you see things their way – when they say to you, “That’s right,” because they now believe you understand their viewpoint. Now, you’re not doing that simply to give them their way. You’re doing it to get them to believe that you “get” them as that’s when they’ll start letting their guard down and being open to your suggestions as to how you want to change.

Obviously, these conversations can never be mapped out beforehand so you’ll have to think on your feet, but you need to make your “loud voice” feel safe. If they don’t feel safe, they’ll simply go into defensive mode and you won’t be able to achieve what you set out to do. Once they feel safe, you can then make them aware that their shouting is not acceptable and that they must in future adopt a more measured approach.

In the interests of brevity, I can’t outline a complete guide as to how to handle “loud voices” in this piece. I merely share these few thoughts to alert you to the need to quieten – but not silence – the “loud voices” in any meetings you chair. If you don’t do so, you’re going to get less and less input from other participants who will be reluctant to be shouted down by the “loud voice”. And that’s when innovation and creativity die.

If you’re not prepared to quieten the loud voices, you’ll lead your company or your team into confusion and obscurity – and the loud voices will move on, persuading some other unsuspecting company to hire them so they can continue shouting the odds unopposed.

Alan Hosking is the Publisher of HR Future magazine, www.hrfuture.net and @HRFuturemag. He is a recognised authority on leadership skills for the future and teaches experienced business leaders as well as millennial managers how to lead with empathy, integrity, purpose and agility. In 2018, he was named by US-based web site Disruptordaily.com as one of the “Top 25 Future of Work Influencers to Follow on Twitter“. In 2020, he was named one of the “Top 200 Global Power Thought Leaders to watch in 2021” by peopleHum in India.