Sunday Longform: I Was a Great Debater. It Made Me a Terrible Communicator.

The argument I lost to become a better leader.

PRELUDE: THE SMARTEST GIRL IN THE ROOM

When you are a smart desi girl, articulation is not just a gift, it is armor.

From the moment you learn to speak in full sentences, people begin to expect things from you. Praise you for being precocious, then punish you when you overstep. They tell you you’re special, then shame you for making others feel small. You learn early that clarity is power, and power is dangerous when it sits in the mouth of someone who’s supposed to be nice.

So you get good. Scary good. You learn the game: how to modulate your voice just enough to sound assertive, not aggressive. How to pitch ideas that feel collaborative, not commanding. How to phrase feedback as a question so nobody feels threatened. You figure out that you can say hard things if you say them beautifully. And soon, everyone is calling you impressive.

You wear that like a badge.

Because for girls like us, being impressive isn’t about ego. It’s about safety.

If you’re articulate, they can’t ignore you. If you’re articulate, they won’t interrupt you. If you’re articulate, they might stop seeing you as a risk and start seeing you as an asset. Every well-structured sentence becomes a way to take up space without being asked to shrink. It feels like freedom.

Until it doesn’t.

Because here’s the thing no one tells you: being the smartest girl in the room means you’re rarely the safest. It means you’re always calculating: how to speak so you’re not dismissed, but not resented. How to disagree without being exiled. How to lead without being labelled. You win the argument and lose the room. You make the point, but not the impact. And at some point, you realize: all the tools you built to survive are keeping you from being seen.

This essay is about that moment. When skill becomes shield. When articulation becomes performance. When the thing that got you into the room starts to get in your way. It’s about what happens after the praise stops landing and the power starts to feel hollow.

It’s not a takedown of intelligence. It’s a reckoning with what we were trained to do with it.

And how we might choose differently now.

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There was a time in my life when nothing made me feel more alive than stepping into a debate room with a timer on the wall and a motion on the board.

If you’ve ever debated competitively, you know the thrill I’m talking about. The ritual of it. The tension before the draw is announced. The scramble to prep your arguments in fifteen minutes with a partner who may or may not have read the news that week. The half-filled notepad, the speed drills, the hush before your first word. For those seven minutes, everything else fell away. There was only the argument and how well you could land it.

And I could land it. I was good.

I debated through high school and college. Coached younger teams. Trained kids who went on to win national circuits. I knew how to structure an argument in real time, how to find the logical inconsistency in an opponent’s case, how to stretch thin evidence into something that sounded bulletproof. I could speak fluently and persuasively on any topic under pressure: foreign policy, ethics, economics, surveillance, sports. It didn’t matter if I believed in the motion or not. It was performance over sincerity. Precision over connection.

It won me competitions, scholarships, opportunities. It gave me a skillset I carried proudly into the real world—into interviews, into workplaces, into professional relationships. I’d been trained to think clearly and speak convincingly. I assumed that would translate.

But over time, I began to notice something I couldn’t ignore.
People weren’t reacting the way I expected them to.

I’d share a well-articulated point and be met with polite silence.
I’d push back in meetings and watch colleagues withdraw.
I’d give feedback and sense people flinch, even when my tone was calm.

At first, I brushed it off. I told myself people were intimidated, or too sensitive, or didn’t want to hear the truth. I told myself I was being “direct,” that I was cutting through noise, that I was holding the line on standards.

But underneath that rationalisation was a harder truth:
I wasn’t communicating. I was performing.

And the habits that had made me a great debater were making me a terrible listener, a difficult colleague, and a limited leader.

Because debating teaches you to win the room.
Communication asks you to understand it.

Debating rewards fast thinking, sharp comebacks, airtight logic.
But real life is slow, messy, emotional. People don’t want to be convinced; they want to be seen. They want to feel safe enough to be wrong. They want to build ideas with you, not have them handed down to them like a closing statement.

This essay is about the gap between debate and communication.
It’s about the hidden costs of being “good at arguing.”
It’s about the long, humbling process of unlearning habits that win competitions but lose trust.
And it’s about the quieter, slower, more difficult work of rebuilding a style of communication that helps you work with people instead of just out-thinking them.

If you’ve ever been told you’re articulate, but still can’t figure out why your ideas don’t land…
If you’ve ever walked out of a conversation knowing you sounded smart but wondering why it felt hollow…
If you’ve ever been rewarded for your voice but never taught how to use it in a way that builds, not just convinces, this is for you.

Debating Gave Me the Tools

I don’t regret debating. I don’t want to write it off as some youthful misadventure. It gave me real, meaningful skills that still serve me today.

Debate taught me how to think under pressure. It gave me a mental toolkit that lets me break down problems quickly, spot inconsistencies in logic, and synthesise ideas at speed. It made me resourceful. I learned how to speak confidently even on shaky ground.. It gave me courage. I stood in front of rooms full of strangers and made arguments about deeply complex, sometimes deeply personal, topics. It taught me to structure chaos, build coherence, and sound like I belonged in any room.

But more than the tools, debate gave me power.

As a young woman, smart, awkward, and hungry for a sense of control, debate became a space where intellect wasn’t just allowed. It was valued. It wasn’t weird to be the one who read The Economist for fun or memorised examples from obscure case law. In debate, that kind of intensity wasn’t punished. It was prized. I learned how to own a room without apologising for it. That sense of legitimacy stayed with me long after I left the circuit.

I don’t want to pretend that those skills weren’t critical in my professional life.
They were. They are.
In job interviews, they helped me think on my feet.
In presentations, they helped me craft a narrative.
In negotiations, they gave me composure and clarity.
In panel discussions and pitches, I knew how to structure an argument that felt intuitive and compelling even under pressure.

I was used to being one of the most articulate people in the room.
I knew how to carry authority in my tone.
I knew how to build a case, respond to objections, and close strong.

And for a while, I thought that was enough.

Identifying the gap between communication and debate

But over time, I realised I was confusing fluency with effectiveness.
Just because I could explain something well didn’t mean it landed.
Just because I could win an argument didn’t mean anyone felt better for having had it.
And just because I was speaking didn’t mean anyone else felt invited to speak too.

This is the great trap of debate-style communication: it makes you sound powerful, even when you’re not being useful.

Because the world outside the debate room doesn’t work like a round. There’s no adjudicator. There’s no winner. There’s no closing bell. There’s just people, sitting in rooms, trying to make decisions together. And that’s a different skill altogether.

What debate never taught me was how to leave space.
It didn’t teach me how to hold a half-formed idea and not immediately reshape it.
It didn’t teach me how to say, “I don’t know enough to answer that yet.”
It didn’t teach me how to disagree gently, or ask better questions, or prioritise relationship over resolution.

Debate taught me how to take control of a conversation.
But communication, real communication, is about what you’re willing to let go of.
Control. Certainty. The need to always be right.

The tools that served me so well in one context started to undermine me in another.

And that’s when I realised something had to change.

What I Had to Unlearn

The hardest thing about being good at something early is that you don’t question it.
Especially if it keeps getting rewarded.

By the time I graduated college, I had internalised that my ability to argue clearly, quickly, and confidently was my edge. It set me apart. It got me in the room. It got me promoted early. It made people say things like, “You’re so sharp,” “You always cut through the noise,” “You’re a natural leader.”
So I leaned into it. Of course I did.
Wouldn’t you?

But what nobody tells you, and what you only realise when the praise stops and the outcomes flatten, is that overused strengths can become liabilities. That what got you into the room might be the very thing keeping you from being heard inside it.

And that was the slow, painful truth I had to confront.

For years, I assumed my ability to out-talk a room was the same as leading it.
That fluency meant alignment. That if I was logical and well-prepared, people would automatically come on board.

What I didn’t realise was that people don’t respond to logic in a vacuum. They respond to trust. And trust is not something you win. It’s something you build.

What debate had taught me was how to win.
What I needed to learn was how to connect.

1. Arguing from Principle vs. Building with Context

In debate, the format is structured. You’re given a motion: “This House Would Ban Private Education,” or “This House Supports Reparations for Colonialism”, and your job is to define the terms, frame the motion, and build a logical case within that framework.

The tighter your framing, the easier it is to defend. The more abstracted from real-world messiness, the more elegant your argument looks.

In other words, debate trains you to remove context from conversations. That’s the point. You’re not dealing with actual policy design, or actual stakeholders, or the emotional residue of lived experience. You’re dealing with hypotheticals. You’re dealing with principle versus pragmatism. You’re being judged on how you argue, not whether the world would be better if your side won.

But in real life, there is no hypothetical.

Real conversations are full of context. Tense power dynamics, competing priorities, long histories, burnout, fear, ego, guilt. People aren’t speaking from perfect clarity. They’re speaking from pressure. They’re asking for things without knowing how to ask. They’re protecting themselves from being embarrassed or sidelined. And if you go in swinging at their argument without taking a second to understand why they made it in the first place, you’re not showing clarity. You’re showing detachment.

I learned this the hard way.

In my early professional roles, I had a habit of “fixing” people’s ideas mid-meeting. Someone would suggest something, and if I saw a flaw, I’d point it out. Immediately. Calmly. Often with three alternative suggestions ready to go.

I thought I was being helpful. Efficient. Collaborative.

But that’s not how it felt to the people on the receiving end. What they experienced was correction, not collaboration. Dismissal, not dialogue. Because I was addressing their logic, but ignoring their context, the emotion, the intent, the vulnerability of speaking up in the first place.

And over time, I noticed people stopped volunteering ideas around me.
Not because they didn’t have them. But because they didn’t feel safe enough to share them half-baked.

And honestly, that was on me.

2. Treating Every Conversation Like a Contest

This is one of the most invisible but deeply embedded habits debate teaches you.
You are trained to prepare for conflict.
To anticipate opposition.
To arm yourself with points and counterpoints before the conversation even begins.

You walk into rooms with your evidence ready.
You mentally draft your rebuttals.
You scan people’s statements for flaws as they’re speaking.

In debate, this makes you an excellent competitor.
In real life, it makes you exhausting to talk to.

I didn’t realise how defensive my presence made people feel until I became a manager. I started noticing that people weren’t just cautious around me, they were guarded. They came to conversations with their backs already up. And once that happened, it didn’t matter how warm or reasonable I tried to be. The damage had already been done.

Because here’s the truth: when someone thinks you’re going to attack their idea, they stop giving you their best thinking.
They give you the safest version. The pre-edited, pre-defended, carefully neutralised version that’s built to avoid conflict, not create something useful.

And that’s not collaboration. That’s survival.

I had to completely rewire my mindset here. I had to teach myself not to walk into meetings “prepared to debate,” but prepared to listen.
To ask questions instead of delivering points.
To treat disagreement as information, not opposition.
To remind myself, over and over again: this person is not your opponent. They are your partner. Your job is not to win. It’s to build.

3. Confusing Fluency for Clarity

This one snuck up on me.

Because one of the biggest assets you walk away from debate with is fluency.
You learn to speak clearly, quickly, and persuasively.
You know how to structure your thoughts in real time.
You have strong tone modulation, narrative sense, and pacing.
You know how to move a listener from premise to conclusion with zero filler.

But there’s a problem: fluency is often mistaken for clarity, and that mistake can cost you influence.

I used to think that if I said something clearly, people would agree with it.
I assumed if I could “make a strong case,” people would come on board.
I’d speak in structured paragraphs, close every loop, back every point with logic.
And still people would nod, then not follow through. Or they’d agree in the moment, then resist later. Or they’d seem enthusiastic and then ghost the project altogether.

It was infuriating.
Until I realised: they hadn’t actually absorbed what I said.

They’d been too busy trying to keep up.
Or too intimidated to ask questions.
Or too overwhelmed by the pace of my delivery to process what it meant for them.

I had to learn that being a “clear” speaker doesn’t mean being fast, or structured, or polished. It means speaking in a way the other person can understand.
That means slowing down. Using examples. Asking for reactions. Pausing for alignment.

Because real clarity isn’t about how elegantly you deliver an idea.
It’s about how confidently someone else can carry it forward.

These unlearning processes didn’t happen all at once. They happened slowly. Awkwardly. Over years.
In the middle of meetings I botched. Feedback I wasn’t ready to hear. Projects that went sideways because I steamrolled where I should’ve listened.

And every time I caught myself falling into an old pattern, I had to do something debate never trained me to do: stop.
Stop defending. Stop explaining. Stop proving.

Just pause. Recalibrate. Start again, softer this time.

That’s the thing they don’t tell you when they’re handing you trophies and telling you how articulate you are:
Being a great debater might get you the last word.
But being a great communicator gets you a seat at the next table.

How I Rebuilt My Communication Muscle

Unlearning the habits I’d picked up through years of debate was one thing. Replacing them with healthier, more productive forms of communication was another.

And honestly it felt like starting over.

It wasn’t just about “being nicer” or “talking slower.” It was a full system reboot. Because debating doesn’t just train your speaking style, it trains your posture. You start to see every conversation as something to navigate, every disagreement as something to neutralise, every silence as something to fill.

So rebuilding my communication muscle meant rethinking the entire purpose of speaking in the first place. It meant shifting from “How do I sound good?” to “How do we make something good together?” From “How do I win this exchange?” to “How do I help this person feel heard, respected, and motivated to move forward?”

That shift didn’t happen overnight. It happened through mistakes, awkward pauses, uncomfortable feedback, and long, slow rounds of reprogramming. And it required learning three specific skills that debating never taught me: listening without performance, practicing collaborative empathy, and inviting productive disagreement.

1. Listening Without Performing

The hardest thing for me to learn was that listening isn’t a pause between points.
It’s a full-body activity and it’s the foundation of trust.

When you’re a trained debater, you don’t really listen. You scan. You listen for weaknesses in the argument. You mentally tag ideas for rebuttal. You start crafting your response while the other person is still mid-sentence. It’s not malicious. It’s muscle memory.

But in practice, that habit makes people feel dismissed. Because even if you’re nodding, your attention isn’t with them, it’s ahead of them. They can feel the gap. And over time, that erodes psychological safety in ways you won’t notice until it’s too late.

So I started retraining myself to listen differently.

I stopped taking notes during meetings unless I was explicitly documenting for the group.
I made myself wait two full seconds after someone finished speaking before responding.
I started repeating what I’d heard. “So what I’m hearing is…”, not to sound reflective, but to genuinely check that I understood.
And I tried to track not just what someone was saying, but why they were saying it. What were they worried about? What did they care about? What were they not naming directly?

It was clumsy at first. Slower. Less slick. But it was the beginning of actually connecting with people. And that changed everything.

When people feel listened to, not just heard, but listened to, they offer you more.
More honesty. More creativity. More ownership.
You unlock a different level of energy in the room.

That’s what debating never prepared me for.
That the smartest thing you can do, sometimes, is shut up and listen fully.

2. Practicing Collaborative Empathy

Empathy was a skill I’d always undervalued.
I thought it belonged to therapists and social workers, not people running teams, building companies, or leading strategy. I was wrong.

Because the moment you’re responsible for outcomes that depend on other people’s effort, empathy stops being optional. It becomes an operating system.

But empathy isn’t just about being “nice” or “understanding.”
It’s about being able to sit with someone else’s point of view without rushing to resolve it. It’s about staying curious longer than is comfortable. It’s about recognising that other people’s reactions have reasons that may not make logical sense, but always make emotional sense.

I started asking different questions in meetings.
Not just “What do you think?” but “How does this land with you?”
Not just “Do you agree?” but “What would make this feel easier to get behind?”
And when I disagreed, I stopped leading with the counterpoint. I started with: “Tell me more about how you’re thinking about this.” Because often, what I assumed was disagreement was just a difference in framing or priorities.

This also meant acknowledging my own limits.
There were times when I didn’t understand why someone was upset or hesitant or disengaged. Instead of filling in the blanks with judgment, I started saying things like, “I’m not sure I fully get what’s frustrating you, but I want to understand it better.” That sentence alone lowered more defenses than any well-structured argument ever had.

What I was learning was this:
Empathy isn’t just a personal virtue. It’s a communication strategy.
It tells the other person: you’re not just a vehicle for ideas. I care about your experience of getting there.

And when people feel that, they go further with you.

3. Inviting Productive Disagreement

One of the most damaging habits I had from debate was treating disagreement like something to win.
That sounds obvious, but in practice, it’s really not.

I’d gotten so used to treating pushback as something to anticipate and dismantle that I didn’t know how to welcome it. My default was to respond quickly, with a counterpoint, a “yes, but…”, or a strategic redirection.

But over time, I saw what that created: people who agreed in the moment, and disengaged afterwards.
Because disagreement, when flattened, doesn’t disappear. It just goes underground.

It hardens. It waits for its moment. And when it resurfaces, it’s usually too late to fix.

So I began a new habit: inviting disagreement directly, early, and often.

I started saying things like:

• “What am I missing here?”

• “What’s the part of this idea that gives you pause?”

• “If we went with this, what’s the risk we’re not seeing?”

• “Who disagrees, and can you help me see your side better?”

These weren’t rhetorical. They were real prompts. And more importantly, I learned to sit with the answers without trying to resolve them too quickly. Sometimes disagreement isn’t a detour, it’s the map.

I also started making a conscious effort to reward dissent. Not just tolerate it. Celebrate it.
If someone challenged me thoughtfully, I’d make it a point to say, “That’s a great catch,” or “I’m glad you brought that up,” or “Thanks for helping us sharpen this.”
Because in environments where only agreement gets praised, people stop bringing their full selves.

Debate had taught me to flatten disagreement into an endpoint.
Collaboration taught me to treat it as a resource.

Rebuilding my communication muscle didn’t mean abandoning everything debate taught me.
It meant learning when to use those skills, and when to set them aside.

There are still times when I need to speak clearly and confidently under pressure.
Still times when I need to push back hard on flawed logic, or structure a case in five minutes flat.
But now I know that those moments are the exception, not the baseline.

My default is different now.
I speak less, and with more intention.
I listen more, and with more attention.
I question my instinct to impress, and instead aim to understand.
And I’ve learned that the people who remember your voice the most are the ones who felt seen when you used it.

How You Can Learn All This Before You Mess Up Like I Did

(A field guide for recovering debate kids, strong speakers, and fast thinkers who want to become actual communicators.)

If you were ever praised for being articulate, clever, or “good in meetings,” there’s a solid chance you’ve mistaken that praise for proof that you’re a great communicator.

You might be.
But more likely, you’re great at sounding clear.
Not necessarily creating clarity.

This section is a straight-up, no-bullshit playbook. No platitudes, no vague “just be more empathetic” fluff. These are real, repeatable things I’ve had to do, and still do, to retrain how I speak, listen, and work with people.

1. Slow down your default speed by 25%. Literally.

If you’ve been trained to talk fast (especially for limited time formats), your pace has become a reflex.
In conversation, this reads as “aggressive” or “overwhelming,” even when you don’t mean it to.

Try this:

• Say fewer things in each response. One point per sentence, max two per paragraph.

• Count to 2 after someone finishes speaking. Don’t jump in. Let the silence stretch.

• Watch your breath: if you haven’t exhaled in the last 30 seconds, you’re probably performing.

2. Ask clarifying questions before responding. Every time.

People want to feel heard before they feel helped.
You don’t need to agree. You do need to make it clear you understood.

Try this:

• “Can you tell me more about what’s behind that idea?”

• “What are you solving for here?”

• “If I’m hearing you right, this is your core concern. Is that accurate?”

This buys you time and trust.

3. Switch from “but” to “and.”

In debates, “but” is your best friend. It signals a pivot, a rebuttal, a contradiction.
In collaborative communication, it shuts people down fast.

Instead of:

“That’s a good idea, but here’s what we should do instead.”
Try:
“That’s a good idea, and I wonder if we can build on it by doing XYZ.”

This is one of the easiest, most powerful habit swaps you can make.

4. Use the “solve or vent?” check-in.

Sometimes people don’t want a solution. They want space. Debaters struggle with this because we’re trained to fix things with words.

Try this:

“Quick check, are we solving or venting right now?”

This one question has saved me from half a dozen unnecessary fights and a hundred misunderstandings.

5. Reward people for disagreeing with you. Publicly.

If you say you “value diverse opinions” but visibly shut down or debate anyone who disagrees with you, people will stop speaking up.

Try this:

• “I hadn’t thought about it that way, thanks for pushing back.”

• “That’s a really good counterpoint, let’s slow down and explore that.”

• “I was wrong. You were right.” (Say this out loud. Not just in your head.)

Let disagreement add to the conversation, not end it.

6. Use reflective listening at least once per meeting.

Debating trains you to respond. But great communication often starts with mirroring.

Try this:

“So what I’m hearing is: you’re worried about ____, and you’re hoping we can ____. Does that sound right?”

Even if you get it slightly wrong, you’re opening the door to more nuance. That’s a win.

7. Keep a “conversation debrief” journal.

If you’re in a period of re-training, reflection is your best accountability partner.

After any high-stakes or emotionally loaded conversation, write:

• What worked?

• Where did I default to old habits?

• What would I try differently next time?

Don’t wait for 360° feedback to tell you where you're going wrong. Track your own progress in real time.

8. Measure impact, not eloquence.

Debaters are taught to care about how well something is said.
Professionals are judged by what that communication creates.

Ask yourself:

• Did this conversation create alignment?

• Did the other person leave more motivated, or less?

• Did I make the other person smarter, clearer, or more confident?

• Would they want to collaborate with me again?

If the answer is no, start there. Not with what you “said well.”

9. Practice being quiet in meetings you could dominate.

Just because you can speak well doesn’t mean you always should.

Try this:

• Pick one meeting per week where your goal is to facilitate, not participate.

• Count how many new voices you helped bring in.

• Ask yourself: “If I wasn’t in this meeting, would the right conversation still happen?”

Leadership is often about making room, not taking space.

10. Let ideas stay messy longer.

Debating trains you to tighten and tidy arguments fast.
But real creativity and team thinking live in the messy middle.

Try this:

• Don’t summarise or reframe someone’s idea immediately. Let it hang.

• Ask, “What else could this become?”

• Don’t fix it yet. Just sit with it. Let the group build.

The longer you can tolerate ambiguity, the better your communication outcomes will be.

For the Non-Debaters: The Skills You Should Pick Up

If the last few sections have been about turning the volume down on performative communication, this one is about turning the volume up on strategic communication.

Because if you’ve never done debate, or never been trained to speak clearly under pressure, you’ve probably been told (explicitly or implicitly) that your style is “too soft,” “too hesitant,” or “not leader-like.”

That’s bullshit.

But.
There are skills that help you communicate with more clarity, impact, and presence, and they’re not just for people who like the sound of their own voice.

This section is for the quiet thinkers, the collaborative processors, the ones who’ve been told they need to “be more assertive” but never shown how. It’s for the people who are good at listening but struggle to be heard. People who bring the best ideas to life, but only after everyone else has spoken over them.

If that’s you, here’s what’s worth learning (from the world of debate and beyond):

1. Structure Your Thoughts Before You Speak

You don’t need to speak first. But when you do speak, being structured helps people take your ideas seriously.

Try this template (think of it as a mini-framework):

• “Here’s the concern I’m seeing…”

• “Here’s why it matters…”

• “Here’s what I suggest…”

• “Here’s the impact I’m hoping for…”

This doesn’t have to sound robotic. Even loosely following this sequence helps you sound confident and considered, even if you speak quietly or slowly.

2. Get Comfortable With Constructive Disagreement

You don’t have to “win” arguments. But you do need to practice holding your ground when your opinion diverges.

Try this phrasing:

• “I see it differently. Can I share why?”

• “I’m not sure that will work long-term. Here’s what I’m concerned about…”

• “What if we thought about it like this instead?”

These lines buy you space without making the other person defensive. That’s the sweet spot.

3. Rehearse High-Stakes Conversations Ahead of Time

Strong communicators don’t “wing it.” They rehearse. Especially when there’s risk, emotion, or power involved.

Before a big conversation, ask yourself:

• What outcome do I want?

• What’s the core message I need to land?

• Where might they resist, and how will I respond?

• How do I want them to feel by the end of this?

Prep isn’t overkill. It’s care.

4. Use Silence Strategically

One thing seasoned debaters and execs both know: silence is powerful.

If you tend to over-explain, fill every pause, or trail off with qualifiers like “but that’s just my take,” practice this instead:

Say your point. Then stop.
Let it sit.
Give the room space to process.
The pause adds weight and authority.

5. Ask for Engagement, Not Just Agreement

If you’re used to people steamrolling your ideas, flip the script. Don’t just “offer thoughts”, invite commitment.

Try:

• “What would make this idea feel stronger to you?”

• “Are you open to trying this version first?”

• “Is there anything here that gives you pause?”

You're not asking for approval. You’re facilitating alignment.

6. Speak to the Room, Not Just the Point

Sometimes, your message is fine, but it’s landing flat because it doesn’t meet the moment.

Scan the room before speaking:

• Who has power here?

• What’s the group emotionally reacting to?

• What hasn’t been said yet?

Then adapt your delivery. Make your message relevant to what people are already thinking or feeling. You’ll be heard faster.

7. Practice Speaking in Stakes, Not Just Tasks

A common trap for quieter communicators is to talk in terms of “what needs to be done” instead of “why it matters.”

Try this:
Instead of:

“We need to run this experiment before Friday.”

Say:

“If we don’t run this by Friday, we’ll miss the data we need to make the Q4 decision and lose two weeks of lead time.”

People respond to stakes. Practice connecting your ask to the bigger picture.

8. Remember: Assertiveness Is Not Aggression

You don’t have to become louder, ruder, or less collaborative to be assertive. You just have to speak your truth with clarity and without apology.

Assertiveness sounds like:

• “This matters to me because…”

• “I’d like to finish my thought before we move on.”

• “I’m not comfortable with that approach, and here’s why.”

It’s respectful. It’s firm. It’s a muscle you can train.

9. Reframe Visibility as Value

A lot of non-debaters struggle with being visible. It feels performative. But visibility doesn’t have to mean spotlight-chasing. It can mean making your value easier to see.

Try:

• Giving clear summaries at the end of meetings (“Just to recap what we agreed…”)

• Sharing wins or learnings in group chats or review docs

• Asking clarifying questions that move the conversation forward

These small moments signal thought leadership without shouting.

10. Own Your Communication Style. Don’t Abandon It

You don’t need to become someone you’re not. You don’t need to speak in bullet points or “command the room” in some performative, corporate theatre way.

You just need to make sure that your style, thoughtful, considered, careful, isn't costing you clarity, credibility, or influence.

There is power in being measured.
There is power in not rushing to speak.
There is power in asking better questions, in summarising the unsaid, in making people feel understood.

But don’t let that turn into invisibility. Don’t let it become passivity.
You’re allowed to speak like yourself, just make sure you’re speaking in a way that moves things forward.

Final note:
If the loudest voices in the room aren’t always the smartest…
The quietest ones aren’t always the most thoughtful, either.

It’s not a binary. The goal isn’t to change who you are, it’s to expand your range.
Because the most effective communicators aren’t always the best speakers.

They’re the ones who know when to speak.
How to speak.
And what kind of room* they’re building every time they open their mouth.

Conclusion: The Echo and the After

I still remember what it felt like to land the perfect argument.
That moment of silence after you’ve just said something so sharp, so tightly structured, that the other team’s shoulders drop and your benchmate nudges your knee under the table.
That electric feeling of being undeniably right.
Of watching the room recalibrate around your clarity.

I chased that feeling for years.

Not just in tournaments, but in meetings, brainstorms, performance reviews, negotiations, panels.
I wanted to be the one who could say the thing that made everything else snap into place.
I thought that was what leadership looked like: precision, control, certainty.

And to be fair, it worked. Until it didn’t.

Because outside the debate room, there is no adjudicator.
No motion. No time limit.
Just people. Messy, busy, distracted people trying to build something together while juggling deadlines, emotions, ambitions, and fear.
And in that world, clarity is never enough.

You can be right and still be irrelevant.
You can speak well and still not be listened to.
You can win the conversation and still lose the room.

That was the hardest lesson of my twenties.

That there is a difference between being heard and being held.
Between being right and being remembered.
Between being impressive and being impactful.

And if I’m being honest, part of me mourned the girl I used to be.
The one who could build a six-point case in five minutes flat.
The one who could defend either side of any argument.
The one who always had a closing line ready.

But she wasn’t built for the rooms I wanted to be in anymore.
She was built for the podium.
I wanted to be the kind of person people built with, not just the person they pointed to and said, “Yeah, she’s smart.”

So I had to let go of some things.
The urge to speak first.
The instinct to interrupt with a better way of phrasing.
The reflex to correct, clarify, control.

And in their place, I built something slower. Softer. Sturdier.

I learned to pause.
To ask better questions.
To let people finish their thought, even if I thought I knew where they were going.
To hold disagreement like a gift instead of a threat.

I learned that the most useful thing I could do in a conversation wasn’t to impress people—it was to help them trust themselves.

And that shift changed everything.
It made me a better manager. A better collaborator. A better friend.
It also made me less reactive. Less drained. More generous.

Because here’s the secret nobody tells you when you’re young and high-achieving and obsessed with “being articulate”:
Clarity is not the end goal.
It’s the starting point.
Everything that matters, trust, alignment, creativity, momentum, starts after you’ve stopped talking.

And if I could go back and tell that 17-year-old debater one thing, it would be this:

Winning is easy.
But connection is the real art.
That’s what lasts.

No one will remember the perfectly phrased comeback.
They’ll remember how you made them feel when they were unsure.
Whether you gave them space.
Whether you invited them in.
Whether you made them feel smart, capable, and heard.

And if you’re reading this and recognising parts of yourself, the quick thinking, the need to fix, the subtle tug to be the one with the answer, I want you to know something: you don’t have to abandon your sharpness.

You just have to learn how to wield it.

There will still be moments where the old you will show up.
Where you’ll interrupt. Or monologue. Or make someone feel small without meaning to.

That’s okay.
Catch it.
Name it.
Do better next time.

This isn’t about being perfectly gentle.
It’s about being honest with yourself and with the room.

The best communicators I know don’t speak the most.
They just know when to speak.
And when they do, it feels like clarity and care.
Like someone just turned the light on without blinding you.

That’s the skill.
That’s the muscle.
And that’s what I’m still learning to build, every day.