Speaking up is hard to do.
You see something ethically questionable. Notice someone not being included. Run up against offensive speech. Disagree with an opinion that’s all too quickly become consensus. Want to add a different idea to the decision-making process.
While we’d all like to think that if we saw something, we’d say something in these situations, we are strikingly bad at anticipating how we’ll feel in future circumstances and, for a whole host of cognitive reasons, it can be incredibly difficult to speak up in the moment. In fact, research suggests that most people tend to not act, and then rationalize their inaction.
