Expressing confidence at work may be innate for many men, but for many women, it’s often a skill that must be learned.
Carter recommends that women discreetly join forces and draw attention to one another’s contributions during video calls.
“The women frequently felt unheard in meetings,” she says. “Either they weren’t called on, or a man might offer the same idea that a woman had earlier proposed and get credit for it. So they used an approach that they called ‘amplification,’ whereby after a woman finished speaking, another would raise her hand and say, ‘I’d like to bring this back to that excellent idea we just heard.’
The same approach, Carter says, can be used to champion the voices of minorities and members of other underrepresented groups.
Research has shown that people who dress formally in the office are more likely to be perceived by colleagues as confident, capable, and reliable.